Kesher Talk: 08/03/2003

Friday, August 08, 2003

Another anniversary. Tomorrow is my one year anniversary of joining Kesher Talk. I began posting on the first of Ellul, an auspicious date for new beginnings. (Since 5762 was a leap year in the Jewish calendar, Ellul begins about three weeks later in the Gregorian calendar than last year - it will fall on August 29, 2003.)

Since I began writing for this blog, I have seen a war begin and end, domestic political alliances shift, several people shut down and restart blogs, and various contributors to Kesher Talk come and go. I have enjoyed several heated interblog arguments on religion and politics. I got my first and only hate mail. I wrote a bit about my Jewish and secular life in New York and visits to my former home in Austin. I surfed the length and breadth of the blogosphere.

In the past year KT has come to be associated more with my name than that of our founder Howard Fienberg, who has retreated to the background for employment reasons. But many thanks to Howard for starting the blog and building it into a respected presence before I got here.

Some accomplishments: I organized a blogburst on the 30th anniversary of the Munich massacre which was linked by WSJ Best of the Web, and write frequently about Israel, dispelling myths, spreading good news, mourning tragedies, arguing strategy, and exploring unconventional view of the conflict.

I tracked incidents of antisemitism and analyses of same. I broke the story and tracked Michael Lerner's confrontation with ANSWER, which precipitated an Instalanche. I contributed to Command Post during the war (but have slacked off since). Shark Blog made KT his first blog of the day. I counted the Omer and wrote something about every Jewish holiday. Currently I am running a weekly series on works which I consider essentially Jewish. I organized and reported on outings of NYC LGF readers, and hosted Carnival of the Vanities (and had some Biblical fun with the title).

Not a bad year.

I am not posting on the actual anniversary because it will be Shabbat, and because I am going to a shabbaton in Connecticutt this weekend - a chance to get out of NYC, go to the beach, daven and learn with congenial people, enjoy home hospitality and meals, all for the price of a train ticket. So no blogging till Sunday night. (If you see any posts, they were pre-dated.)

Strange habits indeed: Did you know many orthodox Jews collect their finger and toe nail clippings and either bury them, burn them or flush them down the toilet? Rabbi Marcus explains the tradition in Ask Moses.com:

The source for this custom is in the Talmud, tractate Nidah, page 17a:
“One who trims his nails and throws them into a public area [causes great harm] because a pregnant woman may walk over them and miscarry….

“Three things were said about nail trimmings: He who burns them is pious; he who buries them is righteous; he who throws them [to the ground] is wicked.”
... From a kabbalistic perspective, the nails are representative of negativity in general and must therefore be destroyed.

So a righteous person buries them (or flushes them down the toilet as is done nowadays by “the righteous”), but the pious person goes even further and burns them. The pious person is concerned that if he buries them they may eventually be dug up and cause harm. So he burns them to a crisp ensuring that they never resurface. (People who do this will put the nails in a tissue then place it on the stove.)

The talmudic commentator Tosafot explains that destroying something of your own body is harmful. ... So when the pious person burns his nails he is overlooking his own harm in order to protect another person. That’s why it’s only the pious that will do it.

Rabbi Marcus concludes that, "There may be some who would point to such statements in the Talmud and say that it is full of superstitious rubbish."

Well, I just might be one of those people...

"Sex and the City" goes all-out Jewish: Several episodes into the current season of Sex and the City, the quintessential WASP named Charlotte York descended into a Jewish ritual bath. Charlotte's immersion in the mikvah completed her conversion to Judaism. And it established a welcome landmark in popular culture's portrayal of Jewish characters, which is also to say the nation's regard for Jews themselves.

Until the HBO series, no television show had ever presented a conversion with such visual and theological detail. Even more important is what the approving portrayal represents: a reversal of the entertainment industry's tradition of viewing Jewish identity as something to be shed in the quest to become American. (Samuel G. Freedman, USA Today, July 16)

Thursday, August 07, 2003

Jews in odd places: Native American Indian Tribes: Solomon Bibo was a white trader who won the trust and affection of the Acoma Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. In 1888, "Don Solomono," as he was known to the Acomas, became governor of the Acoma Pueblo, the equivalent of chief of the tribe. Remarkably, the Acomas asked the United States to recognize Bibo as their leader. Even more remarkable is that Bibo was a Jew.

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Eichah! Yashvah vadad ha'ir rabati yam haita k'almana. . . . Tonight begins Tisha B'Av, the Ninth of the month of Av. In Jewish tradition, many bad things happened on that day, most notably the destruction of both temples.

It is the only 24-hour fast day on the calendar besides Yom Kippur, and in some ways is a heavier day. The abstinences of Yom Kippur are for the purpose of clearing away all distractions from our teshuvah, our reunion with God, with a heady mix of both regret for our failures and joy in our communal struggle to rededicate ourselves to righteousness.

Tisha B'Av is all sorrow. Before and after Yom Kippur, we are enjoined to eat a festive meal. Before Tisha B'Av, the hard-boiled egg of the recent mourner, and after, a light break-fast but no party.

Tisha B'Av is the culmination of the solemn Three Weeks, which begin with a fast that commemorates - among other things - Moshe's confrontation of the Israelites over the Golden Calf, and the first breach of Jerushalem's walls by the forces of Nebuchadnetzar. Each Shabbat a haftarah of rebuke is chanted, wherein the prophets castigate Israel for immoral behavior. During the Three Weeks we are not supposed to get haircuts, buy new clothes, listen to music, or get married. In other words, it is a period of mourning and the laws of mourning apply.

On Erev Tisha B'Av we also observe rules of mourning: we sit on the floor of the shul, the ark is draped with black, the only illumination is from candles or flashlights. In addition to the regular service, we chant Eicha, the Book of Lamentations for the destruction of the First Temple, by Jeremiah. I wish I could find a music file on the web so you could hear it - to me it's the most beautiful of all the tropes. It's heartbreaking. [see UPDATE, below - ed]

On the morning of Tisha B'Av, we also chant kinot, penitential poems composed for Tisha B'Av during the Middle Ages. These often included mourning for contemporary calamities, such as massacres of Jews by the Crusaders. These days recitations of kinot also include the Shoah. You can listen to kinot on thislive broadcast August 7th.

There is an argument within the Jewish community whether Tisha B'Av still has relevance now that Israel is restored. But the Temple is not restored - indeed, it's archeological remains are still being destroyed by Arafat's WAQF, Israel is periodically under seige, the day commemorates many calamities in addition to the Temple destruction, and like any holy day observed for thousands of years, Tisha B'Av has accumulated symbolic meanings far beyond its original purpose.

A comprehensive site about Tisha B'Av and the Three Weeks.

Coincidentally and fittingly, this year Tisha B'Av begins on the same night as the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

The heart of the Tisha B'Av observance is the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem. Although few Jews want to restore Temple worship (which would require severely adjusting or discarding 2000 years of rabbinic Judaism), it is still Judaism's holiest site and contains many artifacts of both Temple eras. However, archeological excavation and preservation are not allowed by the Muslim authorities which control the Mount. In fact, they have been obliterating priceless archeological information by bulldozing various parts of the Mount for parking lots and to enlarge the mosques. Some links and more links about the current Temple Mount destruction. A good fisking of a scare story from a Muslim news source about attempts by Jews to visit the their holiest site. A view of the Temple Mount destruction from Biblical archeologists.

UPDATE: Elder Avraham points me to another great site for Tisha B'Av, where you can hear a cantor chant the haunting poignant Lamentations. (Protocols has tons of Tisha B'Av material, including an ambivalent eye-witness report of observance at the Wailing Wall. Their permalinks are fried so just scroll.)

The latest Al Qaeda tape featured the voice of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number
two official in Al Qaeda.

You know what that means ... Osama bin Laden is finally allowing guest
hosts.

(courtesy of Mike Sultan)

"The right of return" is being turned on its head: Dr. Avi Becker, secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress, complains in Ha'aretz that discussion of any "right to return" always ignores the Jewish exodus from Arab lands when Israel was founded. More importantly, Israel has the moral high ground without ever acknowledging it, because Israel looked after its refugees, rather than turning them into a permanent homeless cadre encouraged to take back lands they feel belong to them by force.

The number of Jews who left the Arab states and were absorbed, for the most part, by Israel is far greater than the number of Palestinians who left during a long war (18 months), mostly in response to the calls and incitement of Arab leaders.

Drawing an analogy between the stories of the Jewish and Palestinian refugees gives rise to a moral and just argument against the Palestinian demand for "the right of return"; and it is difficult to understand why no consistent use is made of this argument.

... The Israeli left finds it difficult to cultivate an explanatory argument that appears to emphasize moral supremacy for the Jewish side, which absorbed and rehabilitated the Jewish refugees, over the Arabs, who worked to perpetuate the suffering and nurture it as an anti-Israeli tool. Among the left, the Zionist ethos was learned with much guilt feelings about us being the cause of the refugee problem; while the radical left voices sweeping (false) accusations that the Israel Defense Forces, the Haganah, the Palmach and the Irgun were involved in the systematic massacre and deportation of the Palestinians.

... The Israeli right has seen the development of inhibitions of a different kind. Right-wingers and government representatives, too, believed that we shouldn't use the term "Jewish refugees," because it is antagonist and doesn't reflect the Zionist revival. As far as they are concerned, we should emphasize that most of the Jews from the Arab states were drawn to Israel by Zionist ideals and did not come here as refugees. Many of Israel's Jews from the Arab states chose to adopt the Zionist interpretation.

The Zionist ethos doesn't accept the fact that the vast majority of Israeli residents, Ashkenazim and Sephardim, came to the Promised Land as persecuted or deported refugees. There was, of course, an active Zionist elite in Europe or the Arab states; but as is the case with a pioneering leadership, it was limited. The masses arrived by means of a far less heroic process. This does not detract from the historical justification for the Zionist revolution.

The battle against "the right of return" rages on, and it requires us to adopt a realistic and see-right approach to the Zionist ethos and the Zionist justice.

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

The politics of immigration. Several people are unhappy with Israel for passing a law forbidding Palestinians who marry Israelis from residing in Israel. Damian Penny has some sensible comments on this, but his permalinks aren't working right now so here's a quote:

. . . might this new law have something to do with the fact that Israel and the Palestinians have effectively been at war for the past three years? Something tells me it wasn't easy for a Briton to bring his new German wife to the UK between 1939 and 1945.

For that matter, if an Israeli marries a person from, say, Saudi Arabia, would he or she gain the right to live in Saudi Arabia? I think you know the answer to that one. But I don't expect to see any front-page articles in the Independent about it.

I agree that the new law causes serious hardship for many couples. But even B'Tselem, a far-left Israeli peace group, admits that 20 Palestinians have gained Israeli citizenship in this fashion, and then took part in terror attacks. They say it's not a big deal, because it's "only" 20 out of approximately 100,000 Palestinians who've come to Israel in this manner since 1993. I think it is a big deal. (And I'll bet you any money almost all of these attacks have come since 2000, when the latest intifada was launched.)

There's also a good discussion of this over at Buzz Machine, and Head Heeb tackles the ruling from a legal point of view, as is his wont. He's got comments too, all of them anti, and a roundup of blog links on the topic.

Obscure byways of Jewish knowledge Dept. Well, darn, if there isn't a brocha for every occasion!

Mad Mel continued. I wrote last week about the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson's movie based on the Christian Gospels (with lots of links - if you're not up to date on this story go there first). In the meantime, Diane has nicely fisked a letter on Andrew Sullivan's blog, which I had thought of doing but never got around to it. And here's another profile of Gibson pere.

The best recent treatment is Frank Rich's column in the NYTImes. It summarizes the sequence of events fairly and accurately, its tone is reasonable, and it raises the questions that need to be raised. It also points out a bit of coded Jew-baiting which accompanied the publicity for the film, which no one else has noticed:

Jews have already been libeled by Mr. Gibson's politicized rollout of his film. His game from the start has been to foment the old-as-Hollywood canard that the "entertainment elite" (which just happens to be Jewish) is gunning for his Christian movie. But based on what? According to databank searches, not a single person, Jewish or otherwise, had criticized "The Passion" when Mr. Gibson went on Bill O'Reilly's show on Jan. 14 to defend himself against "any Jewish people" who might attack the film. Nor had anyone yet publicly criticized "The Passion" or Mr. Gibson by March 7, when The Wall Street Journal ran the interview in which the star again defended himself against Jewish critics who didn't yet exist. (Even now, no one has called for censorship of the film — only for the right to see it and, if necessary, debate its content.)

Whether the movie holds Jews of two millenniums ago accountable for killing Christ or not, the star's pre-emptive strategy is to portray contemporary Jews as crucifying Mel Gibson. A similar animus can be found in a new book by one of Mr. Gibson's most passionate defenders, the latest best seller published by the same imprint (Crown Forum) that gave us Ann Coulter's "Treason." In "Tales From the Left Coast," James Hirsen writes, "The worldview of certain folks is seriously threatened by the combination of Christ's story and Gibson's talent."

Now who might those "certain folks" be? Since no one was criticizing "The Passion" when Mr. Hirsen wrote that sentence, you must turn elsewhere in the book to decode it. In one strange passage, the author makes a fetish of repeating Bob Dylan's original name, Robert Zimmerman — a gratuitous motif in a tirade that is itself gratuitous in a book whose subtitle says its subject is "Hollywood stars."

Read the whole thing.

This is turning out to be similar to the "Jewish neo-con cabal" controversy of a few months back. Some people can see very clearly - based on long experience with this kind of bigotry - how certain phrases and actions are coded ways of promoting antisemitism, and others say we're imagining things or we're being too sensitive. Like the "neo-con cabal" controversy, this is a great opportunity for education in how antisemitism - and sexism, racism, and most other bigotry - works in sophisticated cultures.

UPDATE: PaleoJudaica points out that Rich's column "Dowdifies" one of Gibson's quotes. His original statement about responsibility for the death of Christ is much more nuanced. However, the whole picture still doesn't look good.

UPDATE: Protocols has the O'Reilly transcript and some more thoughts.

Reclining at Passover -- why to the left? Rabbi Marcus:

... the reason we recline altogether is because such was the manner of kings. The aristocratic way to recline is on the left side. In the words of the Talmud (Pesachim 108a): "Lying on one's back [or stomach, according to Rambam's translation; cf. Tosafot] does not constitute reclining; and reclining on one's right side does not constitute reclining."

Rashbam explains that the aristocrats reclined on the left so as to leave the right hand free for eating purposes.

The Talmud adds another reason (though it is not clear whether this refers to lying on one's back or on one's right-see Rashi and Rashbam respectively): "Perhaps the windpipe will precede the esophagus in receiving the food and some danger will come of it."

From a kabbalistic perspective perhaps it can be suggested that leaning on the left side represents the fact that on the night of Passover, even the "left side," which in Kabbala is associated with darkness and death, can be elevated. (This idea is stated regarding the fact that the menorah is lit on the left side of the door and that the Tefillin are worn on the left arm.) (courtesy of Ask Moses)

Monday, August 04, 2003

Yasser's day: Celebrate or mourn, it's your prerogative, but today is Yasser Arafat's birthday.

What Did You Do in The War Mommy? Meryl links to an article about a new mostly female Israeli army battalion, and prints a letter from an IDF officer on the topic. More from Moment.

Meanwhile, lots of discussion on female troops over at Dean's World.

This week's Pintele Yid recommendation - For our gentile friends and Jews who want to rediscover their heritage - recommending quintessentially Jewish cultural works (books, TV specials, CDs, Torah teachers, poets, websites, and more) which transport you inside a Jewish skin and show you the world through Jewish eyes.

Last week's recommendation.
Week 4 recommendation.
Week 3 recommendation.
Week 2 recommendation.
Introduction to the series and first recommendation.

And back to text. The Text. But the Hebrew scriptures have been adopted, interpreted and reworked by two other religions, as well as poets, playwrights and novelists, so there's no point in recommending the Bible as an essential Jewish work unless you can get as close to the Hebrew original as possible.

The Five Books of Moses, trans. Everett Fox.
Give Us a King! Samuel, Saul, and David, trans. Everett Fox.
If your unimaginative religious training left you with a knee-jerk negative reaction to "scripture," or if Seamus Heaney's version of Beowulf or ancient near-Eastern mythology stirs you, you'll appreciate these astringent translations of the Hebrew scriptures by Clark University professor Everett Fox. They make fresh the overly-familiar "Bible stories" or scorned source of "oppressive fundamentalisms," revealing the Scriptures to be the Jewish version of the Illiad or the Mabinogion: the poetic mythology/history of a civilization.

"Hebrew is a famously difficult language to translate. Multiple meanings and .... puns add to the richness of ancient Jewish texts that is rarely found in English versions..... The translation is lyrical, maintaining a 3000 year old Jewish tradition of chanting these works. Many of the English translations attempt to turn these texts into thick prose, which goes directly against the way they are treated in the Hebrew."

".....it makes the "boring" parts of the Bible exciting and vibrant. You will never badmouth Leviticus, Numbers or Deuteronomy again after you read this translation. Trust me."

Fox's commentary is mostly archeological and anthropological, with notes on why passages were translated a certain way, so philologists will also have a good time.

For verse by verse rabbinical exegesis with some history, archeology and comparative anthropology mixed in - and a window on how practicing Jews actually read the Bible throughout the year - I recommend Etz Hayim, the recent Conservative Movement chumash. (A chumash divides the Torah into weekly readings, with a reading from the Prophets for each week, and also includes cantillation marks for chanting. Synagogue attendees usually follow along in their chumash while someone is chanting from the bima.)

Editorial duties for Etz Hayim were shared by well-known authors Chaim Potok and Harold Kushner, among others.

For about seventy years, Conservative/Masorti congregations have chosen to use chumash by Rabbi Hertz, a pre war Chief British rabbi. Some find it very Thee-Thou-stilted in British English, and somewhat apologetic for Hebrew practices, like animal sacrifice. It reflected the insecurity of Jewish life at the time of its publication. This new book and keepsake is a replacement for the Hertz chumash. Etz Hayim was a ten year project, and it reflects the beliefs and ideology of the Conservative movement. It is not apologetic in tone, it gets rid of Thou Thy and Thee, and it contains some commentaries that are inclusive and feminist in nature. I like it because the commentary does not sugar coat the actions of the early Hebrews, and it does not hide from the belief in redactors and an evolving Torah.

Both the Fox translations and this new chumash do a beautiful job of grounding the Hebrew scriptures in the time and place of the specific culture that produced and redacted them, while emphasizing their poetry, moral choices, and the universal themes of their stories.

Week 7.
Week 8.

Sunday, August 03, 2003

When Bad Neighbors Require Good Fences. Israel isn't the only country which has built a fence to keep people out.

The border security fence is comprised of many sections totaling scores of miles. Some sections are concrete, others sheet metal. The barrier is three layers deep in parts, fifteen feet high and surrounded by razor wire. The area around it is lit by spotlights, monitored by cameras, motion detectors and magnetic sensors, and patrolled by armed guards with attack dogs.

But enough about our border with Mexico, let's talk about Israel.

Although theoretically Israel's borders with a future Palestinian state are open to negotiation, it is disingenuous to deny that the fence creates "facts on the ground." But Robbins points out that this cuts both ways.

By defining Israel's border, it will also define Palestine's. The fence will be as much a statement of Palestinian territoriality as Israeli. It will mark the limit of officially sanctioned Israeli settlements, and mean an end to Israeli expansion. In fact, the fence was first proposed by Israeli leftists precisely to detach Israel from the settlement movement, which at its most radical opposes any border west of the Jordan River. Thus while the Palestinians may not be inclined to accept the route the fence takes (which is still largely yet to be determined in planning, let alone construction), the fact is that once completed it will go a long way to end the territorial question. [emphasis mine - Ed.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: The US State Department has no objection to India's fence on the Pakistan border. My interpretation of Boucher's gobbledygook is that the India-Pakistan fence is okay because the borders have already been decided.

Other fences no one seems to have a problem with.

(both via LGF comments)

Kesher Talk

Friday, August 08, 2003

Thursday, August 07, 2003

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

Monday, August 04, 2003

Sunday, August 03, 2003

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