When USCJ put together their strategic plan in Winter 2011, the leaders of USCJ wanted to cut Koach. They said that they didn’t have funds to continue Koach, Koach wasn’t doing well under USCJ, and Koach didn’t really fit with the types of things UCSJ wanted to do. Koach students and alumni protested, and so USCJ kept funding Koach without seriously trying to improve the program. In June 2012, USCJ again tried to defund Koach. The reasoning was unchanged. After more protest, USCJ’s leaders said the protesters would need to personally fundraise to keep Koach alive for another year. The fundraisers got the necessary $100K and Koach survived for another year. Here we are in June 2013, and USCJ is once again saying that it doesn’t want to run the Conservative movement’s college campus programming.

While there is a lot to criticize about USCJ, I really can’t blame them for trying to close a program that they don’t have the interest, infrastructure, or money to run. The question is why others keep asking USCJ to be the savior of Conservative Judaism on college campuses?

As I’ve said before, Koach was modestly successful, at best. It existed on a small fraction of college campuses, only reached a small fraction of Jews on those campuses, and had few strong programs except an annual retreat attended by a few hundred students. Some students who participated became Conservative rabbis or Conservative leaders and considered Koach a key part of their development, but this wasn’t enough to keep Koach around. It was clearly up to Koach supporters to figure out what Conservative movement support of college students could be.

Koach supporters weren’t up to this challenge. They petitioned USCJ to fund Koach, but in the year after the first attempt to shut down Koach, there was little public discussion about what Conservative movement college outreach should be. After the second attempt to shutter Koach, there was a 6 month fundraising effort and a survey that only 137 current students in the entire nation bothered to answer. I’d link to the full survey results, but the savekoach.org site, where it was hosted, no longer exists. Soon after they hit their fundraising target, even the SaveKoach Twitter feed went dark.

So far I’ve seen two responses to the news that Koach is finally closing. In this press release, after expressing shock that USCJ decided to shut down Koach, the authors discuss the first actual steps necessary to build a new Conservative college network where key functions won’t depend as heavily on a centralized source of funding. Strangely, no individual or existing group put their name on it and no specific colleges are mentioned as participating in the effort. Separately, a Rutgers Hillel rabbi wrote that the short term work will be done campus-by-campus with local fundraising.

I haven’t been a college student for a number of years, but the events surrounding Koach interest me because they highlight an important weakness of the Conservative movement. Everyone within the movement agrees that Conservative support of college students is vital to the growth of the movement. Most people know that there was immense room for improvement in this area, Koach wasn’t doing enough, and had no realistic path towards doing the needed work. Because “college outreach” was deemed the job of USCJ, other Conservative organizations didn’t actively try to find other ways to support Jewish college students. When USCJ suggested that they couldn’t keep supporting Koach, these other institutions acted as if USCJ and Koach would suddenly start functioning with effectiveness they’d never had before. If others step forward to work on Conservative college student support now, this is a good thing, but it would have been even better if it happened before the last two years of Koach’s struggles. The same story keeps happening with various Conservative organizations. Innovation is avoided if it might create competition or overlap between the roles of various organizations.

I truly hope that the decline of Koach helps motivate the building of more support structures for observant and egalitarian Judaism on college campuses. I’ve given some of my own ideas of what this might look like in my earlier posts on Koach and hope for the best.

TALES FROM ODESSA
A Socalled Musical

Music & Lyrics by Josh Dolgin AKA Socalled
Book by Derek Goldman
Based on the stories of Isaak Babel
Translated by Miriam Hoffman
Directed by Audrey Finkelstein
A Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre Production

In Yiddish with English and French supertitles.  Tickets start at $24.00. You can learn more about the artist Socalled at his website.

Thirty young MASA participants and other young Diaspora Jews stood up at their program’s end-year bash to interrupt the address of Minister of Knesset Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party. The participants chanted “Diaspora Jews say ‘end the occupation,’ Diaspora Jews say ‘no to annexation.’” After being removed from the event, they distributed flyers and answered questions by other participants.

This was the first protest by a new activist group dubbing themselves “All That’s Left” comprised of North American young Jews united against the occupation. According to All That’s Left member Joshua Leifer, “The dialogue following the action led to frank and open discussions that aren’t being held enough in Diaspora Jewish communities.”

From a statement, the group wanted to draw attention to Bennett’s central leadership in the settlement movement, opposition to a Palestinian state, proposal to annex 60% of the West Bank, and racist statements against Arabs. “MASA’s choice to invite Naftali Bennett as a keynote speaker to the event does not reflect my Zionism and reasons for coming to Israel,” remarked demonstrator Isabel Frey. “It was necessary to make clear that there also are young Zionists that do not support the occupation, Bennett and his position.”

The group has promised to continue working in Israel to protest American Jewry’s tolerance of the occupation. And to me, it’s high time that more activism happened by progressive participants in Israel study abroad and post-college programs. The founding members of All That’s Left are the creme de la creme of young American Jewish leaders — graduates of Zionist summer camps, day schools educations, Birthright trips and MASA second-time trips to Israel.

It just goes to show that just because you can lead a young Jew to Israel, doesn’t mean they’ll drink last generation’s punch. And as familiarity with Israel grows through frequent visits, so does their familiarity with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Opportunities to visit the occupied territories abound — both right-wing and left-wing. But to American eyes, the daily inequalities of Jewish versus Palestinian life in this land are damning.

“All That’s Left” is the natural outcome of Birthright and MASA. The occupation is awful to behold and Israeli society seems content with the status quo. The members of All That’s Left fit a similar profile to the founders of the one-year-old Right Now: Advocates for African Asylum Seekers in Israel: Israel program alumni who spent 3 – 12 months volunteering in Israel’s homeless shelters and clinics. Not surprisingly, on American Jewry’s dime. Naftali Bennett just witnessed that the best and brightest from the Diaspora are too bright and smart to ignore his anti-democratic vision for Israel. The very ideology he aimed to espouse to them, that “Israel needs you,” is birthing the very critics he probably thinks MASA was designed to prevent.

# of times someone asks a question that is not actually a question  ( __ ) 

# of times speaker is interrupted by someone in the audience ( __ )

# of rants by audience members  ( ___ ) *

This chart has come in particularly handy at conferences, but can be applied on a holiday such as Shavuot, if you write. (It also makes an excellent drinking game.)

I spent Shavuot at the JCC in Manhattan, which, if you have not attended a tikkun there before, can be really overwhelming. It’s super crowded, especially in the areas with the cheesecake and water and coffee. The offerings are pretty diverse: yoga, films, art, speakers, and more traditional learning situations with chevrutah. I came because I was in the neighborhood, and also for the 10 pm session with Rabbi Jacqueline Koch Ellenson (RKE in this piece, for the sake of brevity here), director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network, called “Women of the Wall, Pluralism in Israel, and American Jews.”

RKE began by asking the audience about the values that motivate their activism (“I just don’t want someone to say that my voice can’t be heard,” said one woman,) and also about the values that they felt Israel should embody, which were no surprise in a liberal Jewish crowd: equality, democracy, justice, respect, Judaism, co-existence, pluralism. “I am worried by what I see in the news,” said RKE, before giving a brief history of the actions of Women of the Wall, beginning in 1988, when the group gathered at the Kotel for the first time. In 1993, the group attempted to read Torah for the first time at the Wall, resulting in the arrest and detainment of group members. (The Torah reading happened, outside the jail near Jaffa Gate, while members of the group and allies waited for folks to be released.)  ”There was a feeling of being vulnerable, and yet so strong,” said RKE. The events  continued to escalate after 1993, and American Jewish support for WOW grew.  RKE: “Seeing Jewish women being taken away by Israeli police in a Jewish state? How can it be?”

(Question from an audience member: ”Should Israel Jews be able to interfere in American politics the way American Jews are interfering in Israel’s? Why should that be allowed?”

Friend I brought with me, under her breath: ”I don’t know, trillions of dollars in military aid?”)

It’s the opinion of the American Jewish community that RKE feels led Netanyahu charge Natan Sharansky with creating a solution to the “problem” of Women of the Wall and their goal of creating equal gendered space. (RKE-Robinson’s Arch is not so physically accessible, and can seem “like you’re praying in an archae0logical dig.”)  There’s some confusion, however, as to who makes the ultimate decision. It’s not Naftali Bennett, apparently, but RKE encouraged the audience to email him and write him letters. It’s probably not Netanyahu, either. “Liberal Jews have given up on the Kotel,” said RKE. “They’re saying, this is not our place, we don’t need to be involved. I’m not interested in restoring the sacrificial system, but I don’t want to give (the Kotel) up. It’s ours, too. We’re liberating the wall again.”  Citing the May 10th prayer service, which was the first time that Women of the Wall were protected by the Israeli police, RKE said, “We’re watching the ground shift, we’re not going to go back.”

*Tally, in case you’re interested, from this session:

# of times someone asks a question that is not actually a question: 3 

# of times speaker is interrupted by someone in the audience:  4

# of rants by audience members: 2 

(obligatory picture of cheesecake) 

Austin

Austin’s Annual Jewish Community Tikkun Leil Shavuot

Berkeley

Community Tikkun at the JCC of the East Bay (Includes family programming a supervised space for children to sleep over.)

Larger list of Bay Area stuff

Boston area

Brookline Community Tikkun Leil Shavuot at Congregation Kehilath Israel. (Sessions and teachers here)

Connecticut

Isabella Freedman- Shavuot: This Year’s Revelation  and Hazon: Torah of Food

Accessible from NYC

Chicago

Mishkan Chicago: Sha.voo.ote: Revelations in Creativity, Politics, Spirituality & Torah

5773 Lakeview Tikkun Leil Shavuot

DC

Upper 16th St Tikkun (Fabrangen, Ohev Sholom, Segulah, Shirat HaNefesh, Tifereth Israel)

Los Angeles

Shtibl Minyan retreat at Brandeis Bardin campus of the AJU 

Community Tikkun at Temple Beth Am

Montgomery County, Maryland

Tikkun Leil Shavuot with Moishe House MoCo and Congregation Beth El Montgomery County

New Orleans

5th Annual Shavuot Tikkun Leil: A Joint Torah Venture among Beth Israel, Gates of Prayer, Shir Chadash

New York

Shavuot Across Brooklyn 

Tikkun Leyl Shavuot at the JCC Manhattan  (Upper West Side)

Yiddish Farm (New Hampton, NY)

Philadelphia

Community Tikkun Leil Shavuot

Tikkun Leyl Shavuot at Penn

Santa Rosa, CA

Congregation Beth Ami 

Toronto

Downtown Tikkun Leil Shavuot 

Onion gets hacked by Syrian propagandists, responds with funny article. The Onion got hacked, sending out a bunch of nonsense tweets such as:

To which they responded with their usual aplomb. HT BoingBoing

Is Yiddish dying? Uh, no.

Is Jack Rosen hijacking the AJCongress? Does anyone care?

Dvora Myers on Unorthodox Gymnastics comments on the chutzpah it takes to thanks God for not being a woman ironically. What do you think?

Doctor Who is a Jew? Come on Tablet, can’t you do any better than that?

And here’s a kickstarter to translate for what sounds like a completely fascinating book. I can’t wait to read it.

If you can read Yiddish literature only in English translation, Joseph Opatoshu’s 1921 novel, In Poylishe Velder (In The Forests of Poland),is one of the most important works of world literature with which you’re probably unfamiliar. A vast panorama of Jewish life in Poland during the 1850s, Opatoshu’s novel concentrates on backwoods Jews who live among gentile peasants rather than in Jewish communities in cities or shtetlekh. Touching as it does on hasidism, heresy, pre-Christian Polish folk customs, wife-swapping, messianism, and Polish nationalism, this book will change the way you think about Jewish life in Poland. Those parts not set in the forests or on the road take place in the court of the Rebbe of Kotzk, the last of the classical hasidic leaders. The Rebbe and his court are portrayed so convincingly that even members of the book’s original audience often forgot that they were reading a novel and not an intimate history of hasidism in Kotzk. It’s the price that Opatoshu had to pay for writing some of the best prose ever published in Yiddish.

Of course, I consider myself the last of the Kotsker Hasidim, so perhaps it’s just me.

The man made a choice informed by his own views and information on the ground. Anyone hiding behind the “fact” that Israel is only democracy in the Middle East or that Palestinians have it better under Israeli rule or any of the other tired and lame excuses for the vile things being said about a physicist in a wheelchair, should be ashamed of themselves.

Perhaps as opposed to automatically blaming those who have the audacity to stand up and say something — even if it is seen as overbearing, inappropriate, or bias — the American Jewish community could say something about the Palestinians and how as Jews we don’t like the way they are being treated BY OTHER JEWS. I don’t know, that might actually work.

It might be time for a significant change in our approach to dealing with legitimate criticism of Israel.  But it has been time for that for the last 15 years.

Ach, like I said, this was a short post.

I have to admit to having wondered myself. He offers the example of a woman who made her diet work for her by using kashrut, “I once heard of someone who wanted to lose weight but was having trouble laying off late night sweets. So what she would do is eat a little piece of meat at night and then she wouldn’t find it difficult to refrain from eating dairy desserts,” and then posits three reasons why he believes it’s easier to keep kosher than diet: Kashrut has a defined list of what you can eat and what you can’t; Keeping kosher is for life, dieting is seen as temporary; and Keeping kosher is highly habitual.

Each of these has its points – as someone who didn’t grow up keeping kosher, but has now for many years, I’d have to say that each of these points makes some difference. Yet, while keeping kosher has a list of things you can and can’t eat, so, in many respects, does dieting (don’t eat sweets, don’t eat fried and fatty foods); most people know that dieting is for life, and, I suspect that if one actually was serious about the dieting, it would also become habitual.

I actually think that the reason kashrut is easier for rather different reasons: it’s a communal effort. True, in many shuls, there are people who keep different levels of kashrut, but generally when people are eating together, there’s some minimal level of recognition for the person’s kashrut – at the very least, picking a restaurant where the person can eat, or making accommodations for them in one’s home. The rabbis were no fools. Americans love to think that everything is about the individual, and, even better, the individual will – but in reality, what we do with other people is an exceptionally powerful force.

Yesterday, the Open Hillel campaign, a student led initiative to change policies around permitted conversations on Israel on campus, presented their petition ( 801 signatures strong as of this writing) and letter to the  Hillel International Board in Washington, D.C.

The grassroots initiative was started by members of the Harvard College Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA), a Hillel-affiliated group, when PJA was prevented from co-sponsoring an event with the Palestine Solidarity Committee in Hillel. Open Hillel urges  Hillel International to revise, reconsider, and ultimately remove its Standards for Partnership, which read: “Hillel, the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, has chapters and affiliates on university campuses across the US and abroad. Hillel International currently publishes “Guidelines for Campus Israel Activities” which declare, “Hillel will not partner with, house, or host organizations, groups, or speakers that as a matter of policy or practice: Deny the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state with secure and recognized borders; Delegitimize, demonize, or apply a double standard to Israel; Support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State of Israel; Exhibit a pattern of disruptive behavior towards campus events or guest speakers or foster an atmosphere of incivility.”

The Open Hillel campaign asks that Hillel  ”remove all political litmus tests for co-sponsorships, affiliated groups, and invited speakers.”

More from the letter (written and signed by Jewish student leaders from universities across the country):

“Pluralism should be extended to the subject of Israel, and no Jewish individual or group should be excluded from the community simply because of political views. The prohibition against anyone who “delegitimizes” or “applies a double standard” to Israel is used to silence students who are critical of Israeli policies or express views with which the Hillel leadership disagrees. These policies deny all students the opportunity to learn about a range of views and form well-supported and defensible opinions about Israel. We all lose out when important perspectives within our community are stifled.”

The campaign is currently awaiting a response from Hillel International and will continue to expand if Hillel International is resistant to the requests of the petition and letter,

]]> http://jewschool.com/2013/05/07/30590/open-hillel-updates/feed/ 0 http://jewschool.com/2013/05/06/30585/still-jewish/ http://jewschool.com/2013/05/06/30585/still-jewish/#comments Mon, 06 May 2013 14:00:08 +0000 LJCM http://jewschool.com/?p=30585 I picked up Still Jewish: A History of Women and Intermarriage in America because I’m in an interfaith relationship, and reading it gave me something I didn’t know I needed. It gave me an academic but accessible text that said it is possible to be strong in my Jewish identity in an interfaith relationship, and that more than that—many women before me have and still do so. An interfaith relationship does not require one to set aside their Jewish identity.

Still Jewish follows the trends of Jewish women’s intermarriages in America, and the attitudes towards those marriages. McGinity stretches back to the interfaith marriages of immigrant women at the end of the 19th century, working forward to the mid 00’s.

The mythos of intermarriage says that once a Jewish woman intermarries, she’s lost to the faith. She assimilates, loses her name, ditches her faith, and joins a mainstream Christian majority, taking any children she might have with her. McGinity uses multigenerational studies, research and first person interviews to show it’s just that: mythos. The truth is more complex.

Something McGinity saw increasing over her research was a building trend in renewed Jewish identity on the part of intermarried women over time. Particularly when you cross into the Civil Rights era (50’s-60’s) that trend of strongly renewed sense of self-identification as a Jew starts to pick up. One of the things I found painful while I read the book was the ever-present, often vociferous opinions against intermarriage. It gets wince-worthy the closer the book comes to the present. In some ways it was easier for me to write off the anti-intermarriage sentiment of the late 1800s and early 1900s because it was so ‘long ago.’

The closer you get to the present day the more bullshit it feels that people still think these things. That a community could prioritize “in reach” to eliminate intermarriage over proactive outreach to keep intermarried families involved strikes me as particularly heinous. McGinity’s delivery is more nuanced and more mature than mine is here, but her dismay over the prejudiced reactions to intermarried families was clear. She did her duty to present both sides of the argument throughout her text, presenting a historic longview where each set of attitudes were in their proper contexts to each other.

The story of Jewish women in the States, is a one that is deeply influenced by it being a narrative that takes place in the U.S. Our identities as Jewish women here have been deeply affected by the Civil Rights movement, the many phases of the American Feminist movement, and the nationwide conversations over time concerning faith, individualism, and secularism.

As our rights have increased, there has been a corresponding growth in a renewed and strengthened Jewish self in intermarried Jewish women. We’re not “losing” intermarried women in droves to assimilation, as told in the hysteric polemic of institution conversation. Jewish identity and family have become complex, but plenty of women remain Jews in their intermarriages.

The data McGinity shows throughout her text would suggest to me that even more women will feel empowered and strong in their identities when the Jewish establishment stops its vicious inward conversation about whether “in reach” or “outreach” is more important than the other, and ascribing moral outcomes to either. Because these women are still Jewish.