Jeremy Rosen's Blog

Halloween

2009-11-05T14:45:00.004-05:00

For me, November conjures up Guy Fawkes Night. "Remember, remember, the 5th of November." That was when some English Catholics set up a fellow called Guy Fawkes to blow up the Houses of Parliament, while King James I and the English Lords Temporal and Spiritual were inside, so that that they could remove Protestantism from the British Isles forever. Lunatic (and bearded) religious fanatics setting off bombs in London is nothing new. They were caught, tortured, hanged, drawn and quartered, as was the custom in those very civilized days, and everyone celebrated with great gusto. Hence the most politically incorrect of traditions.

Every year we would celebrate the event with lots of fireworks and bonfires where an effigy of Guy Fawkes was burnt and the fire used to roast potatoes and chestnuts in the chilly autumnal evening air. There was a whole week's preparation beforehand in which children paraded models and images of Guy Fawkes in wheelbarrows from house to house asking for a "Penny for the Guy". We always had fireworks at home. My father was an expert at setting them up and setting them off and we kids were given handfuls of sparklers. Every year we were solemnly warned to be careful and every year we burnt our fingers. Ah, how things have changed. Nowadays in England you are more likely in November to see and hear fireworks celebrating Diwali.

In my English youth I never recall hearing about or noticing Halloween. As a child I went, for a brief spell, to an Anglican primary school in the wilds of Berkshire (which explains my knowledge of carols and hymns) and heard about All Saints' Day or All Hallows, as a Christian festival on the first day of November. It commemorates Christian saints' and their ascent to heaven. And it seems that the name Halloween, "All Hallows Even", derives from that.

But still, something like a witches' Halloween probably came first. Ancient days commemorating the end of summer and the "darkness", the sinister aura of winter. And there is an ancient Celtic festival of the dead this time of the year.

My Irish links introduced me to the tradition of Jack O'Lantern, a candle inside a face carved into a pumpkin to scare away evil spirits but these were all very hallowed Christian rites, not at all profane and certainly nothing to do with witches and magic.

Many suggest it is the Irish who brought the whole Halloween shebang over to the USA where today it is all-pervading and highly commercialized. I have heard it muttered that it is really a sinister plot to corrupt innocent religious children, spread by a secret cabal of mysterious Irishmen and women in league with the little people and the World Union of Leprechauns, to dominate the universe and convert it to the force of magic and superstition. The secret greeting of conspirators in this dangerous plot is "Show me your palm, dearie."

I have just survived another Halloween in New York. There were hordes of little witches and magicians demanding a treat or else they would trick. Stores and apartment buildings were decorated with spiders and cobwebs. Normally sane adults wandered the streets dressed as monsters, Draculas, zombies, skeletons, devils, ghouls, demons, goblins, black cats, bats, werewolves, and crows.

In Boulder, Colorado there was an outcry because the town police have decided that the annual streaking at midnight of naked men and women wearing nothing more than a pumpkin on their heads and sneakers on their feet, posed a serious danger to local morality. Meanwhile the commercial gains are enormous and vast sums spent on disguises and confectionary and alcohol have done much to scare away the evil spirits of the dreaded recession.

I was thinking of getting on my high horse and holding forth to you on the evils of magic and the corrupt pagan influences that underlie corrupt Wall Street capitalism and how alien magic is to Judaism. But then I realized how the virus has already taken hold and indeed has always been with us. The Bible spends a lot of time denouncing witchcraft, and that alone should be enough to distance ourselves from Halloween. But that did not stop King Saul consulted the Witch of Endor and he came to a messy end. The Talmud mentions ghosts and spirits and all kinds of magic spells. Certainly by medieval times it seems almost everyone believed in evil spirits. The great Isaac of Vienna had to deal with a woman who claimed a spirit slept with her, and it became very common for fallen women to argue that they had been seduced by spirits (no doubt wearing St. Michael underwear). So much so that some rabbis publicly declared this would no longer be accepted as a valid excuse!

And Kabbalah is absolutely choc-a-bloc full of magic and hocus pocus and evil spirits and dangerous forces and bad angels and all kinds of fancies. And of course there's the myth of the Golem, a totally unsubstantiated Frankenstein fancy. The saintly Rabbi of Lowe of Prague was far too intelligent a man to try con tricks like creating a superman to defend the ghetto Jews against marauding anti-Semitic sickos. He never even mentioned it himself. (Though the Talmud in Sanhedrin says that a couple of rabbis used the secrets of Sefer Yetzirah to make themselves a fat calf for their Shabbat meal.)

Jews are notoriously superstitious; wonder-rabbis with all kinds of claimed supernatural gifts play on the credulity and insecurity of so many and rake it in at the same time. And as for corrupt capitalism, let us say no more. So I guess Halloween must be Jewish after all.

Yet if it came down to a choice, I'd rather associate with non-Jewish customs that connect with a benign Divine energy than with black magic, evil spirits, and spells. If it’s a choice between trees and Draculas, I'd go with the former. Still, give me a gemara to study any day.

Tefillin

2009-10-29T20:22:00.002-04:00

Every weekday morning after I have washed and dressed and, unless it is a fast day, drunk a glass of water, I put on my tefillin. They that, for reasons I cannot understand, are called phylacteries. The word still sounds like a form of contraception to me because when, as a fourteen year old, I saw an advert for prophylactics I was told by an almost equally ignorant teenage friend that it had something to do with birth control. Apparently it is from the Greek for "outpost" or "guard".

Anyway, come rain or shine, hell and high water, healthy or sick, in a good mood or bad, I put on my tefillin, even if I am nowhere near a minyan or a synagogue. It is one of the most important rituals of my life. It enables me to start each day in a mood of reflection and spirituality and identification with my Jewish heritage.

As I put on, or "lay", my tefillin (and there's another confusing word), I look at the "houses", the little boxes that contain little scrolls of parchment of Biblical texts that I dedicate my head and my heart to. I notice the details of the leather craftsmanship, the precise, accurate, clean lines of the squares, the relief of the letter Shin with four branches on one side but the usual three branches on the other, the complicated knots on the pristine leather straps, and the exact number of threads of sewing gut that just peep out from the recessed channels they are threaded through, and I am both amazed and perplexed.

And I ask myself, can it possibly be that Moses and his followers wore things like these thousands of years ago? Of course it is not impossible. Egyptians had been building very complex technically sophisticated structures for a long time beforehand and their jewelry and other crafts were impressive even by modern standards. But such things were luxuries confined to the minute stratum of wealthy aristocrats, not for the masses.

The Torah is vague. "And you shall bind them [these words which I command you today] as a sign on your hands and they shall be decorations between your eyes" (Deuteronomy 6 ), sounds to me as though it was meant symbolically, that the constitution of the Torah should be there with us all the time to guide and affect every action. In the same way "write them on your doorposts" sounds paradoxical in an era of tents. It sounds more like an injunction to dedicate a habitation to Divine values. But still, the fact is we have an Oral Law, a tradition that helps explain what was meant by the Written Law. So when the Torah says, "Take the fruit of a fine tree" on Sukkot, it is clarified by Oral Tradition as the etrog (rather than a kiwi or a kumquat), which we still use to this day. It does not strike me as necessarily unlikely at all that that was exactly what was meant by people at the time.

There is an old argument between the Medieval Scholars Rashi and Rebbeinu Tam over the actual order of the texts. Remember this some two thousand years after every male amongst the Children of Israel had been putting them on daily so they should have known! And because of this difference of opinion a few kabbalists started wearing two pairs (some doing so consecutively, and others simultaneously) and that caught on amongst the Hassidim, who now wear two pairs of tefillin every day, one with Rashi's order and one with Rabbeinu Tam's. I do not, because my father did not and what was good enough for him is good enough for me.

It also seems likely that an ancient argument is responsible for the fact that on the head the four texts are in four separate but conjoined sections while on the arm they are all together in one. As indeed is the unique use of a letter Shin I mentioned above, with four branches instead of three. Not only, but the great archaeologist Yigael Yadin discovered ancient tefillin that were round. So, on the one hand, it is clear that tefillin of some sort have been around for thousands of years. And that’s precisely why I have difficulty believing that the ones we have today have gone though absolutely no changes whatsoever since Moses's day.

But does it matter? Does it matter if the little black disks (or the multicolored knitted ones) all Orthodox and not-so-orthodox people wear might be a more recent development? The fact is that head covering of some sort for ritual occasions is an integral part of Jewish law and custom, and certainly has been documented as such for two thousand years. Indeed does it matter if head covering itself originated as desert protection or a reaction against Roman and then Christian custom? I know nowadays with the Chareidi-ization of much of Yiddishkeit that we are expected to believe that Moses wore a fur shtreimel and full Polish seventeenth century baronial gear. Indeed I have seen Charedi illustrations where Talmudic rabbis were wearing shtreimels.

I am not a slave to conformity by any means. But I do love our traditions and customs and see the value of investing most of them with authority. Tefillin mean so much to me and play such an important role in my life that frankly even if someone could prove they were invented a hundred years ago in a Romanian beer cellar I'd still put them on every morning never fail and still feel a little bit closer to Heaven.

The Bomb

2009-10-21T20:58:00.006-04:00

In my youth I marched against "the bomb" in the annual Easter marches from the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire (UK) to Trafalgar Square in London.

We were genuinely worried that the Russians and the Americans would drop atomic bombs on each other and in the ensuing cataclysm we would all be wiped off the face of the earth. Amazing as it may now seem to us, most people thought the Americans were more likely to let go first. Dr. Strangelovespoke with a foreign accent but his equipment looked more American than Russian. But then, America had been the only one to have actually exploded a nuclear bomb on a human target, even if, to be fair, it did stop the war with Japan, which might have cost far more casualties had it dragged on. Then the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 changed perceptions, when the Russians seemed willing to provoke a nuclear war by shipping nuclear warheads to Havana.

To us young idealistic Brits, it seemed really ridiculous that what once we called Great Britain should spend millions it desperately needed to upgrade its Victorian infrastructures and reform its medieval social structures, to have a nuclear deterrent of its own (which anyway relied on American technology and support). As if anyone really thought Britain was still a world power even with a "bombele". And the French were even more laughable. Having lost two World Wars ignominiously, De Gaulle thought that having a French bomb would mean that people would take them more seriously.

My father would have none of my objections. He argued that the nuclear deterrent would in fact prevent wars, and in one way he was right. There hasn't been another World War since. Though low-grade conventional conflicts have, if anything, spread.

The situation now is different. I suggest it is not a fear worth consideration that the new bully on the block, China, will want to initiate nuclear war. Although in Mao's day he often used to say that China was the only power that could afford a nuclear war because it had so many people spread out over such a wide area that more of its population would survive a cataclysm than any other country.

But now we have proliferation, with India and Pakistan both having the bomb. Pakistan in particular is a failed state, and in parts barbaric. It has already leaked atomic secrets to unsavory clients. North Korea is just self-destructively catatonic. And Russia is like an aging prostitute willing to trade anything to anyone who will give her a drop of pleasure or pride. This is why attempts to curtail the spread of nuclear warfare is so important for all of us.

Once again, like "The Elephant and the Jewish problem", we come to Israel. Israel, unofficially and without ever admitting to it, seems to have nuclear bombs. It has steadfastly denied this (despite Vanunu's self-serving claims) and it has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or to allow inspection of its Dimona reactor. But it has always publicly declared that it would never be the first to use such weapons. It has relied on the mere threat of nuclear retaliation to deter Arabs and Muslims bent on destroying Israel.

Now that Iran virtually has its bomb and the West is patently incapable of stopping either it or North Korea perfecting their nuclear arsenals, the United Nations Security Council, with the approval of the USA, has finally officially decided to lay into Israel and demand it give up its nuclear weapons. As I have said before, I would not trust the United Nations to clean my backside, let alone give a fig for Israel's survival. And I would no more rely on Obama to protect Israel than I would Hamas or Hezbollah.

However, I do strongly believe that Israel ought to agree to give up nuclear bombs if it has them. Israel should agree to be bound by all international resolutions and laws concerning nuclear arms. But on one simple condition, that the United Nations must publicly reiterate Israel's right to exist, declare unanimously that any state that threatens its existence will be expelled from the United Nations, and that any attempt to delegitimize Israel will be a breach of the United Nations Charter. That is all, no more, no less.

Empty guarantees are not enough. The United Nations cannot even protect Rwanda or Montenegro let alone Israel. No one has ever protected the Jews better than the Jews themselves. Equally, no one has ever done more damage to Jews than Jews, taken over the whole span of Jewish history (though Hitler, Stalin, the Church, and the Cossacks came pretty close).

And lest my left-leaning friends challenge me, I am still strongly of the opinion that Israel needs an independent, unbiased enquiry into the conduct of the Gaza war, but should tell the Human Rights bozos to crawl back into their own unhealthy caves. Even the founder and ex-head of Human Rights Watch agrees they are a dishonest, biased bunch who have betrayed their own original values.

Demographics

2009-10-15T19:54:00.005-04:00

You may have seen a video doing the rounds, The Islamic Tidal Wave, about the demographics of survival and the clear message that within our lifetime Islam will have conquered the world through its birth rate.

Of course it is a Christian scare video to get good believers to rabbit away to save the Kingdom of Christ. In its over-simplicity it ignores too many other factors. But it does make a very valid point--that cultures cannot sustain themselves unless they increase membership through conquest, conversion, or producing babies (and of course an ideology they think worth fighting for).

Europeans and most Americans reproduce at a rate that guarantees extinction. The statistics quoted are that one needs a birthrate of 2.11 just to retain one's population. The European indigenous birthrate averages 1.38. On the other hand, Muslim immigrants in Europe reproduce at a rate of 8.11. In less than fifty years therefore they will be the majority in all countries of Western Europe. Similar predictions of doom apply to the USA although it will take quite a while longer and Catholic Latinos reproduce just as quickly.

Now such situations are not news to Jews. It has always been thus and we have even gloried in our minority status and capacity to defy odds. The great medieval Rashi comments on Jacob's fear of the huge number of tribes descended from Esav in comparison to his (and I suspect Rashi's comment was also a reply to the situation that prevailed in his own day, when Jews were a very small minority in a totally dominant Christian world). Jacob was comforted with this parable:

"A flax merchant with his camels loaded squeezed past a small charcoal burner's store front. The charcoal burner was initially in awe at the size of the camel's load, but then realized that one small spark of his could reduce it all to nothing." (Rashi on Genesis 37:1)

It is this that gives me comfort when I hear the amoral UN clap anti-Semites and cheer anything derogatory of Jews or pundits argue that Israel is a greater threat to the world than Iran (as if self-defense were ethically wrong). We like to say that the Almighty (Allah, if you prefer) works in strange and unpredictable ways, and we are still around even as the numerically superior Roman Empire disappeared and Christianity is certainly wobbling. But overall, Jewish numbers are down, significantly! Of course, none of this is new to academics, such as Sergio Della Pergola of Hebrew University, who have for years been warning Israelis of the looming demographic reversals.

Not a day goes by in the Jewish world without some philanthropist funding a new initiative, a conference, a chair, or a competition to find a way of ensuring Jewish continuity, survival, call it what you like. Millions have been spent, and doubtless willing suckers will continue to be leeched by conniving, self-serving charlatans till Kingdom Come. But the fact is that it is all a complete waste of time and money. There is only one guarantee of continuity and that is birthrate (assuming, of course, people want to continue and not assimilate). And the evidence for this is everywhere. There are some valuable and interesting initiatives in the less Orthodox world that must not be underestimated. But overall figures are down, unless one accepts the arguable contention that mixed families still strengthen Judaism (doubtless there are individual cases who do).

Who reproduces? The Charedi world of course, our own equivalent of the Muslims! Their whole social structure, mindset, and raison d'etre is based on the desire and the need to obey the command to reproduce, to deny Hitler a posthumous victory, to refute the predictions of assimilationists, to counter secularism, reform, and any ideology they consider a threat.

And it works. If the rest of Jewry is marrying out at the rate of nearly 50% of all marriages, the Charedim are not only all marrying in, but are growing exponentially; theirs is the one sector of Judaism that has absolutely no doubts about survival and looks on the concerns of others as pathetic. The current recession brings almost daily news of many Jewish schools in the USA closing down, but not Charedi ones (though a few did, thanks to crooked rabbis). They are replaying the story of the Children of Israel in Egypt, where despite everything the Egyptians could throw at them they increased and multiplied and grew stronger and stronger. And despite what you might think, I am delighted.

In many ways the Charedi world offers a distorted version of Torah, certainly in its ever-increasing strictness, beyond reason and law. But if I ask what guarantees the future, it is passion, commitment and numbers too. When Charedi families have 8 or 10 children, even if two go off the tracks, they are still way ahead in the reproduction stakes of the rest of the Jewish world.

And that’s what the future may well look like for Judaism. Those who "do", both reproductively and religiously, will survive. Those who neither live a dedicated Jewish life, nor reproduce but spend their time at conferences recommending solutions will not do much for survival. I am not sanguine about the loss of so many Jews through assimilation. I wish it were not so. But I see no other alternative, no panacea, no Magic Bullet, no Golden Goose or Egg, certainly not trying to rope in as many lukewarm, reluctant members as possible.

Life is so complex, so strenuous and demanding, it might simply not be possible to have one's cake and eat it any more. The pressures of earning a living might leave no time for spiritually. Only the very wealthy or, at the other end, those on welfare will be able to afford a religious life. I'd rather see us survive, even if it is as a distorted expression of Judaism, than disappear. Because what is, what exists, can be repaired and nursed back to health. But if there is nothing left…

Shaking It

2009-10-08T19:46:00.002-04:00

I am all for customs. They add variety, exoticism, and often humor into our ever more pressurized and material world. And Judaism has its fair share of strange things to do. If you take them all as friendly pointers, as ways of thinking and acting differently to the way one habitually does, they can add some spice to life and might even be elevating. They are as a general rule harmless and, if they will not necessarily do you any good (unless you're a mystic who believes in magic), at least they do not do obvious harm.

You just might not want to indulge in say, whirling chickens around your head before Yom Kippur. Though come to think of it, it can't be harmless for the poor chickens. As for me, I'd rather give money any day instead of running the risk of picking up some fowl virus.

Sukkot is a festival with a heavy overload of exotic things to do. (And I don't mean getting drunk on vodka on Simchat Torah, something we have Lubavitch to thank for. Getting drunk on single malt whiskey is a much older and healthier custom.) I mean everything to do with the four plants we take and shake and wave, the Arba Minim. They are the Lulav, Etrog, Hadasim, and Aravot. (For those of you looking from outside in, they are the palm branch, citron, myrtle, and willow. Just think of Palm Sunday, except that’s in the spring and we do ours in the autumn.)

So much can go into buying the Four Kinds of Plants and the expense can be mind-blowing if you go for the top of the range. Perhaps you have seen this depicted in the film Ushpizin. The tips of the lulav have to be examined to make sure they are not split. (And women think split hair is a problem.) You might, as I do, prefer a lulav with a kneppel. That's the husk still intact at the top that reduces the chances of split fronds but has the disadvantage of not sounding so good when you shake it (more of that shortly).

The etrog is even more complicated. You want one that is genuine citron, not a mixture of other citrus, not one grafted. Preferably one watched over by the thousandth generation of Sicilian Mafiosi shepherds whose goat manure is vintage, or better still from the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta, and not to mention the more controversial ones from Corfu.

And don't even begin to get involved in the issue of the pitom, that cute little mushroom-like protrusion at the top of the fruit (not to be confused with the bottom, which has the remnant of the stalk that attached it to the tree). The pitom is pure vanity. It takes just one clumsy move or a kid's over-enthusiasm and it's gone and your etrog is useless, a defective reject. Far better to get one that never ever had a pitom so there's nothing to break off. And then there are the marks, the spots and the bubbles. You will need magnifying glasses, microscopes, and jeweler's loops to sort out the goats from the sheep, the lemons from the citrons. And a really laboratory-tested pure one, certified by experts, sanctified by saints, and commercially exploited by rabbis, can run into thousands! I know people who live elegantly the whole year round on the etrogs they sell for Sukkot.

I suppose splurging money on a religious artifact is at least no worse than throwing away 100 times more on horsepower you can never use in traffic or jewels that 99% of people cannot tell from glass or cubic zirconia.

What concerns me, however, is the way you wave your lulav and when. You see, as of course anyone who knows anything about Judaism will tell you, there are a hundred different ways of doing it. You take them in your two hands, hold them out in front of you and shake. But how do you shake? Is it a swirling cutlass swipe, an up and down beating motion as if to cut any nasty lingering evil spirits in two? Is it a sedate Germanic putting out and pulling back in, three times or two? Is it an en-garde foil-wiggling at the end, as though you are trying to clean out the right ear of the fellow in front, or perhaps you are trying to spike his kippa and toss it into the air?

And which direction do you rotate? Most go east, south, west, north, up, and down. Others go right, left, front, up, down, and back. The Kabbalists added their variations, and the rebbes a few refinements more. Beware if you are out of sync with your neighbor. It does not matter if what you were doing was good enough for King David or the Vilna Gaon, you will get black looks, superior noses in the air, and if you are really out of luck, some kid will be delegated to tug your kaftan and tell you that you are an ignorant fool or a heretic for ignoring local custom.

You see, that's what I do not like about customs. They give every pompous inadequate religious snob a chance to feel superior, to make you feel inferior, and to do the very opposite of what true religion is supposed to do which is to engender happy, uplifted, and spiritual feelings. The complexities of the varieties of customs are minefields laid out to trap the unwary, and make the visitor feel out of place and ignorant. They are the means of ensuring that small select groups of holier-than-thou's can recognize who is in and who is out. It is like the dress code that enables you to get into the right nightclub or casino. Which might be fine for nightclubs and casinos and fashion shows, but it is not what religion should be concerned with. And you, sir, are waving your lulav under my nose and in the wrong direction. No way into heaven for you! (You see, Yom Kippur is over and I'm back to normal!)

Crimes and Misdemeanors

2009-10-01T20:13:00.002-04:00

Talented film director Roman Polanski was accused and convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl some thirty years ago. There was some sympathy for him at the time. His wife Sharon Tate had been brutally murdered by the Manson "family" and he was in a state of emotional shock. But he fled the United States and lived in France and travelled pretty freely, avoiding the United States for obvious reasons, and cemented his reputation as a man of many talents.

Last week he was arrested in Switzerland and awaits possible extradition to the United States of America which has a treaty with Switzerland and has for many years reiterated its international warrant for his arrest. The world of the glitterati is up in arms. What is the rape of the 13-year-old, they mutter, when compared to the great contribution of artistic endeavor? Rather like those who argued the Nazis could not possibly be so bad, brought up as they were on Beethoven and Heine. If even the victim has called for clemency why hound the poor man? After all, he is not a war criminal or a mass murderer, whose heinous crimes merit hounding till the end of his days. He is an artist.

Nevertheless, any philosopher of ethics or of law will agree that someone found guilty by a legitimate and open court of law is guilty unless and until that verdict is overturned. And I am prepared to wager that a way will be found to let him go. Nowadays it seems morality is not the issue so much as public sentiment.

Nearly two thousand years ago, in the third century, a great Jew called Samuel, living the Persian Empire, declared, "The Law of the Land is the Law", which ever since has bound Jews in civil matters to accept the government and laws of whichever country they may live in. But about seven hundred years later another great Jew, living in Spain, Solomon Ben Aderet (1235-1310) known as the Rashba, declared that this only applies where the law of the land is applied fairly and equally to everyone. Otherwise there is no rule of law and under such circumstances self-interest trumps the random and unjust demands of the ruling authority that tended to victimize Jews (and indeed Muslims).

Now let us turn to Israel. If Israel or its soldiers have committed crimes they must be prosecuted, as indeed Israeli law does prosecute its criminals, whether civil or military. One can argue about whether they do it fairly or not, and there is a Supreme Court to which all citizens may apply equally regardless of race or religion, that is not as enslaved to the political authorities as many claim. If Israel were to be found to have transgressed any international laws then she should and must be prosecuted too. No one should be above the law.

But where the law is not being applied fairly or evenly then one is clearly not under any moral obligation to accept it, although one is still under a moral obligation to examine one's own actions to determine their morality or lack thereof. Those of us who are religious will hold ourselves bound by a higher authority, regardless of others; although I fear there are religious leaders who will interpret that authority to suit themselves.

Now I ask you, members of the jury, isn’t it true that judges are supposed to be objective? Is it not the case that if a judge is known to be biased he is unfit to be a judge? The United Nations, or to be more precise the UN Human Rights Council, has just issued a report entitled Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories: Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, now commonly known as the Goldstone Report after its head. One of its members was Christine Chinkin--read this to see if you think she might be objective.

Even former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, hardly biased in favor of Israel, described the Human Rights Council as having a practice of "adopting resolutions guided not by human rights, but by politics". She had declined to head the fact-finding mission that produced the report, herself, specifically citing its exclusive focus on Israel.

The United Nations is a disgrace and a farce and unfit to pass judgment on anything. If its halls can reverberate with applause for an Iranian anti-Semite, then it is not fit to be a sewage plant. If the Human Rights Council which called for this report can have dictators as its chairs, it is already a disgrace to its name. But if it can appoint a person to pass moral judgment who has already and previously publicly stated that Israel is guilty of war crimes in Gaza, then how is that different than a judge declaring the plaintiff guilty before a word of the trial has been spoken? In all fairness, how can an organization that has not prosecuted equal and graver crimes by other egregious regimes and conflicts sit in judgment of one it has already previously condemned year after year with no hint of reciprocity or balance? If Israel is condemned for blockading Gaza why is not Egypt?

As much as it is our moral obligation as Jews to prosecute war crimes, it is our moral obligation to repudiate judgments until they are seen to be fair. The United Nations and its agencies are an absolute disgrace to humanity and justice and we must ignore them. As the Midrash says, "Let din velet dayan", there is neither law nor judge.

Why blog?

2009-09-24T11:48:00.003-04:00

This is, of course, the time of the year for reflection and self-examination. Amongst the things I ask myself is why do I keep on writing my weekly pieces?

It has been ten years since I started sending out weekly comments on the Torah by email. That morphed into weekly essays on Jewish topics, and then turned into what is now called a blog. I have been at it ever since. Some of what I have written I am proud of, some of it happy with, and some of it embarrassed by. I can see how uneven it has been, ranging from the angry to the whimsical to the frustrated to the amused, to the sad and the happy. The overwhelming emotion I have is that it is fun. I enjoy it. Otherwise I would not do it.

I am not commercial. I am not selling or representing any institution or movement. I don’t publicize myself or sell myself. I am here for those who are interested. So what am I trying to achieve?

I do not fit easily into any box or category, religiously, politically or socially. My blog posts are not conventional comments on the weekly reading of the Torah, although occasionally I do refer to them. There is a glut of such weekly offerings on the internet, ranging from the good to the bad, the rational to the mystical, the popular to the academic. I continue to do some of this, but rather as lectures that can go on for longer and go into the subject in greater depth and can be tailored to the specific cultural and religious contexts of whomever the audience happens to be.

Similarly, I choose not to write academically because there too one needs more space and time. Besides, the academic world, Jewish and otherwise, has its rituals and technicalities, its terminologies, its disciplines, and its fundamental assumptions. Only a career academic or an academic manque would be interested in being circumscribed by them.

The same goes for the Torah World. It would hate to be compared in any way to the academic, but it too has its conventions, its nostra, its styles and its disciplines.

Anyone who fears for his job in the rabbinate or his career in Jewish communal life (won't even touch the ghastly world of Jewish politicians), and many do, is always conscious of who might be reading and what the consequences of offense might be. It may surprise you, but I have often been criticized for not being aggressive or combative enough. But I do not try to offend or to be controversial for controversy's sake. I am a free-booting maverick and have always delighted in my freedom of conscience, thought, and expression. I realize how privileged I am to be able to think and write whatever I fancy.

I am also taken to task for levity. I write in a light vein for a very wide range of people, mainly Jewish, who live all round the world. Originally most of my readers were English; this is now no longer the case. Hence my adoption, with great reluctance, of American spelling! I want to entertain and stimulate and present my idiosyncratic ideas, events, and experiences that I enjoy and think might be interesting. This blog of mine is a way of bringing these issues to you laced with other stuff so that it doesn’t get too boring, predictable, or didactic--though as a teacher I always try to teach.

In fact everything I write is related in one way or another to my religious commitment. I try to see a spiritual dimension in whatever I come across that arouses my interest or, alternatively, offends my values. It all can be related to what we call God, one way or another, even if the offenders are apparently His faithful followers.

As a Jew, I am surprised and sad to discover how much Jews are still so hated by so many. As a religious man, I am upset by the constant abuses of religious authority. As a supporter of the Jewish right to self-determination and a historical homeland, I am upset by the tensions, violence, misinformation, errors, and stupidity on all sides in the Middle East. And as a citizen of the world, I am aghast at the political corruption, lies, deceptions, and blindness that characterizes all political systems, even if some are less obnoxious than others.

I know there are others like me, who love life but feel disenchanted with systems and hypocrisies. I see my task as offering solace, companionship, and reinforcement to those who, like me, cannot stand humbug no matter how many others seem willing to lap it all up. I know I have given support and encouragement to some of my coreligionists who feel isolated, perhaps lonely, and definitely out of sympathy with the extremes of fundamentalism on the one hand and of assimilation on the other.

I am a chronicler. Perhaps one day some historian might look back and find my work an interesting comment on our transient times. I know I cannot change the world. I have failed to change my religion.

As the Talmud puts it with regard to this time of the year, there are a few saints (tzaddikim) and a few really evil people (rashayim), but most of us are in the middle. We are the beinonim. That’s where I belong and that is the world I am addressing and expressing. That is the free, independent viewpoint, the quiet still voice amongst all the noisy shrill salesmen pushing their products.

Fast well--I mean productively, cathartically--and meditate rather than recite!

Be Happy

2009-09-17T13:32:00.004-04:00

When we consider religion we rarely think of fun or joy. Usually it is control, discipline, and awe. As we enter the period often described as the Days of Awe, I wonder what the value of being somber is.

There is an early tradition of combining joy with restraint. In Hebrew it is Gilu BiRe'ada, "Serve the Lord with awe and rejoice with trembling," (Psalms 2:11). The Talmud asks, "What is meant by 'rejoice with trembling'?… Mar the son of Ravina made a marriage for his son. He saw that the rabbis were getting too merry, so he brought a precious cup worth four hundred zuz and broke it before them, and they became serious. R. Ashi made a marriage for his son. He saw that the rabbis were getting too merry, so he brought a cup of white crystal and broke it in front of them and they became serious. The rabbis said to R. Hamnuna Zuti, at the wedding of Mar the son of Ravina, 'Please sing us something.' He replied, 'Alas for us that we will die. Alas for us that we will die!' They said, 'What can we respond?' He said to them, 'There is Torah and there is Mitzvah to help us!'" (Brachot 30b)

Living a life according to values, behaving in appropriate ways, being aware of the ups and downs, the bad as well as the good, helps us cope with the challenges we face. It enables us to deal with impending death because we see a larger picture. If one only lives for pleasure then one is ultimately bound to feel let down.

It is like those Renaissance paintings of distinguished men with a skull in the background to remind them of mortality. Or "Et in Arcadia ego" of Poussin's neoclassical paintings; death lurks in the Garden of Eden, too. The paradox is that one wants to enjoy life but we need to realize how transient it is.

So what is joy? What is happiness? The Hebrew word "simcha", does not just mean being happy in the sense that, as the Beatles said, "Happiness is a warm gun", or a hot bun, or a new car. When I hear people say they want to enjoy themselves and I ask why, I am told because it makes them feel happy. But that kind of happy is purely physical wellbeing. Important as it is, it fades as quickly as a good meal or a farewell kiss. Simcha is not just physical. It is physical linked to spiritual, a higher goal. It is a sense that one's life has a purpose, direction, and meaning, that one is doing something valuable. That is why the Mishna talks about the rich man as being "happy with his lot in life".

There is another Hebrew word, "Ashrei." It too translates as happy but to the best of my knowledge it is only used in the metaphysical sense, being happy because one is living a good life, a considered life, a life with meaning. Isaiah 56 is more specific, "Happy is the person who keeps Shabbat." Or in the words of the Psalm we say three times a day, "Happy is the person who lives in God's house," or "Happy is the person who trusts in God." Being happy here, similar to being grateful, might not always be fun or even make one feel happy at all in the usual sense. Visiting the sick is not fun. Neither is listening to someone's problems. But it is important and will give us a sense of doing something valuable.

The purpose of the coming serious Holy Days is to spend time in introspection, self-evaluation. It is not to feel guilty or bad, but to give one a sense of priorities. This does indeed help one cope with the vicissitudes of life. And having a ritual that imposes this can be very helpful. Rosh Hashana is not intrinsically a sad day. If one spends time assessing one's values and priorities and comes out feeling that one is on the right track, it can give a sense of great joy and happiness, a feeling of physical wellbeing and of intellectual and moral self-justification.

Of course all of this could apply to most religions. What differentiates them is not necessarily in the goals, but rather in the ways prescribed to pursue and achieve them. Each religion has its own trials, its own special days, and its own subcultures and hidden agendas. I feel incredibly privileged, happy indeed, that I am an heir to the great Jewish religious tradition.

I rejoice in our very specific rituals, the strange sounds of the shofar that conjures up sad histories and happy ones. I enjoy the sense of historical continuity. I even enjoy the poetry of the service. Above all, I relish the challenge of examining myself, accepting my failures and faults, and considering if the targets I set last year were met and what new ones I need to set for the coming year. And doing it in the Jewish way will give me enormous joy and happiness on levels we don’t usually associate with those words. And that is the added value of being Jewish.

Birthright, Birthwrong

2009-09-10T20:49:00.003-04:00

Non-Orthodox American Jews are seriously worried about their future. Assimilation is increasing and vast numbers of young Jews seem to be disappearing from the ranks. Over the years the panaceas have lost their attraction--secular Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust, new age alternatives, even kabbala. So the idea emerged that free trips to Israel with no agenda other than experiencing Israel might just give a greater incentive to remain connected than say, a visit to a synagogue (or "temple" as they like to call it over here). An organization called Birthright was established. Wealthy American Jews poured millions into it. The Israeli government, anxious both for tourist money and ties with the USA, put funding in too. The Birthright website proudly declares:

"Taglit-Birthright Israel's founders created this program to send thousands of young Jewish adults from all over the world to Israel as a gift in order to diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants' personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people."

According to The Jewish Week, about half the youngsters who go on this junket come from families with one non-Jewish parent. Some put the figure at 30%, which is a reasonable reflection of the state of American Jewry. Apparently many who go on the trips are positively impressed. But it seems very few actually return and get involved in anything Jewish. Now if Birthright was simply an exercise in public relations, meeting nice Israelis, then I would argue it is a project well worth supporting and encouraging. Israel has such awful public relations. Many American universities, like the European ones, are now hotbeds of one-sided anti-Israel propaganda, pressure, and sentiment that any youngsters who can go and see for themselves, the good as well as the bad, must certainly help tip the balance. They certainly cannot do worse than almost every Israeli spokesman who appears on the world's media.

Organizations like the John Levy's Friends of Israel Educational Foundation in the UK (don’t confuse it with the missionary site of a similar name), have for years been working away sending youngsters, Jewish and non-Jewish, politicians, and opinion-formers to Israel to get a fairer perspective, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. But they are honest about their aims and clear about their objectives.

"Tell it not in Gat", some in Birthright actually did want to try to persuade the participants to become more Jewishly committed. Ah, but here is the rub. What does it mean "more Jewish"? One Israel provider company has been struck off the list because as it took its participants around the usual water parks, beaches, and nightclubs (as well as archaeological and political sites), its leaders were pushing agendas such as, "Why not consider coming to Israel?" and "You should try to marry Jewish." Politically correct secular or Reform America does not like anyone pushing agendas, certainly not if they are more religious or Zionist than they are.

Birthright realized most of its participants returned to the USA and simply disappeared off the radar. So they sensibly established a department to follow up and try to keep them involved. One recipient of finance was the Jewish Enrichment Center in Lower Manhattan and by all accounts it has been successful in getting many of the Birthright participants to become more involved. It is nondenominational, welcomes everyone in, and does not discriminate, BUT its charismatic leaders are personally Orthodox! Never mind they are tolerant, they have an agenda. They want people to live manifestly Jewish lives! Whereas most participants seem to have enjoyed the soft sell, some have bridled and now a paper called the Forward (actually supported by a major supporter of Birthright), founded on anti-religious, secular, Yiddishist Bundist principles, has revealed the link between JEC and the Charedi Baal Teshuva movement, Ohr Somayach, and is demanding Birthright cut ties.

Now, I do not identify or agree with a lot of the Baal Teshuva movement methods or ideology, whether it is Aish HaTorah, Lubavitch, or Ohr Somayach. But no one can deny they do a very important and valuable job in keeping many young Jews in touch with Judaism, providing centers of support, and indeed persuading some to lead more religious lives! In my view, that is the way to stop attrition, although of course in this life nothing is ever guaranteed. It makes sense to help something that actually succeeds instead of pouring millions into something that does not. There is a lot wrong with institutional religion. But I think it is self-evident that living a religiously committed Jewish life is a far more successful way of keeping Judaism alive (if you want to) than living a completely anti-religious one. Besides, it is a free society, no compulsion. If you do not like the message you can walk.

I really like the wide range of Jewish affiliation in the USA. Even the strong secular presence has something to commend. Every New York university has courses on secular Jewish culture and identity. But as a transmittable ideology it does not succeed, precisely because it is not passionate or behavioral enough. I welcome the variations of the Jewish religion so that there are options but I regret their almost paranoid need to attack anyone more religious than they are. Here is an example of religious intolerance coming not from the Right but from the Left.

If Birthright were only a PR exercise, then fair enough, you don’t want any religious ingredient. But if, as it claims, it also wants to strengthen Jewish identity and by implication keep the Jewish people alive, then it should not give in to negative pressure and prevent those who actually have track records of success from trying. You can be Jewish, they seem to say, so long as it is only my kind of Jewish.

Ernest Levy of Glasgow

2009-09-03T11:26:00.003-04:00

From 1968 until 1971, I was the rabbi of the largest community in Scotland, the Giffnock and Newlands Hebrew Congregation of Glasgow in Scotland. It was my first full-time job, fresh from Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. For those who might not realize it, Scotland and England are two very different countries! I drove up the motorway from my mother's home in London, past Birmingham, Manchester, and Carlisle, and over the border at Gretna Green (where young couples once went to elope) in my small, secondhand white MG Midget sports car, and into the magical world of Scotland with its lowlands and highlands and islands and seascapes and landscapes and dramatic shifts in scenery (and its rainy climate).

I was full of naïve idealism and raw enthusiasm. The community I found was overwhelmingly warm, hospitable, and welcoming. The synagogue was just about to move from a cramped wooden synagogue on May Terrace into a huge, modern complex at the Glen. My residence was a grand house on Eastwoodmains Road that was graced with a large and elegant piece of modern art on its front lawn, thanks to Mark Goldberg. And I set about shaking up, revolutionizing, and energizing my huge and expanding community. I was in heaven.

It’s a pretty universal rule that synagogue business brings out the worst in people. Synagogue life everywhere and anywhere is a minefield of politics and vested interests. I was really fortunate to have successive presidents, Baruch Mendelson and Dr. David Granet, who were the exceptions to any negative rule about synagogue presidents! And I survived and thrived because I was also fortunate to find a guide, a chazzan in place, who was one of the nicest and wisest and kindest human beings I have ever encountered, Ernest Levy.

Ernest had grown up in post-war Hungary with all of its traumas, as well as his own. He had no thought of being a chazzan. But the failed 1956 revolution, gave him the opportunity to escape. With an elder brother already in the business, and with a sweet, light voice (and a trace of a lisp) he became chazzan in Giffnock, instead of a motorbike-riding engineer in Budapest. Ernest was a cynic with a black sense of humor. He had experienced enough of human nature to know what deceits and subterfuges humans were capable of and yet enough love remained so that he really did devote his life to people, because he really cared. He very rarely spoke about his painful past. Much later, long after I had left Glasgow, was he able to open up and do a lot to educate people about the Holocaust.

At the time Glasgow Jewry was torn apart by a bitter rivalry between Reverend Dr. Cosgrove of Garnethill, the old cathedral synagogue of Glasgow up by the university, was in decline because of a population shift to the southern suburbs, and Rabbi Dr. Wolf Gottlieb, scholar, polymath, rabbi of Queens Park where my father presided thirty years earlier, and Av Bet Din. Cosgrove stood for compromise and pliability, Gottlieb for the law and authority. Cosgrove was a Jewish representative to the non-Jews. Gottlieb was the Lord Protector of Judaism for the Jews. They were both significant and, in their very different ways, great men. But they demeaned each other because their ideological differences descended into petty rivalry. They would jockey for position, priority, and seniority, even to the point that they once managed to accidentally push each other into an open grave one cold, sodden autumn in Glenduffhill Cemetery. Ernest always warned me not take sides. He counseled independence at all costs.

He was a great mimic. He could predict the content and the style of old-school rabbis from the decaying, older parts of town and the itinerant preachers and collectors who were always welcomed into Giffnock to ply their trade, and given respect, but that did not mean one could not make fun of their views, their foibles, and their illusions. Many were rigid and fundamentalist, confident in their learning, but with no idea how ineffectual their words were to the average Glaswegian. Ernest could prick the largest bubble. It only took a wink, a seemingly naive question, to demolish any pretension.

He and I were the new team, the new world of open ideas and open minds, reaching out rather than expecting everyone else to come in. We worked together all the time, in synagogue and at the endless weddings, bar mitzvas, funerals and shivas at which we jointly officiated. We knew whom to encourage amongst the members and who needed to be put in their places. We had a similar vision of Jewish life--welcoming, light, and appealing, with humor and tolerance, rather than dark, forbidding and exclusive.

We did not always agree. He was a professional musician and I an amateur. I loved really good choral music, but I had no patience for synagogue choirs of second-rate voices. I wanted streamlined services, but he needed to spend time justifying his cantorial role. We compromised, though once or twice I overstepped the mark. There were other characters there I loved and worked well with. But Ernest was in a class of his own.

I left Glasgow reluctantly, only because my father's legacy called me away. Ernest stayed, beloved and respected till the end. One man, one job, one city, one community; whereas I always moved on. But wherever I went I never forgot the wonderful times I spent in a remarkable community and with friends I have kept in touch with to this day. Ernest travelled with me, in a way, wherever I went. And whenever we met, as we did on occasion, we would both reminisce and laugh at those glory days of our youth. Ernest died last week. May his memory be a blessing.

Americarabia

2009-08-27T20:36:00.003-04:00

We are used to the exaggerated, scare term "Eurabia", to describe the capitulation of European culture and politics to Islam. As is often attributed to Edmund Burke, "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." So you can imagine how grave the danger is when apparently intelligent, open-minded academics go a stage further and actually censor publications. Appeasement and highbrow anti-Semitism have always been a European disease. But the disease has now spread to the USA. The USA and Europe are very different in so many ways, so the way a virus translates into a disease will certainly differ. But one could equally use the term "Americarabia", a danger as long as the US is dependent on Arab oil and Saudi goodwill.

Of course, I welcome any attempt to bridge gaps and overcome antipathies. I support Obama's desire to communicate. I understand the steps he takes to try to burnish his credentials as an honest broker in the Middle East, and I am not as neurotically negative as much of American and Israeli Orthodoxy are about him. But there is a huge gap between ensuring no Muslim is disadvantaged or discriminated against simply because of his or her faith, and capitulating to primitive irrational demands merely to curry favour. Just as there is a huge difference between tarring all Islam with a terrorist brush and standing up to those who insist on continuing to use it as a tool of realpolitik.

Look at the absolutely disgraceful way Libya has publicly welcomed back a mass murderer! What is it about so much of Islam that lusts after death and murder? Is this what we should be appeasing rather than condemning? And if the bomber was only a sacrifice for the State, how do we feel about a state that glorifies bombing a civilian plane? Those Jewish extremists who blew up the King David hotel were never glorified by Israel or publicly acclaimed. Neither were Americans who accidentally caused collateral civilian damage or misread coordinates.

Yale University has decided to censor a book about the Danish cartoon affair of 2005 for fear of Islamic fanatics. And then tries to justify itself. The full statement refers, in self-defense, to the number of papers in Britain and the USA who declined to publish the cartoons originally. Sadly, this is not the first example of craven capitulation to fear. Sherry Jones, an author whose novel, The Jewel of Medina, was shelved by Random House because of fears of violent reprisals, said, "I decided to take a stand for free speech and publish my books in spite of threats and violence because I wanted to make a positive difference in the world...Yale University Press's decision, like that of the executives at Random House, does the opposite...Self-censorship changes our world for the worse."

I wonder has Yale censored books about abortion because an anti-abortion fanatics have killed doctors? Or did it censor books on politics because Americans have been assassinated by political opponents?

And here's another straw in the wind. The Presidential Medal of Freedom was recently awarded to Mary Robinson and Desmond Tutu, amongst others. They are both seriously flawed icons of the left. Flawed not just for their bitter opposition to Israel but for the language of contempt, insensitivity, and antipathy they use towards Israel and Jews which (as with the case of Jimmy Carter) is used by others to delegitimize--the result of which was the infamous Durban anti-Semitic hate-fest over which Mary Robinson presided and which Desmond Tutu encouraged.

Of course, any Democrat government in the US is inevitably going to counteract its Republican predecessor in any way it can, whether it is in appointing Supreme Court judges who think the way it does or honoring those whose values it identifies with. Certainly both Tutu and Robinson have been champions of a left-wing radical agenda, so their being honored was unsurprising. It is all part of the swings and roundabouts, checks and balances that all democratic countries experience.

In Britain, the likeable leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, has often said he opposes the sort of mindless tirades the sad Baroness Tonge spews out against Israel. But if he continues to allow her to remain part of his party as he does, the virus will spread. Sweden too is diseased. Not only can a left-wing newspaper reinvent the Blood Libel by claiming, with no facts, that the Israeli Army harvests organs from Palestinians, but the government springs to its defense on the grounds of free speech. Sadly, politics is concerned with power, not truth, and there are more Muslim than Jewish voters.

What worries me is when we tolerate the incursion of hate under any guise. Consider the apparently idealist and egalitarian socialist regime, the USSR, supported by so many Jews, which ended up being so anti-Semitic. This happens when anyone is demonized and "good" people do not oppose it. This is what has happened throughout the Muslim world, where opponents of autocrats are demonized. To a far lesser extent, it happens in religions where denigration and delegitimization become the favored tools of discourse (where there is any discourse).

It is not for me to champion civilized Islam. The record of its achievements will outlast the current barbaric desire to return to the cave. But I believe we in the West owe it to Islam not only to ensure there is no discrimination in our midst, but also to ensure that moderate Islam is not silenced. Every time we give in to Mad Mulla pressure we undermine the moderates. And every time people in the West bang on about the Israel/Jewish lobby yet ignore the Arab/Islam lobbies, then we will indeed allow a creeping takeover of liberty that will start with protecting fanatical Islam and end up censoring anyone who opposes religious or political extremism.

Usury

2009-08-20T23:16:00.003-04:00

The Torah is very definite in its condemnation of lending money for interest:

Exodus 22:24 - If you ever lend money to anyone amongst the poor of My People (says God) do not become an oppressor by lending for interest.

Leviticus 25:36 - Do not take interest (from someone fallen on hard times). Do not take interest or apply oppressive terms, but respect (the will of) God and allow your brother to live with you (in dignity)…for I am the YHVH your God who took you out of Egypt.

And, finally, Deuteronomy 23:20 - Do not oppress your brother through money or charging interest on food or anything else or any other way of oppressing him financially.

In Judaism, lending money to start or sustain a business has been regarded as the highest expression of charity, giving someone in one's community the opportunity to be self-sufficient with dignity. To take advantage of someone else's misfortune to enrich oneself was regarded as immoral. This was not a matter of being anti-capitalist; a person could make as much profit as he could. But it was to highlight the difference between commercial gain and social responsibility, and to insist that commercial activity that took advantage of poverty was unacceptable. It was not that charging interest was wrong in itself. After all, you could charge interest to those beyond your community. But it was an assertion of the need to make credit available to the poor of your society (not exclusively, but as a priority), to help them establish themselves without taking on an intolerable burden.

These rules were made in an era that was predominantly agricultural, where barter was the dominant means of exchange, and in which, as today, each society reserves special benefits for its own citizens. Over time, as commerce became more sophisticated and dominant, in trading internationally interest became the norm and Jews participated in order to survive financially (the Christian world having closed off almost every other opportunity to make a living). So a degree of flexibility became necessary.

Only in post-Medieval times did the famous Heter Iska, (Permission to Do Business), the technical contract that found a way around the usury laws, emerge. It is interesting in that it is almost identical in spirit to the way Islamic Banks deal with exactly the same issue. (Christianity ultimately turned a blind eye to the issue.) It is also interesting that only now, as Jews have so many more opportunities to make money than they did, that the use of the Heter Iska has become far more widespread than previously, particularly in Israel.

But the principle remains that there is nothing wrong with lending at interest when it is controlled and where charity is readily accessed, through societies or the individuals. Judaism banned usury only to ensure that money was available to the poor and the poor would not be taken advantage of. That’s why the Bible reiterates the link between not lending for interest and God's presence as a moral deterrent, or our being brought out of a corrupt oppressive regime in Egypt to ensure that we established a caring one.

The sadness of modernity is that it is precisely the poor who pay the most exorbitant rates of interest to loan sharks and criminals, and of course the usurious rates charged by certain types of lenders operating within the law, because they have no other access to money. This is why the new fashion for microlending is an essential element in modern charity.

Anyone familiar with the Orthodox world knows that the "Gemach", Free Loan Society, takes its name from Gemillut Chesed, Kindness, and is the foundation of lending in Orthodox, Charedi social life. Only outside of the Orthodox world is the concept almost unheard of (as indeed is the Chevra Kaddisha, the voluntary society of those who help clean the dead and prepare them for burial), so far removed from our essential values are the majority of Jews nowadays. But the principle that lending for interest has a deleterious side to it and is not the ideal needs to be reiterated particularly at a time when so much in this often dubious financial world of ours is suspect. And anyone who has the moral commitment to highlight the potential evils of usury should be praised and encouraged.

All this has been provoked by the case of Rabbi Natan Asmoucha, the rabbi of Bevis Marks Synagogue. He is charged by the Mahamad, the lay body of the Spanish and Portuguese community in London, with joining Christian and Muslim clergy in a protest against usury, permitting Bevis Marks to be the meeting place and the staging post for a multi-faith demonstration against usurious practices that targeted a bank in the city. A noble undertaking totally consonant with Jewish values as outlined above. I know and like Rabbi Abraham Levy, the Spiritual Head of the Spanish and Portuguese community in Great Britain. We were at the same school and we share many core values about Judaism and its relation to the outside world. So I cannot believe he is to blame. I do not know Rabbi Asmoucha, but like me, he was the rabbi in Bulawayo (Southern Rhodesia in my time, Zimbabwe in his). So I have an interest.

I don’t know what it is that affects perfectly normal, reasonable, and professional people when they join a synagogue board, but in each and every synagogue I have ever come across, it turns their brains into mush. It seems (for I have only secondhand information) that they wanted to make Rabbi Asmoucha redundant, but to avoid paying compensation, they decided to charge him with impropriety so they could fire him, thus hoping to circumvent the moral law of the land. Initially they wanted to use his association with an Imam as the excuse, but then discovered that the Chief Rabbi of Britain had been on the same platform with him, so they had to backtrack on that one.

You see, money usually lies at the root of most conflicts and that is precisely why the Torah warns us consistently, in these laws I have quoted, against making financial gain the primary concern. It is charity, human sensitivity, and Gemilut Chesed that should be the decisive factor in human affairs, not profit.

Circumcision

2009-08-13T09:40:00.004-04:00

I am a very squeamish person. I cannot bear to look at blood, or even at TV programs about hospitals when they show some operation. I would be useless in an emergency and would certainly never, ever be able to slaughter animals or be a mohel (theory is one thing, practice altogether another). So when I have to tend a circumcision ceremony I stand as far back as I can. I am the polar opposite of the aficionados or Dracula wannabees who peer in close to take videos of the gory process. Last week I was present at the Brit of my latest grandson and made sure I was well shielded by my son-in-law.

I hate hearing babies cry, too. And even the most efficient, speedy, surgically expert circumcision is heart-wrenching. It is true the baby starts crying simply when his nether parts are exposed to the elements (in this case a typically lukewarm London summer), but the actual cut itself is over in seconds and while we hear his ongoing complaints at the indignity it has suffered, the mohel is simply bandaging up the wound. In a matter of minutes (that feel like an hour) it is over, the mandatory cup of wine is poured and the baby is happily sucking on a wine-drenched finger before it is returned to the primordial sanctuary of his mother's breast. Then, as is the norm in Jewish society, everyone gets down to the food and the drink.

I confess I do have mixed feelings. We have been doing this for thousands of years. It is one of the most significant parts of our ancient tradition. Yet I still feel a twinge, an inexplicable sense that it is all a bit primitive. At the same time, I also feel immense pride, that through thick and thin we as a people have been so loyal to this strange ritual, this act of dedication we impose on our sons. It gives us an immediate and visceral link to all the millions of Jews who have come before us who have, like me, all continued to follow, often at great self-sacrifice, our amazing and profound gift to humanity. A gift that most of humanity tries so hard to ignore, if not repudiate. It is a very moving experience. It is like so much of our religion that defies logic yet works, that appears trivial yet is profound, that strikes one as tribal and yet is also universal.

But why is circumcision so crucial? The only other physical assault on the human body is the Biblical law that imposes a pierced ear on the Hebrew slaves who prefers dependency to freedom. Otherwise the body is regarded with such reverence that even tattoos are forbidden. The bond between a human and God is not surely established by a ceremony and pain that is almost immediately forgotten. And as for noticing it later on, enough circumcised Jews have repudiated their fathers' decision. Surely commitment is in the mind and heart not the penis? Anyway is the ceremony not rather about the father's, the parents', commitment and it is this that is being passed on? And if it is so crucial to being Jewish, why does it not apply to women?

Now here is the point. I have read the endless pathetic and nasty anti-Semitic blogs and pseudo-learned essays about the evils of circumcision. I have read how it denies Jewish men the true pleasures of sex. And frankly I have laughed as I would if someone told me that having your tonsils out prevented you from enjoying food or singing. I have to say that most Jews I know do not complain about that side of the issue. That which people (wrongly) call "female circumcision" does indeed deny sexual pleasure and may be intended to; it is the permanent removal of a vital organ, which is really is excessively barbaric. But actual circumcision, as is done to males, is the removal of a totally redundant piece of skin. Not only, but evidence keeps coming in about the benefits of male circumcision in reducing the incidence of certain diseases in both men and women.

Culturally, of course, there was a time when Greeks and Romans looked down on circumcision and naked athletes of Jewish origin tried all kinds of devices to hide it, as indeed do some men in the US who seem to prefer the proboscidean state. Nowadays, what with Muslims circumcising their boys, the still common Western preferences, and Christianity happy to remind us that Jesus was circumcised on his putative eighth day it seems circumcision is mainstream.

I do often hear the complaint that there is no specific ritual to welcome girls into the covenant. But I am impressed by the mystical explanation that the regenerative blood of the monthly cycle is the female blood of the covenant, even if it is involuntary (and even if all females have it, regardless of religion). It does, after all, make up the symmetry of both reproductive organs uniting in ensuring the tradition continues.

So when all is said and done, I hate the cut and the cry, yet I am moved by context, the power of our religious tradition, the sense of continuity we are ensuring, and the feeling of shared community. As one of the most important texts of the ceremony, borrowed from the prophet and repeated at the Passover table declares, "Out of blood comes life!"

Piss Process

2009-08-06T13:02:00.003-04:00

Israel has changed dramatically from when I first went there in the 50's. In those early days of healthy Israeli pioneers, when the kibbutz movement was the country's pride and joy and the Mecca of all young European idealists, good manners was seen as the disease of the Old World Order. Every time I would automatically say "Please" or "Thank you", I would be laughed at or told that the Germans were polite and look what they did to people. Or the British Mandate soldiers for that matter, polite gentlemen who thought nothing of kicking you in the teeth, preventing Jewish immigration, and cuddling up to the Arabs. Besides, they would argue, it is plain dishonest. If you do not like someone just say so, none of this polite diplomacy. That was fine for Abba Eban at the United Nations, but what really counted was being tough, self-reliant, and brooking no nonsense.

Besides, Western European Jews had good manners and went to the slaughter like lambs, while only a few Israeli-type fighters held up the Nazis at the Warsaw Ghetto. The Lohamei HaGetaot, the fighters of the Ghetto, were the heroes, and the rest of the Holocaust survivors were regarded almost with suspicion for having survived instead of going to an honorable fighting death.

At the time Israeli machismo sounded like an attractive position. The young lions had won the War of Independence, the Suez Campaign, and would in due course accomplish the decisive Six-Day War. Up until that moment, Israel was overwhelmingly admired. Diaspora Jews who had tended to hide now felt confident enough to come out. But then Israel became an occupying power. It should have learnt from the way the West Bank Arabs welcomed the Israelis in '67 (because they got rid of the hated Hashemite occupiers) that no matter who an occupier is, he is still an occupier.

The changing mood of the world, the power of Arab oil, the insecurities of western democracies, all helped put Israel on the defensive. For years they were warned about the importance of public relations, courting the press, presentation. And for years they responded that Israel didn’t need it; her case spoke for itself and, besides, the world was all a bunch of Islamic fanatics or anti-Semites who wouldn't listen anyway so there was no point in wasting time trying.

True, no one cares for your wellbeing as much as you, yourself. Politics knows no ideals, only interests, power, and money. No one will put his own life in danger to help Israel, and the mantra of post-Holocaust secularism was "Never Again".

But the fact is that one needs allies and support and it is becoming more and more difficult to go it alone. Although, if anyone has shown it can be done, Israel almost has, with its technology and arms industries. Still, we know from recent conflicts that Israel needs supplies from the outside, and America in particular. So presentation and PR are useful tools.

Netanyahu was educated in both traditions, Sabra derring-do and American diplomacy and PR. So why is he such a disaster? Why am I embarrassed by him? He promised something more refined, someone one would be proud of, an articulate diplomat like Eban or Chaim Herzog, a good speaker, a rational mind, the brother of a war hero. But he was awful first time around, both at home and abroad. The Right Wing had no one else of stature. He has been given another chance by political machination rather than electoral victory. So you'd think he'd learn. Even Shimon Peres, despised politician for years, has mellowed into the presidency (if only he would stop talking about the Piss Prrrrocesss).

But no. Netanyahu appoints Lieberman as Foreign Minister to represent Israel abroad, an unappetizing a man of dubious financial probity, with links to all sorts of unsavory people, with a mouth that takes off before his brain clicks in. Could not be worse for Israel's image abroad. Like those Israeli tourists who clean out all the fixtures from the hotels they stay in from Turkey to Machu Picchu. Whatever other faults he had, Olmert at least put on a good show. And what does Lieberman mean by insisting Arabs accept Israel as a Jewish State? Has he considered the difference between a Jewish State and a State for Jews? How does he propose to enforce it, by pulling down people's pants at immigration? Will he expel Karta because they proudly proclaim that they are anti-Zionists who refuse to accept the State of Israel?

It is clear that not only America, but large chunks of the Jewish world do not want to be held hostage by messianic fanatics or thugs. In the end it's clear there will be compromises and adjustments. Boundaries will be redrawn. So why go on playing games? Why provoke odium and newspaper headlines by insisting on a few more new homes when you can gain credit as a reasonable man willing to consider another point of view by simply stopping now?

Why does he always feel that if he concedes on one point he has to be doubly tough on another. I know there is no honesty in politics. I know of the pressures and the bribes and the vested interests. But when Tzipi Livni spoke, for all her faults, people felt more positively, even warmly disposed to Israel, than when blustering Bibi takes the stage. Of course Israel must protect itself. But I want to feel proud when its top people talk, not embarrassed.

Maybe Obama hates Israel (an exaggerated, even neurotic reaction to his trying to compromise), but why shouldn't he try to be perceived as being an honest broker who will pressure both sides in order to achieve a peace settlement that takes each into consideration? Why choose davka THIS moment to drive out Arabs from their homes in Sheikh Jarra, even IF they were there illegally?

Every change of government I hope and pray for a change, for moral clarity. But each time I am disappointed. Another piss process.

Why fast?

2009-07-30T10:01:00.004-04:00

We have just ended a period in the Jewish tradition called "The Three Weeks" of mourning for our own disastrous ethical and political mistakes of the past. For thinking we can arrogantly control every aspect of our own destiny with no regard to external pressure or objective standards. At least we do not blame others for our misfortunes.

There are many people who argue that the fast of Tisha B'Av is redundant and should be cancelled. It is true that it commemorates two massive destructions of Jerusalem, the Temple, and our sovereign states. But those are historical events, not timeless spiritual ones of self-fulfillment, atonement, and forgiveness. Times change. Jerusalem today is, if anything, overbuilt and certainly not desolate. The Temple is indeed still destroyed, and true, we are so divided amongst ourselves that we cannot even agree on whether we actually want one, how to build it, who will run it, or whether we actually could, if we did, or whether we must wait for God to do it. But we have sovereignty over our own land. And even if we have no King David, I'm not at all convinced that monarchy is the answer to Israel's governmental problems anyway.

So why fast on Tisha B'Av, or on any of the other, minor fasts that are still in the calendar? As Zecharia 8:19 says, "Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall become times of joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts to the house of Judah; therefore love truth and peace."

Ah, you see, there's the answer in the codicil--truth and peace. And as yet we have neither.

Here is a quote from the Talmud, Sotah 49b:

"In the lead up to the Messiah, arrogance will spread and honor decrease…amongst scholars there will be immorality and no one will dare to rebuke them. Wisdom will degenerate and good men despised. Truth will be rare…the face of the generation will be like that of a dog."

Yes, like a dog. That’s how I feel when I see rabbis carted off in handcuffs. Outwardly religious or simply overtly Jewish men arraigned for corruption, money laundering, and dishonesty. And it keeps on happening year after year, sect after sect, community after community, country after country, and there is no let up. It is embarrassing when men who should know better behave like dogs.

I only hope the Mishna will be right that this is indeed a sign that God will intervene, because frankly none of our religious leaders seems capable of stopping it. Oh yes, they will excoriate us for eating the wrong food, for wearing short sleeves, for using teabags on the Sabbath, or making the wrong blessing. They will ban the use of computers, cell phones, and television, but remain silent on corruption and deceit. Some will even argue that Laws of the Land are not sacrosanct, and they will praise and honor the criminals who subsequently pass on chunks of their illegal booty to religious institutions.

That is why I fast on the Ninth of Av. Because when I read the first chapter of Isaiah that is the haftarah on the Shabbat beforehand, and I read the words he used of his generation, I realize we have not changed in nearly 3,000 years. His words still accurately and correctly apply to swathes of Jewish life today. Last week, corruption once again, in New Jersey in the USA. Rabbis involved. It makes no difference if corrupt politicians outnumbered them. It is irrelevant if others are more corrupt than we are. Should we judge ourselves by scum or pure water? I fast for my inability to make our own world a better place. I fast for the desecration of God's name WE are guilty of. I fast because we have not learnt. Because we make money our god, and because not one of the so-called Great Rabbis of our generation comes out publicly and condemns corruption the way they do any petty minor infringement of their own political and social standards.

Think of Sodom and Gomorrah. Indeed, Isaiah makes the comparison. The Torah in Genesis (13:13) says, "And the men of Sodom were evil sinners to God exceedingly." But if you look carefully at the traditional punctuation, there is a comma between "sinners" and "to God exceedingly". I wish I knew who first made the point that the verse, if read according to its punctuation, really says, "And the men of Sodom were evil sinners," take a deep breath, "[But with regard] to God [they were] exceedingly [pious]!" That is how it is nowadays. All outwardly holy and pious, but inwardly rotten to the core.

There's another crucial line in the first chapter of Isaiah. "Had it not been for a tiny minority, we would be no better than Sodom and comparable to Gomorrah." Thank goodness for the tiny minority. But sadly, it is all but silent. And for as long as this is the situation, Tisha B'Av remains as relevant as ever. Because we are in danger of destroying ourselves once again, if not physically then certainly morally.

Generalizations

2009-07-23T18:19:00.003-04:00

Oh, how we love generalizations, such as blonds are dumb, men are chauvinist pigs, Poles are stupid, Romanians steal, and the Scots are mean. All non-Jews hate Jews. All Jews are money-obsessed. All Christians are missionaries. All Muslims are terrorists. All Israelis love humiliating Palestinians, and all Palestinians love killing Israelis. All blacks are rappers or welfare dependants. All Mexicans are drug dealers. The British are pompous. The French are arrogant. The Italians corrupt. The Spaniards are cruel. New Yorkers, Floridians, and Angelinos all exhibit specific and generic characteristics.

Each group or people or religion that is generalized about is then guilty of exactly the same offence in generalizing about everyone else! And if that were not enough, within each set there are generalizations too. All Reform Jews think all Orthodox Jews are fundamentalists who put the letter of the law above the spirit. All Orthodox Jews think Reform Jews are only stopping off for a minute on their inexorable assimilation out of Judaism. And all Conservative Jews are accused by both sides of being indecisive prevaricators whose left hands do not know what their right hands are doing.

When I first met Americans from Brooklyn, when I was a student in Israel many years ago, they had a scale of generalizations that declared that all Jews were automatically better than all non-Jews, all white non-Jews were automatically better than all black non-Jews, and the only exceptions were Lubavitch Hassidim who were worse than all black non-Jews.

Even within ultra-Orthodoxy, many Lithuanians make fun of Hassidim. And within Hassidim, some sects refuse to speak to splitters within the dynasties, let alone to other Hassidic groups outside. And yet generalizations are dangerous, wrong, and simply childish. Just because so many non-Jews use overly simplistic generalizations against us, why should we only pick up their worst habits?

It is a complete myth to think that all Charedi Jews are brain-dead fundamentalists. Just as it is rubbish to claim they are all lazy layabouts who do no work and rely entirely on charity. Some of course are and do, but not all by any means. Many I am close to are fully aware of the failings and limitations of Charedi life. But they are also protective of the many positive sides to the Charedi world, not least the incredible chesed (charity), and the intellectual brilliance and dedication to study for its own sake. But to believe they all think and act the same is just another crass generalization.

I spent quite a few years of my life in Meah Shearim, the hot core of Charedi life in Jerusalem. I loved it. I met saints and sinners. Overall I encountered a collection of caring, highly charitable, devoted, often saintly, and mostly nice people. True, there were madmen and fanatics, and no doubt bitches too (but we yeshiva bochurim were never allowed to mix, so I couldn’t tell). But I could tell you that often on hot Shabbat afternoons, when most people were having a Shabbes shluff, laid out by heavy dollops of cholent and cupfuls of cheap sweet wine, the youngsters would go out onto the streets to throw stones at passing cars.

During Beyn HaZmanim, breaks in the academic year (well hardly academic, but heavy study nevertheless), the numbers rose because for many this was the only recreation they ever got. Sure, there were a few mentally challenged adults in amongst them, but mainly they were very naughty boys out for fun. The cat was away and the mice went out to play.

Recent demonstrations against the current trivial issue, specifically a municipal car park, have angered the new secular mayor of Jerusalem. I can understand. But his response according to reports in the press, is to shut off all municipal services to Meah Shearim. The idjit! This is collective punishment of the silliest and meanest kind that will affect issues such as sewage and refuse collection, endangering the whole area. It will impact on the innocent as much as the guilty. It certainly will not help heal anything or rectify.

Spraying the demonstrators with water cannons of foul-smelling liquid might be a better idea (except, now I think of it, many of the Charedi youngsters smell pretty ropey to begin with). At least it would target the actual demonstrators. Unless, of course, the aim is to get the parents to rein in their errant offspring. But as England discovered when it tried to deal this way with its school truants, charging parents makes no difference, because most of the miscreants are out of parental control anyway.

I am sorry to have to say that this practice of collective punishment has been used for years against whole Palestinian communities for the sins of a few. And it is a truism that if you get used to treating your enemies inhumanely you will end up treating your own this way too. The chickens have come home to roost.

Mayor Barkat’s response is just typical of secular Jews who lump all Charedi Jews together. And if he does this with one group he will go on to do it with others.

I know I’m sometimes guilty of generalizations myself. The Charedi rabbinate is too strict, too out of touch, too insular, too political whatever. And there are indeed discernable patterns. My criticisms are often voiced by others within the Charedi world too. It is so important to be able to criticize and express a different point of view. But one must not give in to the easy tendency to generalize, and I guess this message is as much aimed at me as it is at others!

Jewish Women

2009-07-15T14:18:00.004-04:00

There are of course Jewish women and Jewish women, and any generalization on either word is plain silly. But Jewish women who wish to remain loyal to the religious tradition in all its Divine magnificence and Human interference can, if they step out of line or try to deal with rabbinic authority, have a very tough time.

In 1994 admirable UK community leader, Rosalind Preston OBE, produced a report on the state of Jewish women in the UK. It highlighted the overwhelming feeling that women were excluded from communal leadership, that Orthodox institutions gave them no voice, and they suffered disabilities in their encounter with rabbinic authority, and felt disadvantaged by Jewish Law. Britain is different than the USA because it is a community in which Orthodox authority dominates. Many of the issues are not relevant in Reform communities, which have their own specific problems to deal with. At the time, well-meaning rabbis in the UK assured Mrs. Preston that they would deal with the problems. I knew it was all window dressing and PR and that nothing would change. Fifteen years later nothing has changed. I was accused then of being a cynical rebel for predicting this.

The Board has just produced a new report, "Connection, Continuity and Community: British Jewish Women Speak Out". You would not know it was not written in 1994. For it only reiterates that nothing has changed. Any community that disenfranchises, ignores or underestimates its female talent, cuts off 50% or more of its pool of talent, must be stark raving mad. It is a symptom of atrophy, conformity and mediocrity. This cannot make sense and it is one of the reasons why the UK suffers a serious Jewish brain drain (including every one of my parents' children).

It is true that UK Jewry is small in number, weak in academic institutions, and limited in talent. But still there are plenty of examples of how things can happen outside of and despite the establishment. It is the evil of British institutional authority, the dead hand of the establishment, the exclusion of talent from the hierarchy, that is as much to blame for wasting potential as the sad complacency, not to say cowardice, of most rabbinic leadership, and the marginalization of the few who would see change.

Of course there are many, many Orthodox women who are perfectly happy, who live fulfilled lives and, within their parameters, do a tremendous amount of good (and it helps if you have lots of money). But just as I believe a just society can be judged by how it treats its poorest and most disadvantaged citizens, so the test of a successful system is how it deals with those who do not fit in or who come up against the system. On all those counts Orthodoxy in the UK has failed far more obviously than either Israel or the USA, the two main Jewish communities of the world today, and I am not claiming for one minute that all is rosy in either of those places, either.

It cannot be right, nor can it be justified, that women are in any way disadvantaged under Jewish law. But they are. Husbands blackmail over divorce and too many rabbis only encourage them. Recalcitrant or absentee husbands will not release ex-wives to remarry and the authorities wash their hands and pretend there is no solution. In previous generations, rabbis took steps to redress grievances. This is not an academic or halachic piece so I am not going to cite chapter and verse, but I can assure you that legal literature is replete with evidence that a thousand years ago rabbis were more gutsy and less mentally paralyzed, indeed less politicized, than they are today, and were not afraid to use their authority and actually force divorce or annul marriages if nothing else worked.

Jewish Law does allow for ways of redressing the balance; it is a scandal that we have to rely on civil courts to do our own religious dirty work. If the boot were on the other foot and men were at a disadvantage, believe you me, they would soon find a halachic way of sorting it out. Nothing casts Jewish Law in a more negative light than the implication it is stymied and needs other systems to help it out of a fix of its own creation.

I fail to understand the argument that Jewish law does not allow women to be appointed to leadership roles, because according to Maimonides the Torah only talks about appointing kings. Why no earlier source than a man living under Islam? So better a dumb male than a bright female? When Deborah was a Judge, or Queen Salome Alexandra cleaned up the messes her husbands made, were the authorities then unaware of Torah? How much of our current paralysis stems from living so long under Christian and Muslim regimes that considered women inferior and put pressure on us to toe the line?

I am in favor of ritual differences. I do think we need to encourage more and different and female forms of spirituality, instead of butchering existing models that were not designed to be all things for all people. Why would one want to conflate Lithuanian and Hassidic prayer, instead of retaining variety and offering options? But when it comes to the equivalent of civil law, there can be no situation that leaves women, disadvantaged and in tears. According to His own words, the tears of the oppressed offend God, and yet too many rabbis act as if that did not matter.

The JFS

2009-07-08T17:03:00.002-04:00

"The Law is an Ass," said Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist. And if that is so, then some rabbis are even bigger asses.

The English courts have decided that the rabbis who determined the entrance policy of the JFS (the Jews Free School, a large state-supported Jewish day school in London) have contravened the Race Relations Act. It refuses to admit children where the mother's conversion to Judaism is suspect according to their criteria.

Unlike other community Jewish schools throughout the world, the JFS's religious position is controlled by the established Church of Anglo Jewry, the United Synagogue and its ecclesiastical authorities. So that if elsewhere children recognized as Jewish by other denominations and other ecclesiastical authorities are allowed to attend community Jewish schools, in England they are not.

The usual pathetic argument is that if you have children of doubtful Jewish identity mixing with those who are definitely Jewish this encourages intermarriage and will lead to confusion. It is so myopic, it leads inevitably to saying a Jewish child should never mix with any other Jew of different religious background or any non-Jew for fear of ending up falling in love and marrying out. It implies that reasonable adults are incapable of making choices. If ever there was an example of religious insecurity this must be it. And sadly it abounds.

It was my policy when principal of Carmel to accept children from homes where one parent was not Jewish, if I was convinced the parents and child really wanted a Jewish education and would be prepared to rectify the status issue at a later date, and so long as everyone was aware of the present status. Most of such pupils eventually did rectify their Jewish status in a committed way. So I regret nothing because frankly Judaism has been enriched by them.

The Charedi world doesn't have a problem because its schools really do apply only religious criteria. However technically Jewish a person may be, if he or his parents do not come up to their religious standards they don’t get in. Got a TV at home? You're out! Now if a private school wants to apply religious or academic criteria, whether one agrees or not, it can. And this would of course exclude many Jews who are not religious, just as it might exclude many who are not so bright (and yes there really are stupid Jews).

But petty Anglo Jewish Orthodoxy has created this absurd situation where children who might be religious but whose parents are not considered Jewish because their conversions are challenged cannot get in. But most pupils in the JFS are not at all religious. They might meet the criteria of identity through maternal birthline, what exactly, ask the Judges are these criteria? They cannot be religious because non religious kids attend. So they must be something else. And why aren't the current nominally Orthodox parents worried that their offspring will sit next to bacon-fressing Jews and then marry into a family where religious practice is reviled? If that is acceptable why not have children of Reform conversions who only eat kosher? Clearly it is not a matter of religion but something more insidious. But ethnic identity is not necessarily racial. That’s where the law is an ass.

According to English law, the JFS has contravened the race laws and stands accused of racial discrimination! That Judaism is a race is, of course, absurd and only used by anti-Semites as a false argument to berate us with. All criteria of race are genetic and Judaism has no hint of racial discrimination in its laws.

"Jews", the appeals court has determined (or rather, confirmed), "constitute a racial group defined principally by ethnic origin and additionally by conversion." Well blow me down with a left-handed goose quill. That is like saying "The big toe, as defined by digits on the right hand." Are Jews a race, based on genetic make-up? No, because anyone of any race may become a Jew. Are Jews all members of a religion? No because many self-proclaimed Jews refuse to have anything to do with religion. The Torah has no word for "religion", only "people".

What is Judaism? Most Jews cannot agree on who is a Jew. Israel cannot agree. But the English judges know! They have simply exchanged one ambiguous term for another. Ethnic origin? Pray, tell me what that is? Are Muslims a religion, a race, an ethnic group, or a football team? The fact is that definitions are usually dangerous, misleading, and ultimately wrong. We are humans and we need to treat each other the way we ourselves would like to be treated. (Where have I heard that before?)

That means that the law's job, in a democratic society, is not to define but to protect citizens of a state and treat them equally. It means that any state-funded religion, or ethnic group, or golf club should not be allowed to discriminate on any grounds other than preventing others interfering with or degrading the life and amenities of members.

If you allow religions to function, then they must be allowed to function within their own parameters so long as they do not damage or injure other citizens. Religions, like clubs, are voluntary. The French system makes more sense. In the Public Sphere there is no room for religion. Religions fund themselves. Similarly, in the USA, where government may not encroach on religion, denominational schools can apply for government aid to be used for purposes other than religious instruction. Once again I repeat, where religions are freed from state involvement and bureaucracy they flourish.

The British problem is, as always, fudging boundaries. If it supports a Jewish or a Catholic or a Muslim school, it is doing so for anyone who wishes to live or be educated that specific religious way. Therefore the courts were right to say anyone who wants a Jewish religious education should be allowed to receive one. But that is on the basis of equity and fairness, nothing at all to do with race or how you define religious identity.

Had the JFS not been under the dead hand of ecclesiastical authorities, it could, as most community schools around the world do, say that whoever wants to benefit from its kind of education and will participate positively is welcome. Had that been the case Anglo Jewry would not have needed to stump up more millions for yet another school, the Jewish Community Secondary School, to provide just that. Let alone fritter away sparse money defending an indefensible position. But no, once you let clerics get involved they invariably screw things up.

Amazingly this mess is more Anglo Jewry's own fault because in addition to the pettiness of its ecclesiastical authorities, those who claim to represent Anglo Jews decided to agree and push to have Jews classified as a race to benefit from the Race Relations Act!! I ask you.

Those who sow the petty wind, reap the vindictive whirlwind.

Sex Abuse

2009-07-02T17:36:00.004-04:00

A recent book Tempest in the Temple: Jewish Communities and Child Sex Scandals (Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, & Life), contains essays from a wide range of professional and rabbinical contributors. They highlight the issues and the tendency of parts of the Jewish world, in common with so many other "enclavist" religious communities, to try to hide or ignore serious human failure and avoid facing reality. I am pleased I was asked to write a preface. The current situation is a betrayal of essential religious and ethical values. In practice self-interest and self-preservation seems to trump God every time.

Some communal figures have tried at various times, on both sides of the Atlantic and in Israel, to come to grips with these issues. But invariably they too are pressurized and undermined. New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind, was so disturbed by the evidence presented to him of abuse that he entered the fray to name and shame. He described the pressure exerted on him from Charedi sources as a "learning experience". The Charedi world is very good at exercising pressure and getting round the law of the land. In a different recent scandal, a Charedi prisoner was given highly preferential treatment because of the powerful influence of a top Satmarer fixer whose reach extended to the prison governor.

In a recent case in the USA, a Charedi teacher was sued for sexual abuse of minors. The victim and his family, as usual, were pressured to drop charges instead of being supported. The teacher himself continues to function openly and all efforts are being directed to get the case dropped instead of prosecuted! Over the years ultra-Orthodoxy and obstructionism have been virtually synonymous. Why?

Orthodox defendants always claim they are being hounded because they are different. They argue that social services and legal authorities do not fully understand the inner workings and sensitivities of different communities. And often they are right. I have heard similar complaints from Muslims in North London, blacks in South London, Sikhs in West London, and Africans in the East End. But the culture of victimization, whether used by Jews or blacks or Muslims, invariably leads to cover-ups which perpetuate even greater suffering and evil.

And doctrinaire attitudes on the part of Democratic or Left Wing agencies do not help. Legislation is proposed in New York by Assemblywoman Margaret Markey to change the laws regarding child sexual abuse in private schools to allow for a longer time frame to prosecute. The religious lobbies, Catholic and Charedi contend that Markey's bill would allow the filing of suits against religious schools based on alleged abuse that may have taken place decades before and might be too difficult to defend and similar legislation is not being proposed for state schools. Why? The answer of course is the power of the Teachers Unions who dogmatically oppose religious education. This clearly looks like victimization against religion, and as a result the bill is being blocked. Actually, the latest is that petty, corrupt wrangling between NY State politicians has frozen all legislation for another year at least! So let us not only blame religion!

In recent weeks two more awful cases of sexual abuse have emerged. Both of them concern ultra-Orthodox men, apparently respected in the community. One was sentenced to 30 years for sexually abusing his daughter. Particularly poignant was the fact that other daughters sided with the perpetrator--a typical indication of how people living in closed communities too often rally round to defend the wrong side of the case. In another scandal, a Jewish social services network specifically set up to deal with such problems simply did not do its job and allowed a pedophile to continue on his path of destruction until secular authorities finally stepped in. The culture of self-protection is perpetuated. And it is not just over this issue.

A recent piece in The Forward paper asked for responses from Jews of different denominations a year after the notorious Rubashkin scandal in Postville, where the Orthodox owners had been abusing not only kosher practice but also civil law. The Charedi respondent focussed on the unfair prosecution and the victimization of the Rubashkins. The others were more concerned with ethical issues, immigration abuse, improper employment and management, and other examples that have besmirched Orthodoxy, in other words chillul HaShem, desecrating the good name of Heaven and Israel. Once again the self-protective mechanisms lock into place and other issues are sidelined.

There are at last signs that the Charedi community is waking up to how much damage it is doing to itself by defending the indefensible and by not coming out with unambiguous condemnation. In Israel the courts have intervened both to prosecute and extradite sexual abusers. But sadly, none of this will amount to anything as long as a mindset continues to exist within much of the Charedi community that rubbishes anything that come from outside it, encourages evasion and deception in dealing with governmental agencies, and victimizes those who speak out (like beating them up on the streets of Stamford Hill). And indeed until pork barrel politics stops exchanging favors for votes. Until these issues are addressed, more and more human souls will be damaged and the perpetrators protected by those who ought to be dealing with them.

So much in life is about perception. Even if some Orthodox objection to aspects of bills might be understandable, the public perception once again is that the God Squad rallies round to protect itself, even at the expense of its own victims. This cannot do religion any good at all. It is just the same with issues such as the Aguna or Divorce Law. All Orthodoxy is seen as doing is obstructing. It needs rather to be shouting from the rooftops that the situation is intolerable and its religious leaders will not stand for it.

It is indeed a matter of PR. You see it in Israel's public response, too. Instead of saying, "Yes we absolutely want and are committed to peace", and then raise valid qualifications, they consistently say things like, "No peace until..." Just as rabbis like to say, "No you can't, it's forbidden", and then find themselves having to qualify or clarify. Imagine if every lover started off a profession of love with, "These are things that are wrong with you, but and nevertheless, I love you!!!"

The hopeful side is that the more publicity, the more books and documentation that expose the problem, the more the chances of change, however slowly the wheels turn.

Tammuz and Baddies

2009-06-25T18:04:00.004-04:00

We have entered the Hebrew month of Tammuz, named after the Babylonian and Sumerian god Tammuz. Tammuz begins the Summer solstice and in ancient times this meant that the god of plenty died as the fierce summer heat took control of the skies. God Tammuz died and good pagan women went into mourning. Look at Ezekiel 8:14 for confirmation.

You may wonder whether it is coincidence that we Jews now begin mourning in the month of Tammuz for the loss of Jerusalem, the Temple, and our land, twice in history, precisely during Tammuz. Bad things happen in Tammuz. And frankly in the homeland of Tammuz, as I write, Muslim clerics are ordering their thugs to kill innocent human beings simply because they protest, peacefully, at the abuses of said clerics. If this is what religion stands for they can keep it!

No doubt neophyte academics eager to make a reputation will suggest the actual invasions and destructions of 586 BCE and 70 CE never took place and it is all a myth. Awkward that non-Jewish archaeology confirms the events, but that’s never got in the way of a good theory before. Still, what is a Sumerian god doing amongst the Jewish months? Indeed, if you look at what months are mentioned in the Bible and which are not, and which came to be officially recognized some 1700 years ago when we fixed our calendar, you can only conclude that external factors were an influence on language and usage.

Judaism has never existed in a vacuum, not even in the Wilderness. We always have been, and we still continue to be, influenced by external forces and cultures in one way or another. Thankfully our abuses or religion are less lethal. According to the great Jewish historian, Jacob Katz, and Israel Yuval, medieval Jews reacted to Christian Piety and monastic revivals by adopting a even stricter code of dress and ascetic custom. Maimonides created new theological responses to Islamic pressure. The Hassidic adoption of Polish baronial dress, complete with fur hats, was hardly a Mosaic custom. And the tendency to withdraw behind ever-increasing strictness was a response to the challenges of assimilation and reform.

Now it seems the Torah world is trying its best to rival Islam for severity. Fifty bus routes in Jerusalem now enforce sexual segregation with women at the back. That’s interesting. Why not men at the back? But we all know that is a stupid question. I lived in Jerusalem for six years at various times between 1957 and 1967. And I travelled on urban and interurban buses all the time. Not once did I ever come across a segregated bus.

Even down in holy Meah Shearim, where I lived for the last four of those years, did I ever notice a Charedi man object to getting on the unsegregated buses that went through Meah Shearim. Yes, they objected to semi-nudity and looked the other way when secular exhibitionists seemed to think their effulgent boobs were something that others might want to admire. And I did often notice men try to sit down next to other men (and in those days no one thought anything about that, but of course times have changed on that issue too).

So are we to assume that all those religious and saintly men and women were wrong and repeated their sins year in and year out for tens of years and only now the truth has emerged and purity can only be achieved by segregation?

One of the delights of living in Meah Shearim was being able to read the almost daily anonymous wall posters, pashkevilin, that would appear, complaining about anything from Zionism to nudity (or one rebbe excoriating another as a low-life heretic). They would always start off with the same formula, "Woe to the ears who have heard it and tingle the eyes who have seen it and weep", and go on to declare that, say, a brand of apple was known to be infested by Zionist bugs or some such catastrophe.

But things are getting worse, not better. Where is evolution? Why are we becoming so incredibly petty and small-minded? Why do we see danger in every new invention? Why after tens of years of eating the Israeli junk food, Bamba, are we suddenly caught up in a war between rabbis who argue as to whether one should bless this way over it or that?

Why? It is simply because if our Muslim brothers are going madder and more extreme, we cannot be left behind. And believe me dear reader it might be buses today but it will be chadors and burkas tomorrow. Actually, I believe burkas have already arrived in parts of Beth Shemesh and Safed. And the more the secular world uncovers, the more we need to wrap our cloaks around us tighter and tighter. See that's what happens--you start with Tammuz and you end up with naked elbows. The descendants of the very good Jews who were seduced by the Midianites into sexual depravity dare not see a woman for fear they will not be able to control themselves.

Modesty is terribly important, as a mental and physical state, all the more so as much of secular society believes everyone should have every pubic hair on the human body shoved in one's face and rolls of naked flesh are beautiful and should be flaunted. I approve of halachic limitations on how much you show in public. The imagination is almost always more attractive than the reality. I do not believe in "doing it in the road" or "letting it all hang out". But neither do I believe in the ostrich mentality that seeks to lock women up behind closed doors because men don’t know how to control themselves. Ah, that feels better. Now back to mourning.

Italy

2009-06-18T21:12:00.004-04:00

I love Italy. From Garibaldi to Mussolini to Berlusconi, its leaders have been puffed-up, plausible, self-important operatic heroes and womanizers, all song and show and little substance. Or else shady villains like Andreotti, in league with the Mafia, the Camorra, or the Ndraghetta, doing whatever it took to advance their private agenda. Italy is by most objective standards a disaster. By rights, it ought to be a failed state. No one pays taxes or obeys the law. Yet it seems to thrive economically. Its academic institutions are third rate, overcrowded, and incompetent, yet it produces great academics, writers, artists, and designers. Its judiciary is corrupt and its prosecutors usually end up assassinated and yet somehow there are those honest and idealistic few who simply persevere. It is riddled with clerics but then so it is with Marxists and Anarchists. And its bureaucracy makes Israel look positively competent.

Italy is heaven (after God has gone on vacation). Think of its sun, history, countryside, beaches, art, music, food and wine, Puccini, Rossini, and Verdi. There is a passion, a joi de vivre about Italy that you will not find in any other Mediterranean or European country.

Not only, but Italy under Berlusconi is probably the European state most positively inclined towards the Jews. Yes I know there a darker side but Italy was the first to step up to the plate and refuse to go along with the racist farce that the UN Committee of Human Rights put on in Geneva. At first I thought it was just Berlusconi liking to stick his third finger up at the world whenever he can. But I have just read a book Between Mussolini and Hitler by Daniel Carpi that shows that Italians (rather than Italy) played a very significant role in thwarting Nazi designs on their Jews.

It is not that Italians loved Jews particularly. After all the record of Papal anti-Semitism is not pleasant. The abduction of Edgar Mortara in the nineteenth century showed Catholic authority at its most venal. But to be fair the subsequent outcry in Italy was instrumental in creating a new secular state. No, Italian attitude towards Jews is based more on the fact that they were and are bloody-minded. When, in World War II, a more powerful ally tried to bully them into getting rid of their Jews, they found ingenious and typically Italian ways of responding obstructively while appearing polite, cooperative, and incompetent.

Of course, Mussolini was Hitler's ally. Although he declared in an article printed in the New York Times on 25 June 1936, "Jews have had, presently have, and will continue to have the same treatment as any other Italian citizen, and there is no place in my mind for any form of racial or religious discrimination," in typical Mussolini fashion he introduced anti-Jewish legislation in 1938. Some said he did so only to please his German allies, and it is true enforcement was notoriously Italian, lax, inconsistent, and halfhearted.

The Italians certainly suffered from an inferiority complex vis-a-vis the Germans. So that although they were allies, the Italians did not always do what the Germans required of them. This was so in the Balkans and particularly in Vichy France. In general the French were even more enthusiastic than the Germans in hunting down Jews and packing them off to their deaths.

The Italians had occupied a sector of France adjoining their territory. At first the French tried to put pressure on the Italians to hand over their Jews. That didn't work. Then the Italians started to pressurize the French, in turn, to release Jews to their sector. At the same time they had to contend with pressure from the Germans to get tougher with their own Jews. And this is where the Italians did brilliantly in a series of maneuvers that stymied the Nazis. Of course in the end Mussolini was deposed. The Nazis marched in and took over northern Italy to stop the Allied advance; they were responsible for those Italian Jews who died in the Holocaust. But before that happened, the Italians took steps that were amazing, amusing, and typical.

They knew beyond doubt what the Germans were up to (of course, so did everyone else but they could not have cared less). "The German authorities do not conceal the aim they have set themselves. They confirm their willingness to exterminate the Jewish race completely and they justify this total extermination as humanitarian action because it would restore the European peoples to health," wrote Dino Alfieri, the Italian Ambassador in Berlin to Rome in 1942.

So to keep their ally happy, the Italians reiterated their agreement with Nazi policy while instructing the army to protect Jews and indeed move them into the remote Alps out of the reach of the French and the Germans. When the Nazis realized this, the Italian government apologized and instructed the army to hand over responsibility for dealing with Jews to the police. The Nazis were delighted because they thought the Italian police were like the German police, tools of the SS.

Then they discovered the police were protecting the Jews. So the Italians reassured them by setting up the "Department of Race Police". At its head was a man called Lospinoso, who claimed he knew nothing at all about the Jews and the Jewish problem and needed time to study the situation, formulate policies, and then report back to Rome. All the while, he was working with Jewish activists to get Jews out of harm's way. But in the end, the Nazis deposed Mussolini, invaded and took control.

As I read Carpi's book, in between my anger at the French and Germans, I was torn between gratitude and laughter for the seemingly bumbling incompetence of the Italians, their injured pride and need to preserve their dignity and Bella Figura. And I thought thank goodness for them.

That's precisely why I love Italy--in the end, it is life that supersedes all else and to hell with laws and regulations as long as we can have a good time and live well. That, within a spiritual framework of course, is actually what the Torah means when it says, "Laws are there to help us live." Without life what is the point of the law? Salute!

D-Day

2009-06-14T18:03:00.002-04:00

This year in the run up to D-Day and the Allied invasion of the Nazi Empire of Death in June 1944, several books have appeared that revisit the past. One, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor, has rightly been critically acclaimed. In addition to its documentation of the invasion, amongst other controversial issues, it goes into detail describing the Allied disregard for human life and property as they advanced through Normandy. Not even the justest of wars is without its abuses.

Apart from sickos, I have not yet heard it said that the Allies were wrong to destroy the Nazi regime. Even those who excoriate what they see as Allied excesses, such as the bombing of Dresden or of Bomber Command, moral relativity has not yet (though no doubt it will) descended to depravity in declaring that the Allies should have sought a deal that would have reduced casualties but left the Nazis intact. One of the reasons, of course, was the evidence everyone had of the unbelievable barbarity of the Germans and their partners in depravity. This was why the president of the United States visited a concentration camp on his way to commemorate D-Day, precisely to underscore the distinction between wars and just wars.

In Judaism, one of the definitions of a Just War, Milchemet Mitzva, is war of self defence, and this issue comes up indirectly in Beevor's book when discussing the way Nazi soldiers battled on against overwhelming odds against the Allies. Beevor suggests they were brave defenders of their land, battling to the end only to be dealt no quarter by the Russians coming in from the east. But defenders of what? Defenders of death camps? In reality, they fought on because they knew damn well what evils and atrocities they had been committing, and rightly expected no quarter, the cornered beast.

This is one reason why I find so much history of the Second World War so unpleasant to read. It is why I cannot bear the sort of BBC or PBS documentaries that interview old Nazis who sit there proudly and dispassionately talking military tactics and efficiency in dispatching the enemy, when they were the very ones supporting a regime of the greatest inhumanity the world has seen. The German people and the German soldiers knew well enough the nature of the regime they were supporting and willingly supped with the devil and directly benefited from the booty and the loot. So when these barbarians fight "bravely" for their lives and their crazed leader, is this something we should commend or admire?

One of the reasons I believe that Israel is still morally superior to its enemies and detractors is that, for all its faults (and who has none?), its society has produced a massive amount of literature and film that decries the awful waste and degradation of war and the human tragedy that affects victor and vanquished alike.

Not a Cannes Festival goes by nowadays without at least one film baring the Israeli pacifist soul, and a healthy thing it is too. Arab society bans such offerings. Similarly, I see a moral difference, without excuse, between crimes committed during the heat of battle and the slow, calculated, vile torture, evisceration and mutilation of bodies afterwards in which Israel's enemies specialize, from Lebanon, Gaza, and Ramallah to Mumbai (one reason why in the War of Israeli independence the wounded often dispatched themselves rather than fall into Arab hands).

But where were the films and literature produced in cultured and literate Germany while they were destroying Jewish children? And if the answer is negative because they were frightened of the regime, then tell me why they fought to the bitter end to defend it?

I doubt the Allies fought a moral war. It was one of survival. No country in continental Europe, except Denmark, behaved in a civilized manner. The French were even more determined to get rid of Jews than the Germans, though they were delighted to let them do the dirty work. Had not the Americans joined the British in fighting the Germans, I would not be alive today. That is why I celebrate the victory and regard the outcome of the war as a miracle that defied logic and nature. Yet a younger generation of Europeans who have no inkling of history fail to understand why Israel so doggedly fights for its survival and independence.

I used to think conflicts were between two rights. And I certainly accept the rights of all peoples to self-determination. But I still believe that one can and one needs to see moral disparity where it exists. WWII was not just a military contest between two professional armies. It was a battle between free societies and one that was absolute evil. And that is why for as long as supporters of Hezbollah and Hamas are determined never, ever to recognize a Jewish presence and employ the crudest of anti-Semitism in their armory, Israel must not lay down its arms. Peace must be pursued regardless, but moral values must be seen to win. Capitulation to a primitive mindset in the misguided hope that this will lead to peace would be the same error that Chamberlain made in 1939.

There was a neurotic outcry from some rejectionists in Israel that Obama made a comparison of equivalence between the Palestinians and the Holocaust. But actually he neither said nor implied anything of the sort. On the contrary, he was saying that opposing the Nazis was an unconditional mandate for civilized mankind. But supporting the Palestinian cause is a moral issue that, while it must be addressed, still requires reciprocity. Otherwise, the lessons of World War II will be forgotten as avoiding conflict becomes the only good.

Dogma

2009-06-05T19:50:00.001-04:00

Dogma: system of doctrines proclaimed by religious authorities to be true. Religion is indeed dogmatic. But politics is worse, with less excuse (and when it is not dogmatic it is corrupt).

Obama is the new Super Hero. Rave reviews of his Cairo speech. Though did you notice glum silence when he spoke about anti-Semitism or rights for Jews or recognizing Israel but applause for everything else? We hear what we want to and we block out what we don't. That's human nature.

Words are fine. What about actions? People forget that Obama rose up through the ranks of the Democratic Party of the United States and, as I predicted, is more or less enslaved to it. The Democratic Party, not unlike the old British Labor Party of Hugh Gaitskell and Michael Foot, is wedded to ideological positions that not only make no sense but are often damaging.

The Democrats are opposed in principle to school vouchers. They like to claim they are in favor of giving people choice, and so they are on issues such as abortion. But when choice conflicts with doctrine they suddenly become dogmatic and prescriptive. The school voucher system, where State schools are manifestly failing, would give parents funds--less than the cost of educating a child in the state system, but enough to pay for a better private education. All the evidence shows that disadvantaged children do better academically this way than if they stay in poor state schools.

But powerful teachers unions, who contribute massively to Democrat funds and have their lackeys in significant positions in the party, refuse to countenance the idea because they are dogmatically wedded to state schools no matter how awful they are. The teachers unions have been in the forefront of preventing schools from sacking poor teachers, removing failing principals, or paying more to teachers who work harder and achieve superior results.

They remind me of everything regressive and destructive in UK Trades Unionism that Margaret Thatcher almost succeeded in sweeping away entirely. The only remnants are the same teachers unions in the UK who, with their political pawns, are responsible for the pathetic state of English public education today. Heaven forefend free enterprise should be allowed to do it better if it can (otherwise, if it fails, it closes and that's an end to it). Obama is supposedly in favor of choice. So why has he thrown his weight behind this decision of the Democratic congress to withdraw vouchers in Washington from children who have been shown to have done better when they were given choice?

True the voucher system was supported by Bush and the Republicans so that it itself is sufficient grounds to condemn it in the eyes of his opponents, regardless of whether it works or not. What is more, many private schools are religious schools. So here too is an offense against Democratic Nostra that must be punished.

The cost of private education in the USA is astronomical, particularly for those of us brought up on state subsidized schooling in the UK. A child in a Jewish school in New York costs its parents around $30,000 a year. And you pay that after having paid close to 50% of your income in taxes in some States. If you had four children you would need to earn $240,000 a year just to pay for education alone. So it is hardly surprising that Orthodox Jews and Catholics, wedded to the values of religious education, and with large families, campaign for vouchers, whereas others line up with those who oppose anything that smacks of state support for religion.

Still the main issue is dogma. I have lived through the destruction of the English education system by socialist dogma. Selective grammar schools that gave poor, able children the chance to rise to the top were scrapped. Secondary modern schools that provided sound, basic vocational training and skills for industry were scrapped. It is true that there were strong social arguments against selective education, streaming children at 11 in ways that greatly influenced their futures. But, with a few notable exceptions, the "comprehensive schools" that replaced them met the needs of neither group.

Throwing everyone together, able with remedial, motivated with antisocial, refusing to remove disruptive elements, led to the values-less, education-less chaos that characterizes most of the state system in the UK today. It was precisely this that led to the explosion in Jewish schools that offered some semblance of discipline, cohesion, and pro-educational motivation. My father attended a simple state school nearly a hundred years ago that served him brilliantly and inspired him. That was why the vast majority of Anglo-Jewish parents were content to send their children to non-Jewish schools. Until dogma ruined them.

For all the billions that have been poured into state education, the results in the Western World are very disappointing. Graduates of the old Russian system, which was selective and authoritarian, have enriched the countries that have absorbed them since the collapse of the USSR, notably Israel and the USA. Both of which had state systems that once were envied and now are derided.

This doctrinaire approach to education, instead of an open-market innovative approach, is the result not only of vested interests but of a quasi religious fundamentalist belief that defies logic and experience. I am not saying Saint Obama is a bad President; on the contrary. But I am saying that he, a politician, is as hampered by dogma as any ecclesiastic.

And what is true of home affairs is also true of foreign affairs. By all means talk the talk. That is what I have been arguing Israel needs to do, for ages. But only invest in what actually works. Wishing is not enough. Until the USA gets involved with actions, not words, putting peace keepers on the ground, not wishing leopards change spots, wishing a hostile world to like him more will achieve nothing more than feel good.

I have no truck with those who build outposts in the West Bank for provocative or messianic reasons. I cannot trust a state system that forbids illegal settlements with one voice and encourages with another. But equally, I have no truck for appeasement and the craven desire to be loved. Push Israel towards peace indeed, but Obama still needs to read Machiavelli. And that goes for schools and states.

Ruth and Moses

2009-05-28T19:54:00.001-04:00

Regardless of Shavuot's pastoral origins, the emphasis on Torah and the anniversary of the Sinai Revelation is now the dominant theme. What was once a rare kabbalistic custom of staying up all night to study, the Tikkun, has become pretty universal. For example, in the Manhattan JCC on Thursday night there will be thousands of Jews of all degrees of commitment, practice and beliefs gathered to study and discuss all sorts of topics of Jewish interest and socialize as well. So in recognition of Shavuot, instead of my usual light fair, here is something more substantial

Is being Jewish an objective statement about one's historical and genetic heritage or is it a statement of one's personal identity based on subjective experience? We have the Biblical narrative of how Moses received the Ten Principles (not really "commandments" as such) on Sinai, which were then expanded into what we now call Torah. And we are familiar with the story of the Book of Ruth, of how one non-Jewish person came to commit herself to Judaism. In fact, they represent two very different ways of looking at the relationship of individuals to Torah on the one hand and the nature of the relationship to the people on the other

There are many covenants in the Torah, from the covenant of Noah to that of Abraham, from the physical act of circumcision to the "constitutional" commitment at Sinai, to the later reaffirmation of national commitment on the Plains of Moab. But with regard to the Children of Israel, two covenants are conflated into the Sinai experience: the covenant of Torah and the covenant of peoplehood. I want to differentiate between a covenant of identity, a personal commitment to God, and a national covenant in which one subsumes one's individuality within the nation. Both feature in both sets of narratives

In fact, there are at least three differing accounts in the text of the Bible of what happened at Sinai. The first is Chapter 9 of Exodus. God tells Moses to address the nation: "Go and speak to the House of Jacob and tell it to the children of Israel." Exodus 9:3); and then the expression of the Divine hope that, if they accepted the covenant and listened to God, they would be a "nation of priests" (Exodus 9:5). The "people" then reply, unanimously, with one voice, that they will listen, which implies acceptance. This then is purely national

Except the text goes on to have God saying, "I will appear to you in a pillar of cloud so that the people will hear when I speak to you and they will believe in you forever." Once the notion of belief is introduced, then of necessity we have moved from national to personal. How else does one use the word "believe" if not of as a very personal commitment, something a person can only do for himself? Belonging can be a matter of deciding to join, pay one's dues, conform. But genuine belief requires a personal process either of feeling or thinking

The text goes on to describe the preparations and the limitations imposed on the people so that they should remain disciplined. There is a lot of heavenly noise, thunder and lightning. The people are afraid. This, like "belief", is a personal emotion. But both emotions are separate from the acceptance of a code of law and morality. That was what the Tablets of stone, also known as the Tablets of the Covenant, also called the Ten Commandments meant. Emotions need the structure, the consistency and objectivity of a constitution. The feelings facilitated the acceptance of the covenant

The second version comes in Chapter 24. Here the emphasis is less on the National Covenant and more on the Constitution, the Mishpatim (24:3)--a word not used in the first version. That is when the people reply again, unanimously, "We will listen", except this time they add, "AND we will do." You can't "do" belief but you can do actions. Moses writes down the words of the Covenant and the Covenant is sealed with the blood of sacrifices, an obviously ritual response to a behavioural obligation. Only then does Moses go up the mountain to receive the tablets and the rest

But at this moment something else happens. There is a kind of epiphany. In 24:10 it says, "They saw the God of Israel and underneath His feet it was like sapphire as pure as the essential heavens." It is not entirely clear who the people who had this experience, called the Atzilei Benei Yisrael were. Were they princes, or rebels, or anyone who was not up the mountain, or those half way up

The text says that nothing untoward happened to them, "They saw God and sat down to eat and drink." They were warned not to come too close, but they did and saw "an impression of God." The implication is that the sort of visual, mystical experience they had was not necessary but accidental. Does this mean that mystical experience, personal experience, is unnecessary, even dangerous, but that if it happens it can actually be a good thing? Is this an acceptance of personal autonomy to complement national obedience? Is it a personal covenant with God in addition to the national? That indeed is what Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik suggested when he coined the phrase Brit Yeud, A Covenant of Personal Choice, to balance Brit Goral, the Covenant of one's National Inheritance

You might think that this is a typically mystical event. Something almost magical happens and as a result the people then reacted by eating and drinking, celebrating, were trying to relate that spiritual high to their material lives. Perhaps therefore this narrative talks about the personal mystical experience of God. And it is as an adjunct or addition to the national covenantal experience which is accompanied by Thunder and Lightning. Notice how the National Covenant is associated with sounds and awe, whereas the personal is associated with celebration through food and drink. You can be a committed practising Jew without experiencing God spiritually, but ideally one should try to. Spirituality is an extra dimension

Finally after the Golden Calf episode and the smashing of the first tablets in Chapter 33:17-23, Moses engages directly with God. He too sees, experiences an impression of God. Except he is shown the back, rather than the feet as in Chapter 24. Moses then returns up the Mountain to the cloud and the thunder and sounds of the shofar. There the text quite specifically refers only to his receiving the two tablets, the covenant, the "Ten"

When he descends his face is shining and people cannot look directly at him. To some he was almost a God substitute. He could relate to God directly. The people on the other hand could not even bear to look at him without the mask on his face. Does this mean the end of a direct man-God relationship and the need for intermediary, or is it simply a unique episode

This is a statement about the nature of people. For most people, religion is concerned with doing, performing, obeying. Priests and rabbis are there to do it for you. Most people do not struggle to experience God or mystical enlightenment. They tend to stay within received parameters, social and religious. Only a small number embark of a journey of spiritual enlightenment. Judaism requires both, but recognizes that only a minority will be able to sustain the pressures and tensions of experiment and exploration

Now consider the Book of Ruth, seemingly just a pastoral tale of redemption on different levels. It is read on Shavuot because the main action takes place during the barley harvest from Passover to Pentecost. But it is no accident that it also coincides, in Rabbinic thought and Biblical calculation, with the anniversary of the Sinai Covenant. Of course the book focuses on Land, both agricultural and national, a feature missing from the Sinai Covenant and that is another subject for discussion.

Naomi is the wife of a Judean leader who abandons his responsibilities and his people during a famine and escapes with his family to Moab. He has reneged on the National Covenant. He and his two sons die in Moab, but not before the sons have married two Moabite girls. The Midrash suggests they were princesses, so we see a classic example not just of relinquishing responsibility but positive assimilation into the upper classes. Other religions and other peoples seemed more attractive to those seeking to escape their Jewishness

Naomi, left destitute, wants to return home because she has heard that God has "visited" the land (PaKaD)--a hint to "visiting" the sins of the fathers in the Decalogue. But equally, the same word used of God's remembering his people just as He did in Egypt. Initially both daughters-in-law want to return with her, but she tries to dissuade them. She makes reference to the Biblical laws of levirate marriage. This suggests, contrary to what I have said previously, that the Judean family did remain loyal to Judean Law and custom

One of the daughters-in-law, Orpa, returns to her home. But Ruth persists with the famous phrase "Where you go I will go, where you lodge I will lodge, your people are my people, your God is my God, where you die I will die and there I will be buried." She is accepting the individual religious commitment as well as the national covenant

It is Ruth's goodness, devotion, and hard work in supporting Naomi that attract the attention of Boaz, the wealthy landowner. But it also recalls the servitude of the Jews in Egypt prior to redemption. She merits reward simply in her own right, regardless of background or nation. Boaz is good to Ruth, simply out of charity. He praises her and gives her extra supplies.

Naomi misreads the message and believes that Boaz, as a family redeemer, has designs on Ruth. Naomi encourages her to go down to the threshing floor at night and to cement the relationship by sleeping with him. This act was sufficient for marriage in Biblical times. But it seems Boaz was not thinking in those terms at all. It might appear to us moderns that Boaz has a problem with relationships and in a way needs Ruth to light his fire. The Talmud in Ketubot says he was a widower and the Midrash suggests he was simply very old and actually died after the wedding night. When Ruth informs him he is a redeemer Boaz replies that there is someone closer who has the right of first refusal

At this point the legal side takes centre stage. Biblical law mandated that tribal property should be redeemed within tribes if it was sold to outsiders. But here, unlike Biblical law, it seems at the time an additional custom was to take in the widow together with the land. This would have been a variation on the levirate marriage which Biblically only applied to brothers of childless males

Boaz has to appear before the judges to demand that the closer relative redeem Naomi's husband's lands. This he is prepared to do. But then when he is told about his obligation to Ruth he pulls out. Was this obligation to marry Ruth a halachic obligation? Unlikely. Probably it was more of a moral one. His argument about destroying his inheritance is difficult to understand unless it is a reference to taking in another wife over his present ones, something that would not be a problem for an old bachelor (or widower) like Boaz. Others have suggested he did not want to marry a convert (though, interestingly, there is no hint in the text of any formal process of conversion). And of course Ruth was a Moabite woman and the Torah explicitly forbids Moabites from joining the Children of Israel ( the legal solution was to see the ban on men only!). Boaz is now free to redeem the land and marry Ruth, which he does

I believe this emphasis on the law and legal procedure is an important cross-reference to Sinai. Religious or ethical commitment without the structure of law and the association with a National Covenant is too vague and fragile. Ruth's personal commitment and goodness needs the seal of law, just as conversely law without commitment is a shell and a sham

Naomi is then redeemed in every sense. Her position is restored, thanks to Ruth, and she cradles the grandfather of King David. Of course, David not only symbolizes ultimate redemption as the Messiah, but he, of all Biblical characters, is the most passionate, poetical, and mystical in his religious expression. Therefore, if Boaz represents Law and Ruth represents Passion, it is Ruth who is the precursor of David rather than Boaz, her genes rather than his

There are those who argue that after Boaz marries Ruth she seems superfluous and it is Naomi who is regarded as the mother, rather like the barren wives of Abraham and Jacob. But the title of the book, I think, confirms what tradition has always argued--that Ruth is the inspiration of the Psalmist who "Overwhelmed the Almighty with shirot VeTishbachot", songs and praise. And they pun ShiRUT (songs) to refer to RUT (Brachot 7b). Law without the songs, structure without religious passion is dry and insipid.

This final reference to King David is significant, because it emphasizes the national again. The Book of Ruth starts with an escape from the nation and ends with its great establisher, who combined the national with the spiritual. By tradition (Jerusalem Talmud, Chagiga), King David was born and died on Shavuot. So what starts inauspiciously, may end in glory. A personal expression of faith can only grow, expand and be passed on, if it is allied to a structure and a people and not simply kept within oneself

Marriage

2009-05-17T08:50:00.004-04:00

I am not a fan of beauty competitions (even though the Jerusalem Talmud tells us to thank and bless God when we see a beautiful woman). However I do read newspapers and learned that a Carrie Prejean, Miss California, was the favorite to win the Miss USA beauty competition this year until she made one terrible mistake.

She was asked whether all states in the US should allow homosexual marriages. She replied that she was delighted that in America people had choices and freedoms, but that she was brought up to think of marriage as being between a man and a woman. All hell broke loose.

The news channels and the blogosphere went wild condemning her as an evil antediluvian primitive, a crazy right wing religious fundamentalist fanatic. The only difference between her and the Taliban was that they cover up whereas she uncovers. I have some sympathy with her, even if I think she was remarkably naïve in the way she expressed herself. She might have said that she was in favor of the complete liberalization of civil marriage laws but that religious people should also have the freedom to make their own choices, or some such formula.

Marriage, as the term is now used in the post-religious western world, is a contract between two people, without necessarily having any religious significance whatsoever. As such, it seems to me that anyone who wishes to be bound in contract to someone ought freely to be allowed to do so, particularly where such a contract provides financial and civil benefits and privileges for one or both partners. There are of course contracts and there are contracts but the State is not in the business of defining religious contracts, only civil ones.

I recall the fuss when Leona Helmsley left nearly $150,000,000 to dogs. Clearly she got more friendship, loyalty and pleasure from them than she did from any human she knew--and why should not humans be able to leave their wealth to whomever they want to? Why should civil states pay any attention to the taboos of religions? Why should not a civil state permit brothers and sisters to marry, for instance? If people wish to marry to take advantage of benefits available only to married couples, then let us simply differentiate between religious marriages and non-religious ones.

Religions are more limited covenants between members which impose other restrictions, not just of who one may live and sleep with but also how, where, and when one conducts oneself, goes to work, or behaves in a house of worship. Civil states must of necessity legislate for all citizens, regardless of race or creed, whereas religions may and do deal with conditional memberships. And why not, so long as they do not impose on others. That is why I so strongly oppose religious interference in state laws and support total separation of religion and state.

I draw a distinction between marriage as a word that carries no religious significance in itself anymore and the Hebrew word kidushin sanctification, a ceremony of specific religious significance. And to go to the other side, there are religious Jews I know who are not married in civilly but have received chupa and kiddushin and lived this way throughout their usually happy and fruitful lives.

We also need to separate this issue from that of religious attitudes to homosexuality because that adds a separate emotive dimension. I happen to be on the liberal, libertarian side of the issue but it is a shame that "gay rights", is the driving force behind the campaign because it muddies the waters. This issue really boils down to what is meant by marriage altogether. At times in history, and even today, it often was and is only a financial or political contract, not necessarily a romantic one. Terms and usages are always shifting. But there is no way I can argue that religious contracts can happen where a religion does not recognize them, even if I think it irrational and illogical.

I think that was all Ms. Prejean was saying, but because she was unable to express herself in such a way as to differentiate the civil from the religious she was excoriated. Yet she was not saying "no". She said she was in favor of free choice. So what was the row about?

The row was really more about the dogma of Political Correctness, the same correctness that will not talk about Terrorism but just Human Misbehavior, not Religious Fascists just Pious, not Warmongers just Self-Improvers, and now the sexual equality warriors insisting not on freedom of choice and rights, but the denial of any differences in the kind of choices made and even insisting on hijacking words and terms to suit only their agenda.

I never much liked crusaders ramming their orthodoxies down others' throats, and I don't like them now, insisting we must all think the same way or be damned. It seems that because religions have produced so many fanatics the other side now feels it needs to ensure equality there too!