Kesher Talk: 05/30/2004

Ronald Reagan, 1911-2004. I was determinedly apolitical during the Reagan decade. Or rather, my politics were the closest they ever came to crunchy anarchic anti-globalism (although - always a straddler of subcultures - I still hung out with my yuppie Libertarian Party buds). So in my world, Reagan was the anti-Christ, much as Bush is today to many of the people I hung out with then. Although I vaguely appreciated that he said the right things about the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, I was still an embattled liberal and Reagan was still the evil villain of the AIDS epidemic. But mostly I avoided political discussion and taking positions, maybe because I knew if I did I would become consumed. As I am now.

So whatever I would say about Ronald Reagan would be very distanced and vague, so I will point you to these folks:
Michele Catelano.
"Tacitus" here and here.
Arthur Chrenkoff.
Michael Totten.
Terry Teachout.
Tim Blair has more here and here.
Maroonblog - start here and scroll.

UPDATE: Meryl's views on Reagan are closest to mine.
Hitchens goes for the jugular.

UPDATE: Various Reagan conversions.

Living waters. Last year I wrote about the new interest in mikveh by us liberal Jews, and now a new nondenominational mikveh in the greater Boston area has been added to the regrettably short list of such institutions.

The brainchild of "The Red Tent" author Anita Diamant and Reconstructionist Rabbi Barbara Penzner, and the result of three years of outreach and fundraising, Mayyim Hayyim, which opens early this month, expects to attend to women and men who are either converting to Judaism or observing conventional mikvah traditions. Mayyim Hayyim also expects that the people coming through its doors will immerse in the warm water to mark other life transitions — from miscarriage to divorce, from being declared cancer-free to beginning a new job, from leaving home for college to ending an abusive relationship.

Mayyim Hayyim began when Diamant, as the outreach chair of her Reform congregation, discovered that it was often difficult for a woman trained by a non-Orthodox rabbi to find a mikvah for her conversion immersion. "We in the 21st century should be offering a different kind of welcome to people who were making this extraordinary decision to become Jewish," said Diamant.

In Austin, the only mikveh was run by the local Chabad, and was not available for non-Orthodox conversions, needless to say. I don't know what the Conservative converts did; I know the Reform converts used Barton Springs, in their bathing suits. Well, Barton Springs is always very cold, since it's a natural spring, and if the conversion is in the winter it's going to be even more uncomfortable, and most important: immersing in your bathing suit really misses the point.

I don't know what non-Orthodox converts do here in New York either, come to think of it.

Jews and the GOP: Bush campaign making big push for Jewish votes: The Bush-Cheney ticket is making an all-out effort this election to increase its take of the Jewish vote, a powerful voting bloc that could turn the tide in several battleground states.

It's not easy being Torah-True. In today's New York Times, an article about whether or not New York City tap water is kosher. "[R]abbis have recently discovered that there are tiny creatures, called copepods, in the unfiltered water that streams into the city from upstate. These tiny organisms are harmless. But they are crustaceans. And crustaceans are not considered kosher."

First the brouhaha over non-kosher wigs; now tap water. What's next?

Kesher Talk

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