Russian Jews Organize Against Iran

Alexander Levin Hopes Group Counters 'Holocaust' Threat

claudio papapietro

New Voice, in Russian: Alexander Levin is launching a new group to represent Russian Jews. He hopes to galvanize them against what he sees as a mortal threat posed by Iran.

By Paul Berger

Sitting at the head of an expansive boardroom table at the luxury Setai hotel in Manhattan, Alexander Levin ponders the 300-square-foot room in Odessa, Ukraine, where he was raised.
It is January 23, two days before Levin will address up to 600 guests at the United Nations in a ceremony organized by the Ukrainian and Israeli missions to the U.N.

The event is ostensibly to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the massacre at Babi Yar, a ravine in suburban Kiev where more than 100,000 men, women and children were murdered by the Nazis during Yom Kippur of 1941.

But Levin has bigger plans for the U.N. ceremony. He wants to use it as an international platform to announce the launch of a new global organization, the World Forum of Russian Jewry, whose main function will be to galvanize the Russian-speaking Jewish Diaspora behind the cause of fighting off a nuclear Iran.


Summoning an image of the corpses of women, children and the elderly “arranged in neat rows” at Babi Yar, Levin will caution attendees, including Holocaust survivors, American Jewish leaders and U.N. Under-Secretary-General Kiyo Akasaka, of the threat of a new Holocaust coming from the East.

“We, the Russian-speaking Jews from the far-flung corners of the earth, stand ready to unite against the nuclear program of Iran,” Levin will tell the crowd. “We will not let another Holocaust engulf us.”
At the hotel, Levin is concentrating on smaller matters, doodling on a letterheaded notepad to illustrate the cramped quarters in which he grew up.

He draws a circle to represent the single room he shared with his mother, father and brother. Then he places it inside a larger square with three other circles denoting other rooms, one for each neighboring family that shared a communal kitchen and bathroom.

He has come a long way from that communal apartment to a grand ambition — to harness the collective power of the Russian-speaking Jewish Diaspora to build “a bridge” between Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the United States.

Levin says the West has tried for too long to use power to force apart Russia and Iran. Instead, Western governments should use Russian-speaking Jews who know the Russian mentality to act as go-betweens “at the highest level.”

Vladimir Putin is a pragmatist, Levin says. With the right offer on the table, Russia would vote against Iran on the U.N. Security Council. As for China? “That’s another business country, too,” he told the Forward.
Russian-speaking Jews, Levin insists, are ready to negotiate on the West’s behalf.

Cynics might note that the World Forum of Russian Jewry is the latest in a long line of Jewish organizations, some more succesful than others, to have emerged from the former Soviet Union.

Most recently, Levin’s friend, Ukrainian billionaire Vadim Rabinovitch, launched a European Jewish Parliament. It quickly devolved into a farce last year, when comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and soccer player David Beckham found their way into the parliament’s online nominating process.
But Russian-speaking community leaders say Levin’s group is different.


“I think you have got the right people behind this one,” said Leonard Petlakh, a Russian-speaking community leader from Brooklyn.

The Israeli government certainly seems to think so. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman each sent letters welcoming the formation of the group.
Levin has co-opted several established Russian-speaking organizations, such as the American Forum of Russian Jewry, under his umbrella. There are forums in Canada, Israel, Europe and Australia, and plans for 18 new offices this year, located in Russian-speaking communities worldwide.

Igor Branovan, president of the American Forum of Russian Jewry, said Russian-speaking Jews worldwide had struggled for years to find an organization that could advance a common agenda with an emphasis on Jewish education and pro-Israel advocacy. “By having greater numbers, by having greater access to media and greater budgets, we can do more in this important arena,” Branovan said.

The Brooklyn-based World Congress of Russian Jewry was supposed to fulfill that role. But Branovan, an early member, said the now dormant organization fell from grace amid suspicion that it was a puppet of the Kremlin.

Levin insists that his organization is independent and owes its allegiance to no one.
“We come from the bottom up,” Levin said.

Wearing black jeans, a black zip-up sweater and a black yarmulke, Levin, 43, hardly looks the part of a communal leader.

Mindful of the reputation that precedes most Ukrainian businessmen, he insists that he made his fortune in Kiev during the 1990s — “a crazy time” — without any mafia involvement.
“If you work legally, [the mafia] can’t come to you and give you a hard time,” Levin said, “and we were strong enough to not be afraid of anybody.”

Levin is an American citizen. He speaks English deliberately, occasionally slipping into Russian when he can’t find the vocabulary he picked up during almost six years living in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

But his speech quickens when he turns to his newfound faith in God.

“What I want to do with this organization is to bring moshiach [the anointed one] to Israel and to make this country [Israel] very, very powerful,” he said.

Being Jewish meant little to Levin during his formative years. As was the case for most Soviet Jews in 1970s Ukraine, it was significant only as an unfavorable designation on his passport and for attracting unwelcome attention from anti-Semitic bullies.

In recent years, Levin began attending Kiev’s historic Brodsky Synagogue. There, under the guidance of Chabad Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman, one of the most influential rabbis in Ukraine, he gradually became more religious.

He puts on tefillin daily, prays three times a day whenever he can and keeps kosher “as much as possible.” He believes that God “or maybe an angel” helps him tell the people he can trust by looking into their eyes. He attributes his business success to “Hashem.”

Since moving to Kiev in the 1990s, Levin has earned a fortune dabbling in commerce, energy and, most recently, real estate. His reputation is as one of the richest Jews in Ukraine, but no one can say exactly how rich. Levin recalled how, a few years ago, when he became leader of the Kiev Jewish community, he realized that God’s plan for him was to become more than a businessman. “I started to think: How can I do more? How can I help Jews, Israel and the world?” he said.

(The Forward)

 

Revolution in Jewish Life Called Limmud

Robust Identity Challenges Synagogues and Federations

Jerrold Bennett

Limmud Life: Events like the recent Limmud New York getaway are taking up space in the Jewish world that synagogues once exclusively occupied.

By David Hazony

Where will we go once the synagogues are gone?

In a Jewish religious landscape dominated by denominations struggling to compete for dollars and daveners, the idea that the three big faith streams might fade into irrelevance, supplanted by a robust “just Jewish” identity, sounds like a fantasy.

But what if it turned out that the demise of synagogue-based life is actually just around the bend — that a new generation of Members of the Tribe, enervated by treacly litanies and tired Talmudic classification, may soon figure out that the greatest sources of Jewish spiritual inspiration, intellectual growth and artistic expression (I lump them together and so can you) might come not from pulpit-pounders and the familiar rituals they command, nor even from the plaque-plagued schools that teach the cantors to cant, the professors to profess and the rabbis to rab — but from somewhere else entirely?

What if something came along that threatened to permanently dislodge the federations and foundations, with their fetes and fiscal décolletage, as the bookends holding up our sense of collective self, and put the core of Jewish identity back where it was always meant to be — in direct engagement with content?
I’m talking about Limmud.

Before I take another step, a disclaimer: In exchange for my giving four talks and participating in two panels over the weeklong Limmud conference in Coventry, United Kingdom, this past December, the folks who ran it were kind enough to fly me there and give me a bed to sleep in. But I’ve had far more lucrative speaking engagements and never once wrote about them afterward. Indeed, I was on such a high when Limmud finished on December 29 that I decided to wait a bit before writing, just to make sure the Kool-Aid had passed through my system.

For those of you permanently stationed in Antarctica, Limmud is an annual multi-day conference of Jewish learning. Since it started in the U.K. three decades ago, it has spread to communities around the world. But the British Limmud Conference remains the original, the biggest and — in my view — the most threatening to established Jewish life.

A few numbers: more than 2,500 participants; 400 presenters, including some of the most influential scholars, journalists, rabbis, artists and institutional leaders in Israel and the Diaspora; 1,000 different sessions. As one of the organizers told me, you can meet someone the first day and literally not see that person again until the closing event. Every hour of every day, if you are not presenting, you’ll need to make the impossible choice among at least two or three simultaneous sessions (out of about 20) that you have defined as must-see, or spend an hour chatting with some extremely interesting people you’ve always wanted to meet. For someone who doesn’t boggle easy, it was boggling — and enchanting.

There are a few unstated principles that make Limmud glow. One is that the mind and the spirit, the body and the soul, are one. Social, religious and intellectual stimuli are mixed inseparably. In addition to the classes going on, there is a cavernous, cacophonous central commons filled with hundreds of chairs and tables and couches for the never-ending conversations that Limmud triggers. During the day, coffee and cookies and live jazz flow freely. At night, beer on tap and harder stuff transform it into an English pub. (Still later at night, they bring out the kosher burgers as, well, a kind of exclamation point on the whole day.) This rejection of the Platonic separation of mind, spirit and body applies to the sessions, as well, which range from panels to lectures to seminars to performances to workshops. You can attend a session on “Aikido and the Talmud,” on Israel’s “cottage cheese rebellion” or on heavier questions of prayer, Zionism, philosophy, demography, dance or poetry. Or just join some people hanging out with a guitar and lighting Hanukkah candles.


Second, your place of work does not appear on your nametag. Neither do markers of formal hierarchy of knowledge, like “professor” and “rabbi.” This is because Limmud’s conceivers have realized that by developing a deferential rather than a creative atmosphere, such titles can encourage other people to plead ignorance rather than cure it by taking their learning into their own hands. The suspicion at Limmud, in other words, is that titles and affiliations, when tossed into a bubbling cauldron of intellectual ferment, can often do more harm than good.

And the third, and perhaps most beguiling, principle: There are almost no professional Limmudniks. While the international Limmud body’s paid staff is minimal, the volunteers run the conference almost exclusively. Participation fees cover more than half of the conference’s budget. There is a glaring absence of freebies. Which means that Limmud is largely immune to the pressures of philanthropic organizations and professional-caste standards. It is open-source Judaism: People there can chart their course, thankfully ignorant of what is expected of them — making contacts, coming up with ideas, changing their lives. In the process, Limmud is developing a powerful, unique brand unlike anything seen in the Jewish world in a generation.

Which is why Limmud may end up overturning the apple cart of Jewish life.

It’s not just a nice getaway; it’s by far the most interesting thing happening in Jewish life. It is more spiritual than synagogue, more challenging than yeshiva, more fun than youth groups, more effective than day school, more creative than Jewish community centers, more intellectual than grad school. Or at least it has the potential to be all these things, depending on who is leading a session, who is in the audience and who is on the other side of your Guinness at any given moment. That potential is evident every moment of the conference, and it leaves you wondering where, exactly, all this energy and identity has been all your life.
The main challenges for Limmud, it seems, are now twofold. First, it must find a way to successfully replicate the experience I just witnessed in places other than England. Although “Limmud” conferences have popped up around the world, not all of them have re-created the magic of Limmud-U.K. or followed its set of principles. Keeping the brand meaningful will be hard.

But more important, Limmud will have to find the appropriate way to extend that experience into the rest of the year. Critics have likened the conferences to summer camp, where the shortness of the period and the unreality of the environment make fantasies come true, but is much harder to translate into real life.
The thing is, I went to summer camp. The best ones aren’t stand-alone but are connected with youth movements, where the whole point is not the summer experience as much as finding a way to carry the enthusiasm through the year — local club meetings, biannual conventions and more. What my own camp experience taught me was that it was anything but an unreal bubble. It was the highlight of a whole year of redoubled expectations. And eventually it became the engine that drove my identity. In the end, the camping experience contributed decisively to my decision to make aliyah. And I am far from alone.

But regardless of how Limmud evolves, its effects will soon be felt across the Diaspora and in Israel, as well. Limmud is not just a name, but also a style, an attitude and, at its best, a hope. This is what revolutions look like; if you find it hard to believe, it’s because Diaspora Jewry hasn’t seen one in a long time.
 
David Hazony is a contributing editor to the Forward, and the author of “The Ten Commandments: How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life” (Scribner, 2010).

(The Forward)

Restive Ethiopians Take to Street

New Generation Emboldened To Protest Racism in Israel

getty images

No to Racism: Thousands rally in Jerusalem to protest racism against Ethiopians in Israel.

By Nathan Jeffay

Kiryat Malachi, Israel — Covering the shabby concrete storefronts in this small Israeli town are graffiti messages expressing the anger some Ethiopians feel over what they see as racism.
An unemployed Ethiopian immigrant waiting at the bus terminal says he has little hope of finding a job.
In a predominantly Ethiopian neighborhood named for Zionist forefather Theodor Herzl, residents complain that landlords use racist deals to keep them out of apartment blocks where white Israelis live.

getty images

Facing Racism: Ethiopian woman has her face painted for rally against racism.

Welcome to the epicenter of the growing movement of Ethiopian Israelis fighting what they call omnipresent discrimination and even blatant racism in the Jewish state.

“It’s funny that Herzl was a man who said that Jews should be together but… it’s full of Ethiopians living separately,” said protest leader Rachel Sium-Aaron, 26, pointing to a sign emblazoned with Herzl’s name.

Few Israelis had heard of Kiryat Malachi, much less been to the down-on-its-heels town of 25,000 on the road to Beersheba from Ashdod, until television news reports in early January broke the scandal of apartment leases that supposedly barred Ethiopians from living there.

Ethiopians responded by mounting one of the biggest demonstrations in their community’s short history, drawing about half of the town’s estimated 5,000 Ethiopians into the streets on January 10.
The East African immigrants and their allies staged a similarly sized protest on January 18, outside the Knesset in Jerusalem.

Ethiopian elders say the protests, organized using social media and led by people in their 20s, represent a dramatic new stage in their community’s history.
Many of the protest leaders are second-generation immigrants who grew up in Israel and may feel more confident protesting racism than their parents, who came from Ethiopia in the famed airlifts of so-called Falasha Jews.

“The youngsters didn’t appreciate what was happening until now,” said Yaakov Kabada, a leader of Kiryat Malachi’s Ethiopian community. “But now they have woken up. Now it’s all bursting out.”
Studies reveal that de facto school segregation exists in some places in Israel, with some schools populated entirely by children of Ethiopian origin. In Kiryat Malachi, some neighborhoods appear to be populated almost entirely by African immigrants.

“‘Ethiopian only’ schools are a disgusting and condemnable phenomenon that stain the entire education system,” Alex Miller, chairman of the Knesset Education Committee, said in September.


Kiryat Malachi, Israel — Ethiopians also suffer employment discrimination. When Ono Academic College scholars surveyed advertising executives, lawyers, bankers and other professionals, some 53% said that people in their profession prefer not to employ Ethiopians.

The new consciousness is on display around Kiryat Malachi, where protesters have spray-painted graffiti proclaiming “Ethiopian price tag,” a reference to the well-publicized “price tag” campaign carried out by right-wing Jewish settlers who oppose compromise with the Palestinians.

Cassao Jacob

Sitting aimlessly at a bus stop in Kiryat Malachi, Ambatio Damete conceded that he had nowhere to go. An unemployed 32-year-old Ethiopian, he has high hopes for the new protests.
“We haven’t studied to the level of other Israelis; we don’t have professions, and even those who have degrees aren’t getting jobs,” he said.

At Beit Tzipora, a Kiryat Malachi youth center, educator Cassao Jacob is under house arrest. Police say he is responsible for the graffiti, a charge he denies. He accuses them of shutting down his Facebook page to slow down the movement, which Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld denied.

“I know it’s because of the demonstrations… they think they can stop us,” Jacob told the Forward.
Jacob, 26, is charismatic and eloquent, with the same engaging youthful quality as Daphne Leef, a leader of last summer’s social justice protests that rocked the country. He describes Ethiopian youngsters as “outsiders from Israeli society because of color and culture.”

A veteran of the Second Lebanon War who did his army service in a combat unit, he says he exemplifies the frustration of many young Ethiopians who serve the country without getting anything back in return.
“After all these things, this country gives me racism and police action,” Jacob said. “It’s very sad for me.”
Sium-Aaron insists that the emerging Ethiopian protest movement aims at uniting all Israelis: blacks and whites, immigrants and those born in Israel.

Sium-Aaron says that it “is not only for us, it’s for the country, too.” She reasoned that Ethiopians are currently seen as a very loyal minority to the state, and more committed than other demographics to army service — but that this enthusiasm could dissipate.

“If people here aren’t respected, they won’t serve the country in the same way,” she said. “There will be chaos.”
The protests have spurred conversation and tension in Kiryat Malachi. In the town center, some non-Ethiopians saw the apartment discrimination as clear-cut racism. Businessman Moshe Lavi said that residents accused of barring Ethiopians should publicly apologize. Otherwise, “it won’t end quietly,” he said. Artist Lilly Ezra says she supports the protesters and that they are “absolutely right 100%.”
Others insisted they are not racists. But they conceded that they understand why some Israelis would not want Ethiopians living in their apartment buildings.

An Israeli-born shopkeeper who declined to give her name because local tensions are running so high said that Ethiopians should become more like Israeli-born people. She said Ethiopians do not cook or act the same as other Israelis.

“Their culture is so different, and they don’t know how to be with us,” she said. “[We] want to teach them a different way, but they don’t want it…. Nobody wants Ethiopians in their building.”

The same split reaction to Ethiopians apparently exists at the highest levels of Israel’s government. When Ethiopian activist Gadi Desta said that there were incidents of “apartheid” in Israel, Immigration and Absorption Minister Sofa Landver rebuked him for not appreciating what his new home had given him.

“You need to be grateful for what you have received,” said Landver, an immigrant from Russia.
President Shimon Peres responded by noting the contribution that Ethiopians have made to society.
“We, the State of Israel, should say thank you to immigrants from Ethiopia,” Peres said, “and not vice versa.”

(The Forward)

"Agora eu quero ver quem é o otário, pra falar que tem apartheid em Israel!"

O que nos ensinou o Campo de Auschwitz?

Hoje, nossa ferramenta é a educação e a recordação, buscando que as novas gerações conheçam o sucedido e que possamos lhes garantir que nunca mais isso voltará a ocorrer.
 
Em 27 de janeiro de 1945, o exército soviético entrou e libertou Auschwitz, o maior campo de extermínio e concentração construído pelos nazistas. A imagem era chocante. A evidência do extermínio massivo brotava por todos os lados.

Os alemães haviam destruído a maioria dos depósitos no campo, mas nos que haviam, os soviéticos encontraram claros reflexos da crueldade: milhares de cadáveres sem cremar e mais de 7000 kg de cabelo humano. Os sobreviventes, que todavia estavam ali, que conseguiram sobreviver, estavam reduzidos a pele e ossos. Um punhado de vidas poderiam ter sido salvas das mãos criminosas dos nazistas, que já haviam assassinado mais de seis milhões de judeus.

As pessoas que ingressavam nos campos não podiam acreditar no que seus olhos testemunharam.O próprio Dwight Eisenhower, general do exército dos Estados Unidos, ao visitar o primeiro campo de concentração libertado por sua tropa, Ohrdruf Nord, ordenou que fotografassem tudopara se assegurar que  nunca fosse esquecida a profundidade do horror nazista. “As coisas que eu vi são indescritíveis”, comentou o general frente a milhares e milhares de cadáveres que evidenciavam o horror.

Com o mesmo espírito de garantir às novas gerações que o mundo não volte a viver um extermínio semelhante, a Organização das Nações Unidas votou-se, e por unanimidade, a data de 27 de janeiro foi estabelecida como o Dia Internacional em Memória às Vítimas do Holocausto. Frente à memória, à recordação e à educação, se busca evitar novos genocídios.

A resolução insta aos Estados membros a elaborarem programas educativos que incluam o ensino do Holocausto. Ademais, rechaça toda negação desse  fato histórico e condena as manifestações de intolerância religiosa, incitação, assédio ou violência contra pessoas ou comunidades baseado em sua origem étnica ou suas crenças.

Cada 27 de janeiro, os diferentes países do mundo levam a cabo celebrações que, em sua maioria, contam com a  presença de sobreviventes, e dos presidentes, ministros, parlamentares dos países, todos comprometidos com  recordar e educar aos mais jovens.

Há algumas semanas, o presidente iraniano Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visitou a América Latina. O atual porta-voz da negação do Holocausto, promotor de matanças e abusos aos Direitos Humanos e instigador da “desaparição” de um Estado membro das Nações Unidas, foi bem recebido por presidentes de países de nossa região, motivo esse que deve nos preocupar e muito. A negação desta bárbarie somente permitirá que se cometam novas atrocidades.

Hoje, nossa ferramenta é a educação e a recordação, buscando que as novas gerações conheçam o sucedido e que possamos lhes garantir que nada semelhante volte a ocorrer. Oxalá, a comunidade internacional tenha aprendido sobre Auschwitz, e assim, através da memória e a educação, evitemos novos genocídios e que possamos construir um mundo justo, solidário e em paz. 

(Conselho Judaico Latino Americano)

Combatir a los racistas, no a la sociedad

  En Jerusalén tuvo lugar hace unos días una manifestación de miles de personas promovida por ciudadanos miembros de la comunidad etíope - con muchos de ellos al frente -, en protesta contra el racismo y exigiendo plena igualdad en la sociedad israelí.

  El detonante de la protesta lo dieron los incidentes registrados recientemente en la ciudad de Kiriat Malaji, en la que hubo casos que residentes locales rehusaron alquilar departamentos a israelíes de origen etíope, alegando que ello bajará los precios de sus propiedades.

Al marchar por Jerusalén, a las quejas justificadas se agregaban casos puntuales con los que seguramente no pocos de los manifestantes - o amigos y familiares suyos que no se hicieron presentes - han tenido que lidiar en distintos momentos: comentarios ofensivos en clases, autobuses, en diferentes sitios y ocasiones.

El fenómeno debe ser combatido y para eso la ley puede ayudar (como en el caso de los alquileres), pero lo central es la educación. Han hecho bien los israelíes de origen etíope en salir a protestar, a manifestar no sólo para expresar su justificado enojo sino también para concientizar a la gente. La presencia en la marcha de israelíes no de origen etíope, es una buena señal, aunque habría sido deseable que los números fueran otros, mucho más significativos.

Hicieron bien pues, y tienen razón en protestar.
Sin embargo, creemos imperioso hacer algunas precisiones.
En Israel hay racistas, como - lamentablemente - los hay en casi todos los países del mundo. Entre eso y la afirmación de que la sociedad israelí es racista, hay un trecho muy largo.

Como en toda sociedad, liberales y moderados conviven con radicales y extremistas, los que aceptan con plena y auténtica satisfacción a aquellos que son diferentes en su color, sus códigos, idioma o costumbres, conviven con quienes consideran que sólo los «suyos» pueden estar a su lado.

La primera vez que asistimos a un espectáculo del cantante israelí Idán Raichel (que estuvo recientemente por segunda vez en Uruguay), él contó algo sobre Kabra Qasai, una de las excelentes miembros de su conjunto, miembro de la comunidad etíope, como varios más de su grupo.

Raichel relató sobre lo singular de su madre, de cuánto vale la pena conocerla, de la amistad entre ambos... y contó sobre un incidente que le ocurrió a Kabra de pequeña. Volvió de la escuela llorando, antes de finalizar el día de clase, porque la maestra, al preguntarle la niña por qué no la deja nunca contestar aunque la ve levantando la mano, le había dicho que «a niñas como tú no las quiero ni oír».

Kabra interpretó la frase de inmediato como señal de sentimientos contra su color de piel y salió corriendo de la clase. Según Idán Raichel, la madre de Kabra, ni corta ni perezosa, fue a la escuela, entró en la clase, y le dio una bofetada a la maestra.

No pudimos nunca confirmar la vericidad de la historia. Pero no tenemos duda alguna de que también en Israel hay maestros, almaceneros y conductores de autobuses a los que no les gusta la gente de color. Tampoco tenemos duda de la admiración de la que goza Kabra Qasai, de su rol protagónico en el conjunto de Idán Raichel, de los numerosos casos de exitosa adaptación e integración a la sociedad israelí, que no es por cierto nada fácil.

Pero más allá de casos puntuales, que fácilmente pueden verse como una excepción, nos resulta clave recordar lo que nosotros vivimos años atrás, en 1991, cuando estaban por aterrizar los aviones de la Fuerza Aérea de Israel que habían viajado secretamente a Etiopía a traer a los judíos que esperaban en Addis Abeba. Se nos hace un nudo en la garganta al rememorar aquellos momentos cuando se abrió el vientre de los Hércules y comenzaron a salir judíos negros, todos vestidos de blanco, con los ojos enormes y sorprendidos, que venían de otro país y de otro tiempo.

Vimos a oficiales del ejército israelí secándose las lágrimas. El entonces primer ministro, Itzjak Shamir, había ordenado traer a esos judíos de Etiopía y se comenzó la preparación del operativo secreto, todo un desafío, cuando en su país no era la calma lo que reinaba en la vida diaria.

No pocos errores fueron cometidos en el proceso de absorción. El mantenimiento en general en el marco de su propia comunidad, creó zonas en las que los problemas se agudizaban en lugar de permitir una integración más rápida y fluida. Pero no fue racismo. Quizás cierto aire de superioridad; eso sí, pero derivado no sólo de políticas equivocadas sino del hecho que parte de la comunidad venía de sitios en los que la civilización parecía estar a años luz de distancia.

Paralelamente a esos errores, hubo luces. La sociedad israelí se desvivió para ayudar, para donar, para organizarse. Es cierto que eso no duró por siempre. Los desafíos van cambiando y no todos tienen la entereza y perseverancia para mantenerse siempre firmes con la antorcha en la mano.

Pero aún con los baches no resueltos y los problemas con los que todavía hay que lidiar, los judíos etíopes fueron convirtiéndose en parte de la sociedad israelí. Para los mayores la dificultad fue más seria y esto se ha traducido - también hace pocos días - a veces en tragedias de gran magnitud. Ha habido varios asesinatos de mujeres israelíes etíopes por parte de sus cónyuges, explicados por asistentes sociales como una expresión extrema de la influencia que tuvo el cambio de la estructura social de la familia al venir a Israel. En Etiopía, una sociedad totalmente patriarcal, en Israel, una sociedad más abierta, en la que la autoridad del padre no siempre es respetada como lo era en su país de origen. Verdaderos dramas de por medio.

Israel es un país complejo, una sociedad heterogénea que a veces uno se pregunta cómo es que logra salir adelante estando compuesta por tal mosaico de orígenes e identidades. El israelí es, además, vehemente y discutidor. Las amenazas de afuera son contra todos, pero eso no quita ni un ápice a las diferencias internas que son por cierto numerosas. Por lo tanto, las discusiones y discrepancias suelen ser acaloradas y llenas de ardor. A veces, en medio de los debates, cuando a cada uno se le va el alma en sus argumentos, parecería que hay odio de por medio entre seculares y religiosos, veteranos sabras e inmigrantes, rusos y etíopes, judíos y árabes. Claro que las diferencias y tensiones existen; y que cada uno está seguro de que todos los problemas son culpa «del otro».

Pero a nuestro modo de ver, lo central no son esas diferencias ni choques sino el común denominador, el hecho que hay algo que une y empuja hacia adelante. De lo contrario, Israel no estaría hoy donde está.

Su comunidad de origen etíope, sus ciudadanos de piel negra y rasgos suaves, también son parte de ese todo.

Cabe suponer que seguirán cometiéndose errores oficiales y que en la calle también seguirá habiendo intolerantes de mente cerrada. Pero a los judíos etíopes se los trajo a Israel para que sean parte. Y aunque no siempre les sea fácil, tienen muchos hijos destacados en diferentes áreas del quehacer nacional, profesionales, oficiales, artistas y demás.

Son parte de una sociedad imperfecta que, si fuera racista, no los habría traído jamás.


Escrito por Jana Beris.

(Fuente: Semanario Hebreo de Uruguay & Israel En Línea)

São Paulo, Mazal Tov!!!

Dia vinte e cinco de Janeiro, aniversário de São Paulo.

Acabei de voltar do “Açaí”, onde encontrei os meus amigos Benjamim e Vania Handfaz,  pais do Alexandre, meu amigo e aluno de Bar Mitzvah.

Entre pratos de Açaí e canudos de água de côco e ao som da torcida do timão que joga aqui perto no estádio do Pacaembu, os amigos me contaram uma história digna do aniversário de nossa cidade:

-A filha de nosso primo Jayme – Corinthiano roxo -  estava passeando com a sua avó, quando cruzou com outra dupla de avó e neto. A avó número dois, ao ver nossa priminha, não se conteve e disse:

-Puxa vida! Que menina linda! Loirinha de olhos azuis!

-Seu neto também é lindo – Respondeu a orgulhosa avó - Que lindos cabelos e olhos negros!

-Obrigada, ele é árabe puro!

-Árabe puro... Que maravilha! A minha netinha é judia pura!

-Em outros cantos do mundo este seria um possível ensejo para uma bela discussão, mas aqui em São Paulo, terra, ou melhor, asfalto de diversidade, é diferente:

-Pois então... Podemos acertar o casamento? – Disse a avó judia.

-Claro! Por que não? - Respondeu a avó árabe.

Após mais uns minutos de descontraída conversa, as duas se despediram com beijos e cumprimentos.

Alguns passos depois, nossa priminha, depois de se certificar de que já estava a uma distância segura do “primos árabes”, se dirigiu à avó com uma voz grave e expressando preocupação no olhar, disse:

-Vó! Como a senhora falou aquilo de eu me casar com ele? Você esqueceu o que a gente é? Ele é o contrário da gente!

-Você está falando isso por que ele é árabe?

-Não vovó! Você não viu a camiseta dele? Ele torce para o São Paulo!

 

(Moré Ventura)

Viva São Paulo! Viva o diálogo! Viva a Paz!

Jack Lew and the Power of Shabbat

Obama's Chief of Staff Will Find Ways To Serve and Observe

getty images

Jack and Barack: Jack Lew is the new White House chief of staff. How will he as an Orthodox Jew deal with issues like shabbat?

  

By Ethan Tucker

 

I hold two truths to be self-evident: First, the Jewish people and the world need Shabbat like never before. Second, the Torah intends for Jews — especially observant ones — to be visible, engaged in society and capable of taking on responsibility for others as opposed to just looking out for their parochial interests.

In most cases, these two truths coexist in harmony: Six days a week, a Shabbat-observant Jew can and should engage fully with the world and use the passion and wisdom of the Jewish tradition to make a mark on the broader society. And on the seventh day, like God before her, she should rest, turning within to rejuvenate, to recharge and to model the promise of a weekly respite from non-stop labor.

But how do we think about Shabbat-observant Jews performing those functions that require seven days of work, or at least occasional work on Saturdays? As Jack Lew, a Shabbat-observant Jew takes over as

White House chief of staff, these questions are all the more relevant. What is the role of Shabbat in an increasingly 24/7 world? Can we revel in the appointment of an observant Jew to the highest and busiest of executive jobs without compromising our covenantal obligations in the name of Shabbat?

We live at a moment when interest in Shabbat is being rekindled, as broad swaths of people feel enslaved by the incessant nature of the information age. We are witness to a world crying out for a Sabbath.
Shabbat-observant Jews would seem to have a heightened obligation then to turn off, power down and stay at home. We have something precious to teach the world and our most influential members must lead the charge. Shabbat stands for humility in a world of such total human domination that we risk forgetting that we did not bring this world into being. And it stands for a vision of human society that rejects the constant work that characterizes slavery.

Still, working for the government on Shabbat presents observant Jews with an interesting and unique dilemma. Jewish sources have grappled with Jewish power in the past, but mostly in the context of lobbyists and attachés to power, rather than those who wield power themselves. While there is a rich legal literature regarding those who are kerovei malkhut — Jews involved in governmental circles who are in a position to appeal to gentile authorities on behalf of Jews — there is comparatively little on those actually involved in malkhut, the administration of society. Sometimes the categories of pikuah nefesh — the authorization to violate Shabbat in order to save a life — are applied creatively and broadly. But this skirts the issue: Are Jews authorized and empowered to do the 24/7 things that are required for a modern society to function? Should we really say that Jews, at least in a gentile, diasporic government, may have to be among the represented, but not among those who represent?

In the Babylonian Talmud, we get hints of what another approach might look like. Rav Sheshet, a Babylonian sage of the third and fourth centuries CE, issues the following bold ruling: One who is purchasing territory (from a gentile) in the Land of Israel may write the bill of sale even on Shabbat. The Talmud is so shocked by this ruling — writing is a core violation of Shabbat and no lives are at stake! — that it assumes that it must have been misunderstood. Rav Sheshet is amended to make the more moderate statement that one can instruct a gentile to write the bill of sale, such that the violation of Shabbat is indirect and done by a non-Jew.

But as any good student of Talmud will tell you, the original version of Rav Sheshet would not have been preserved were it a mere error in transmission. While its conclusions were unacceptable to the Talmud’s editors — completely understandably — it is highly likely that Rav Sheshet himself in fact said what he is quoted as saying. How could he issue such a radical ruling, seemingly at odds with the universally accepted principle that only danger to life trumps Shabbat?

It seems Rav Sheshet is sensitive to the need to take statecraft seriously as a value in and of itself. Without control of the Land of Israel, argues Rav Sheshet, there can be no sovereign, independent Jewish society that will truly stand for the values of Shabbat and Judaism more broadly. Just as the preservation of life supersedes Shabbat because Shabbat is meant to be a lived mitzvah, one that cannot be fulfilled in death, so too, for Rav Sheshet, acquiring control of Jewish space is a prerequisite for creating a Jewish world that can model Shabbat in all of its fullness.

We live in a thrilling moment for Shabbat observance. It is a moment in which the general culture is truly ready to hear much of its message. And it is also a moment in which being observant is not a barrier to serving one’s country and society at the highest echelons of power. I am sure Jack Lew will find ways to avoid all unnecessary meetings on Shabbat and will be in a position to avoid certain concrete physical tasks like writing that have been core elements of Shabbat observance for millennia. But when he does find himself in the office on a Saturday — beckoned by the president to deal with issues of national concern — I hope he and we will remember Rav Sheshet’s insight: The Jew’s commitment to infusing our world with Jewish values and leadership is ultimately a 24/7 endeavor.
 
Rabbi Ethan Tucker is Rosh Yeshiva and Chair of Jewish Law at Mechon Hadar, an institution of higher Jewish learning based in New York City.

(The Forward)

Persons of (Linguistic) Interest

The Word 'Jew' Has Fallen Out of Favor

MGM studios

Jew or Jewish? Mel Brooks poked fun at sensitivity over the term Jew in ‘Spaceballs’ when he created the materialistic Princess Vespa as a ‘Druish Princess.’

By Philologos

Forward reader Bill Morris writes a letter about the pejorative associations that some non-Jews who are not at all anti-Semitic have with the word “Jew,” observing, “I have non-Jewish friends who still balk at saying ‘Jew’ — one friend always says ‘Jewish person.’”

It’s not only non-Jews. I’ve also occasionally heard American Jews — almost always rather assimilated ones — refer to “Jewish persons” rather than to “Jews.” Not long ago, in fact, I read an op-ed by Harvard University professor James R. Russell in the English edition of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in which, in the course of expressing opposition to a pre-emptive Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear installations, he wrote: “I’m a middle-aged Jewish man who teaches Armenian, and thus I remember two holocausts. I accept that Israel must make the final decision about its security. Yet nothing, and I mean nothing, is worth the mass extinction of possible nuclear war.”

Had the professor been born and raised in Sweden, and had his first name, like James, left no room for doubt that he was male, he almost surely would have written, “I’m a middle-aged Swede who teaches Armenian” and not “I’m a middle-aged Swedish man.” Like “Jewish person,” “Jewish man” in such a context is a way — although most probably an unconscious one to which no thought was given — to avoid saying “Jew.”

Still, I agree with Mr. Morris that the usage is more common among well-meaning non-Jews who think they are being considerate toward Jews by resorting to it. Here are a few instances culled from the Internet.
From a Christian evangelical site: “Recently, there has been a swirl of controversy whether a Jewish person can go to heaven or not. The answer is a resounding yes!!!”

From a non-Jew writing to a rabbi: “A Jewish person in my extended family has just died. Since I am not of that faith, what do I do?”

From a language site: “Is it considered offensive to call a Jewish person a Semite?”

From an online forum: Chatter A: “Is it mean to call a Jewish person a Jew?” Chatter B: “It depends on the context and how it’s said.” Chatter C: “I agree [with Chatter B]. It depends on how it’s said. But it’s politer to say ‘Jewish.’”

Why is it that so many people who have nothing against Jews believe that the word “Jew” may be offensive when the word “Jewish” is not? I can think of three reasons, all undoubtedly true.
The first reason is that when Jews are slurred, it is the word “Jew” they are slurred with. No one, unless it’s Jackie Mason or Woody Allen, ever said, “You better watch out, you dirty Jewish man,” or, “Those goddamn Jewish persons steal you blind.” Particularly in the minds of people who have grown up or live in environments in which Jews may be spoken of scurrilously, “Jew” can have nasty associations that “Jewish” lacks.

Second, when used not as a noun but as an adjective, “Jew” in English is always scurrilous. To call a Jewish politician or a Jewish businessman a “Jew politician” or a “Jew businessman” is by definition anti-Semitic.

This gives “Jew” a sometimes objectively pejorative meaning that “Jewish” never has.

And third, when used as a verb, “jew” is always pejorative, too. “That chiseler jewished me out of $10,” on the other hand, is not something you’re going to hear.

This is also the reason that the more Jewish you are and the more you associate mainly with other Jews, the more absurd the euphemism “Jewish person” will seem to you, since you don’t move in circles in which “Jew” may be used negatively. Assimilated Jews sometimes do. They may even find themselves in conversations with non-Jews who don’t know that they’re Jewish and therefore make nasty remarks about Jews, which renders them sensitive to the word “Jew” in a way that more Jewishly involved Jews are not. In general, it’s one of the paradoxes of belonging to any minority that the less one identifies with it, the more easily one is hurt by prejudice against it and the more suspicious one tends to be that such prejudice exists even when it doesn’t.

And of course, it works the other way around, too: The Jew who expects to be called a Jew is likely to take offense upon hearing himself — or indeed, any Jew — called a “Jewish person,” since this suggests an embarrassment with the word “Jew” that he finds distasteful. My own practice in such cases is to correct the offender by indirection. If someone says to me, “I know many Jewish persons who vote Republican,” my answer will be, “Yes, not all Jews are Democrats”; tell me, “My brother’s ex-wife is going out with a Jewish man,” and I’ll ask, “Is he the first Jew she’s gone out with?” Eventually, the message gets across. Usually it doesn’t even take that long.

(The Forward)

Shorn Matisyahu Takes Different Path

For Reggae Star, Shaving Beard Signals Shift in Career and Life

Derek McCabe

New Path: Matisyahu had fans pleading for his hits at a recent New York gig. But the reggae star is moving in a different direction after shaving his beard and giving up on the Hasidic lifestyle.

 

By Josh Nathan-Kazis

 

No one noticed Matisyahu when he climbed onstage at a downtown Manhattan concert venue in early January, drinking a cup of tea under dark red lights.

It wasn’t until the onetime Hasidic reggae superstar took off his fleece cap, revealing a velvet yarmulke, that fans connected the gaunt, stubble-faced man with the yeshiva boy who became an instant sensation in 2005, when he beat boxed on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” wearing a Lubavitch fedora and an untamed beard.

“I didn’t even recognize him at first,” said Keith Dumont, 22, after the Rockwood Music Hall show. It wasn’t just the beard that was missing. The set Matisyahu and his band played at the late-night show didn’t sound much like reggae. And though the crowd begged, he didn’t favor them with one of his hits, or even an encore.

 Matthew Paul "Matisyahu" Miller

 

 

Matisyahu is still a superstar. He holds two spots on Billboard’s latest top-10 reggae album sales chart — the entire Marley clan only has three spots among them — and plays hip venues around the country
But the world of the 32-year-old Jewish reggae artist is in flux. In 2010, the major label Sony dropped his act. He recently moved to Los Angeles from a Hasidic enclave in Brooklyn and is now pursuing acting jobs. And in mid-December, Matisyahu shaved his beard, abandoning the visual hook that had helped separate him from the mass of white reggae wannabes.

For his friends and fans, these personal decisions carry heavy spiritual implications. In shaving and moving away from the Hasidic Jewish neighborhood of Crown Heights, Matisyahu appears to be signaling a shift from the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Judaism that brought him his artistic success. Matisyahu declined to speak to the Forward for this story. But while some fans say his struggles make him more relatable, others worry about the most prominent ultra-Orthodox ba’al teshuvah, or nonobservant Jew who embraces Orthodoxy, losing his way.

---

Matisyahu’s first Tweet on December 13 was a nod to his masseuse. His second, issued eight hours later, included a phrase from one of his own songs — “When the tide comes in I lose my disguise” — and two tinted photos of himself, newly beardless.

In the images, Matisyahu looked small and tired, even sick. Black sacks hung under his eyes. The beard was gone, and the shorn artist was unrecognizable. His plain white shirt, buttoned at the neck, looked like the burial shrouds some Jews wear on Yom Kippur.

Days later, during a concert in Brooklyn, Matisyahu apparently lost his temper, breaking a camera wielded by a photographer for Paper Magazine. The photographer, Rebecca Smeyne, writing on Paper’s website, said that she had taken a dozen shots of Matisyahu onstage. “[T]he next thing I knew, Matisyahu’s foot was on my face and I fell to the ground,” Smeyne reported. Matisyahu went on to “deliberately” damage the camera, according to Smeyne, and a representative of the artist paid damages on the spot.
Matisyahu later apologized on Twitter, saying that he had found the flash on her camera distracting.

---

Matisyahu’s history is, by now, familiar. A onetime Phish fan named Matthew Miller, he grew up in a non-Orthodox home before growing interested in the ultra-Orthodoxy of Chabad. Matisyahu turned into an observant Lubavitch Hasid, studying at a Crown Heights yeshiva. In an interview with Rolling Stone, recorded shortly after he cut his beard, Matisyahu said that he stopped shaving and started wearing tzitzis just days after putting on a yarmulke for the first time.


“When I was 17 I listened to reggae music,” Matisyahu told WNYC’s Kurt Andersen in another interview recorded shortly after he shaved. “I loved Bob Marley. I started growing dreadlocks. It’s always been my way, that the outside matches what’s going on with me inside.”

Matisyahu’s Jewish-themed reggae, delivered in a faux Jamaican patois, hit big with his 2005 disc “Live at Stubb’s,” the first of two RIAA-certified gold albums. Sony put Matisyahu on its premier label and brought in industry heavyweight Jeff Ayeroff to consult on the artist’s image. Ayeroff, who had worked with Janet Jackson and the Smashing Pumpkins, among others, was tasked with packaging Matisyahu for broad consumption.

“I didn’t do anything to him,” Ayeroff said in a telephone interview with the Forward. “I think I kind of polished a very nice diamond.”

Ayeroff didn’t see Matisyahu’s traditional clothing as a problem. “I felt in the beginning that the look might have been a hook, it might have been a story you could tell,” Ayeroff said. “You don’t want to say, here’s a guy, [Matt] Miller, who’s a really good reggae, beat box guy. It’s different than saying there’s this Hasidic Jew, long beard, big hat, who is like an unbelievable reggae star. People go, ‘Really?’”
Ayeroff recruited director Marc Webb, now working on a new Spider-Man movie, to shoot a video for Matisyahu’s song “Youth.” Filmed in part in the now closed Manhattan punk mecca CBGB, Matisyahu wears his Hasidic clothes with attitude. The HBO show “Deadwood,” about life in a Wild West boomtown, was on the air at the time, and Ayeroff thought the image of a guy in a wide-brimmed hat could bring up cowboy associations.

“If you look at the long coat and the big hat and the beard, he would have been in a mining town,” Ayeroff said. “When he prowled that stage, he wasn’t doing ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ let’s put it that way. He was doing something different in that garb.”

But some critics saw in Matisyahu’s exotic clothing a convenient shield. “Matisyahu’s black hat also helps obscure something that might otherwise be more obvious: his race,” Kelefa Sanneh wrote in a scathing New York Times review. “He is a student of the Chabad-Lubavitch philosophy, but he is also a white reggae singer with an all-white band, playing… to an almost all-white crowd. Yet, he has mainly avoided thorny questions about cultural appropriation.”

Six years on, cultural appropriation is no longer on the table. At the early January show, where the crowd was also nearly all white, all anyone wanted to talk about was Matisyahu’s beard. Or the lack of one.
One person loosely affiliated with Matisyahu’s circle said that people around the artist were shocked when he shaved. But longtime collaborator Aaron Dugan, a guitarist who toured with him until 2010 and appeared with him again January 4 to play music written days earlier, said he wasn’t surprised the beard was gone.

“I knew it would go at some point,” Dugan said moments after the show. “He’s a guy who does extreme things.”

Approached by the Forward outside Rockwood Music Hall, Dumont and his friends said that they had been talking about the beard on the way to the show. “It’s more in their struggle that we connect to great people than in their success,” said Yakov Block, 25. Block had never been to a Matisyahu concert, and upon reflection he said that he had come that evening because the artist had shaved his beard.

Block and Dumont and their friends are young, observant Jews with an alternative bent. Some said they were ba’al teshuvah. Block, who grew up religious, claimed a hybrid identity, saying he was “also Lubavitch.” Standing by the stage door after the show, hoping to get backstage to say hello to Matisyahu, some in the group said they saw in Matisyahu’s change a reflection of their own religious questioning.

“We all know if you’re trying to get better, you fall a little,” said Yonatan Sklar, who said he was a ba’al teshuvah and studied at a yeshiva in Long Island.

But Matisyahu is perhaps the most visible contemporary ba’al teshuvah, and his religious journey has been watched closely. His move away from Chabad in 2007 incited consternation in some religious quarters, as has his decision to shave.

Boxer Dmitriy Salita, a friend of Matisyahu’s and another prominent ba’al teshuvah, said he hoped that Matisyahu’s wavering wouldn’t give other ba’alei l teshuvah an excuse to waver. “Sometimes kids can look at it and see him as a role model and may get discouraged,” Salita said. “But people need to understand, Matisyahu is not a rebbe, he’s not a rabbi, he’s not a religious figure; he’s just a Jew like you and me and many other people, and he’s going through struggles.”

Those struggles may not be only spiritual.

Matisyahu’s life has taken radical turns over the past few years. When Sony dropped him, it left him without major label support. In the meantime, he has launched an acting career. He appears as an exorcist rabbi in “The Possession,” a horror film slated for release in August. The film is based on the story of a box sold on eBay in 2004, purportedly haunted by a dybbuk, a demon from Jewish mythology.
The pop singer was in talks over the summer to star in a “Flight of the Conchords”-style half-hour comedy series about life on tour as a Hasidic pop star. Jonathan Kesselman, writer and director of the 2003 satire “The Hebrew Hammer,” was involved in the project, which fell through. A spokeswoman for Matisyahu said that the musician was working on another television pitch, though she would not provide details.

This move toward film has coincided with Matisyahu leaving the Lubavitch enclave of Crown Heights, where he has lived since his decision to become an Orthodox Jew, for Los Angeles. Matisyahu, who has a wife and two children, had previously told reporters that he stayed in Crown Heights because of his wife’s ties to the community there.

The Matisyahu spokeswoman said that he was working on an album, though it was not clear on which label it would be released. Matisyahu wrote on his Twitter feed January 8 that the album would be titled “Spark Seeker.”

Some hold out hope that Matisyahu’s beard will return. “He didn’t say it’s gone. I feel like there’s a 2013 tour called ‘The Beard Is Back,’” said Chaim Marcus, a longtime friend of Matisyahu’s and a Lubavitcher who produced the hit music video “Ya’alili,”, which featured Matisyahu’s young son in peyes, or sidelocks, and a Batman sweatshirt.

But Matisyahu’s own words, published on his website amid the gossip-blog furor over his shave, leave little hope for the beard.

“No more Chassidic reggae superstar,” Matisyahu wrote.

(The Forward)

A Place for Gays in Orthodoxy

'Commitment Ceremony' Offers Welcome to Same-Sex Couples

Commitment to Faith: Rabbi Steve Greenberg presides over an ‘commitment ceremony’ for a gay couple.

By Steve Greenberg

Not a month goes by without a young person just out of the closet — or sometimes that person’s shocked parents — contacting me in search of Orthodox leaders to respond credibly to their questions. It was this reality that was on my mind as I confronted the backlash to a same-sex commitment ceremony I performed last November. In response, 100 rabbis signed a statement censuring me. While these rabbis may prefer to foist this challenge upon me, the truth is that, as rabbis, we are all responsible for the conflict between present halachic norms and the real lives of people. We are all responsible for the gay and lesbian kids who are growing up in Orthodox communities and want a future. And I am not the only Orthodox rabbi who believes so.

Three years ago I interviewed 20 Orthodox rabbis on their pastoral experiences with gay people and their families. Those interviews were taped and transcribed, and many of them are incredibly moving. I wish I could share these and other conversations I have had over the years with Orthodox rabbis whose honesty and decency, whose humility in the face of a difficult question, are not widely known. But the interviews are secret because I promised not to share them. I can quote a few rabbis whose views were written or spoken publicly — though I am still reluctant to use their names.

When asked by a group of students what his views on homosexuality were one illustrious Modern Orthodox rabbi responded that he used to know the answer to that question. He could point to chapter and verse. Now when a gay person comes to him for counsel, his answer is, in his own words: “I don’t know. I just don’t have enough information to give a clear answer. I have 612 mitzvot that I feel I’ve got a better handle on. Come to my shul and we’ll work on those together.” Among the most human and honest responses an Orthodox rabbi has ever given to this dilemma is “I don’t know.”


Rabbis who actually have an open conversation with gay people discover that no one chooses his or her sexual orientation. Another beloved leader of Modern Orthodoxy, a rabbinic communal leader and a founder of a yeshiva, wrote with deep empathy early in his career: “How can we deny a human being the expression of his physical and psychic being? If there’s a problem with the kettle, blame the manufacturer. Is it not cruel to condemn an individual for doing that which his biological and genetic make-up demand that he do?” This Orthodox rabbi is not afraid of articulating the profound theological and moral challenge posed by Halacha as it is presently applied.

Recent rabbinical statements demand life-long celibacy from gay and lesbian Jews. But a number of rabbis have shared with me their doubts about these guidelines for the simple reason that God does not demand the impossible from people. A well-respected Orthodox author, rabbi and educator has said in a public forum: “It is not possible for the Torah to come and ask a person to do something which he is not able to do.

Theoretically speaking, it would be better for the homosexual to live a life of celibacy. I just would argue one thing: It’s completely impossible. It doesn’t work. The human force of sexuality is so big it can’t be done.”
Given the unreasonable demand of life-long celibacy, it is very tempting for rabbis to believe that therapy can solve the dilemma. Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky has recently joined forces with JONAH, a Jewish “change therapy” organization, to claim that, as a matter of religious principle, since the Torah prohibits homosexual behavior the orientation must be, by necessity, a curable disease. Responding to this dangerous circular argument, another learned Orthodox rabbi and scholar, a man who has written extensively about homosexuality, has publicly said, “I am not under any compulsion to support a failed therapy in order to save myself from a distressing religious conflict.”

I trust that brave poskim, those willing to take the logic of empathy to heart and press the halachic system and the community toward greater responsibility, will soon rise up and truly employ the inner creativity of the Halacha to solve this dilemma. Those who believe this to be a fundamentally insolvable problem are, to my mind, lacking faith in both God and Torah and are dangerously risking the credibility of Halacha. Rav Yehuda once said, “We appoint to the Sanhedrin only someone who knows how to purify a reptile”. Rav Yohanan added that anyone who does not know how to prove a reptile pure and prove it impure 100 times cannot defend the accused.

The profound halachic questions of our moment (and this is not the only one) surely demand a generous sense of the possible. Rabbis will need to be as fearless as were their forebears to imagine the opposite of their suppositions. Especially when an accused is before the court, when the consequences are dire for a defendant, the most versatile and creative of minds are required to achieve a just verdict.

But even before or without such halachic innovation, communities bear a profound responsibility to gay people and their families. Just imagine that you are a parent and that your child of 16 or 20 or 24 has just come out to you. What is your first thought? What do you say? What you worry about most is whether he or she will be happy. When later that night you talk with your spouse, you begin to imagine what the child must have gone through, perhaps for years — the shame and dread — all without your knowledge. You feel guilt for a suffering that you could not alleviate, perhaps anger for being shut out of her life, and you mourn the loss of the hopes and fantasies of her future that now seem impossible. Perhaps you worry for his safety.

You think about what it was like for him, having played out in his mind over and over again how this moment would unfold, not knowing how you would respond, and terrified that he would lose your love.

While this scenario happens often enough, it is perhaps more common in frum, or religious, homes that teens don’t come out to family members at all. Many gay kids, when they arrive at puberty, turn sullen and detached and suffer from clinical depression. One out of six contemplates suicide. I was recently told that in a single New York City psychiatric clinic there is a suicide attempt by a gay Orthodox person yearly. Sadly, the healthiest of these young people, having read the tea leaves years earlier, decide that they will have no life in the Orthodox world and are no longer frum by the time their parents find out.

In fact, this sad outcome is not necessary. Frum families often do find their way toward accepting and embracing their gay children. While they typically struggle with their own faith questions, the harder challenge is managing communal expectations. Most are unaware that there are Orthodox communities that are already making room for gay people. Nowadays, to my knowledge, there are four or five such synagogues in the United States where gay frum individuals, couples and families can join and be comfortably integrated.

Frankly, whether for social or formal reasons, I do not expect these rabbis to conduct a same-sex commitment ceremony anytime soon. But full synagogue participation, board service, Sabbath dinner invitations, a Kiddush in honor of a new child and the celebration of bat mitzvah are all present-tense realities in these Orthodox synagogues. I and others are working to see that there are not five but twenty-five welcoming Orthodox congregations in the next ten years.

So, if I don’t expect any other Orthodox rabbi to conduct a commitment ceremony, why did I do it?

Because I am gay. Because I bear a unique responsibility that comes from a personal understanding of the conflict. Because I am now happily partnered in a 12-year relationship with an Orthodox man whom I love dearly, and we are raising the most terrific 1-year old little girl, who is the joy of our lives. I could never have imagined that any of this would be possible 35 years ago, when I was 20 years old.

I conducted this ceremony because I thought that it was time to tell your sons and daughters that are wondering what they can expect from life that they can remain committed to God and to the grand and transformative vision of Torah and mitzvot; that they can find companionship, create families and become active members of frum communities. And when loneliness gives way to the miraculous discovery of love, maybe they can raise that love to commitment with the hope that their families and friends, in a way different from most but still religiously meaningful, joyous and sweet, can dance with them.
 
Steve Greenberg is a senior teaching fellow at CLAL — the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, and the author of “Wrestling With God & Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition” (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004).

(The Forward) 

Jan Perry Seeks Higher Calling

Black Councilwoman Wants To Be L.A.'s First Jewish Mayor

Courtesy of Jan Perry

Seeking Success: Councilwoman Jan Perry says she has ‘always been a seeker.’ That impulse led her to convert to Judaism three decades ago, and fuels her run for mayor of Los Angeles.

By Rex Weiner

Los Angeles — “I’ve always been a seeker,” Councilwoman Jan Perry told the Forward during a recent interview over dinner.

The African American politician was responding to a question about her conversion 30 years ago to Judaism. But her comment could also have applied to why she was running for mayor of America’s second-largest city.

Perry was dining not far from her downtown office at the core of the 9th District, which she represents.

Wearing a demure black dress and a large-beaded necklace, she perused the menu at Kendall’s Brasserie at the L.A. Music Center, while the supper crowd exited to catch the musical upstairs at the Ahmanson Theatre. As the restaurant hubbub shushed to a whisper, the councilwoman quietly ordered, and slyly requested that her shamelessly calorie-rich choice be off the record.

 

Jan Perry

 

If Jan Perry wins L.A’s mayoral election in 2013, the 56-year-old, three-term City Council member will make history as the city’s first woman mayor. A victory would also make Perry L.A’s first Jewish mayor.

 

The fact that Perry — who has been endorsed by Rep. Maxine Waters, former police commissioner Bernard Parks and former congresswoman Yvonne Burke, among others — is also African American may seem an unusual twist. But in the transracial, transcultural mix that is today’s Los Angeles, it actually places Perry solidly within the norm of Democratic mayoral hopefuls heading for primary balloting in June. 

The four declared candidates, who enjoy an electoral edge over the GOP in this predominantly Democratic city, boast a variety of twists on Jewishness that could ultimately factor into voters’ choices — or not.
Contenders include Perry’s City Council colleague Eric Garcetti, whose lineage is Jewish and Latino; city Controller Wendy Greuel, a non-Jew married to a Jewish filmmaker, with a following among the Hollywood elite; and Deputy Mayor Austin Beutner, a Michigan-born Jewish investment banker and millionaire philanthropist who counts former Mayor Richard Riordan among his endorsers.

“These candidates all have overlapping constituencies,” said Raphael Sonenshein, chairman of the political science department at California State University, Fullerton, and a close observer of Southern California politics. He reckons Perry has “reasonable prospects” of winning. The fact that she is Jewish, in his opinion, “doesn’t hurt,” especially in a city where Jews are 6% of the population but often contribute 16% to 18% of the vote. But the real question is: Will it help?

Perry’s early years were shaped by the progressive politics of Cleveland’s East Side suburbs, where she grew up amid post-war optimism and the rise of a new black middle class. Her father was an attorney who worked for Carl Stokes, the nation’s first black mayor of a major city. Her mother, with a master’s degree in medical social work, helped lead the local push for fair housing laws. Getting out the vote on a local level, and getting behind the 1960s civil rights movement on the national level, were family activities.

Los Angeles — When Perry arrived in L.A. in 1974 and enrolled at the University of Southern California’s journalism school, it was the post-Vietnam War era of Watergate, feminist ferment and a new dawn in L.A.’s politics. Tom Bradley, the second African American to be elected mayor of a major U.S. city, had been installed the year before by a historic coalition of the city’s African American and Jewish communities, breaking the grip the local white establishment had held on city government. “I admired his hard work, his quiet but persistent style, and the vision he had for the future of the city,” Perry wrote about Bradley on her website biography.

“She moved in a circle of bright young women, many of whom were Jewish,” recalled Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller of UCLA Hillel, in a later conversation. Through her studies with Seidler-Feller, Perry adopted Judaism. Looking back on that event, Perry said, “I think it was because I saw it as a way to serve the world.”

Perry earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism, cum laude, from USC, and then a master’s degree in public administration. Married to an attorney and settling into life as a Los Angelena, Perry’s path to public office began with work as a paralegal and with the presidency of her homeowner’s association. She tackled conflicts over historic preservation and land use, issues that are often at the heart of L.A. politics.

She worked first in the office of city Councilman Mike Woo and then became chief of staff for Rita Walters, the African American councilwoman for the Ninth Council District. When Walters left office due to term limits, Perry won the seat in 2001.

In the decade since, Perry has overseen the rebirth of L.A.’s downtown, with its new Arts District and L.A. Live entertainment complex. She continues to support a proposal for a new downtown stadium, in hopes of luring a National Football League franchise. The blighted South Central area of her district now enjoys two new wetlands recreation parks and preservation projects to restore the African American community’s historic Grand Avenue strip. For her efforts to boost the health of the local economy, as well as the health of its residents, she has been assailed as the “Hamburglar” for drawing up what one blogger called “freedom-destroying Socialist legislation to ban fast food joints from her district.”

Perry laughed at the mention of that accusation, poking at her gourmet meal. “Not every insult merits a response,” she said, quoting her favorite TV show, “Boardwalk Empire.” Nonetheless, she talked of two new grocery stores, a coffee shop and a farmer’s market opening in the area that has been described as a “food desert.” They’re the result of her push to expand healthy eating choices and a zoning moratorium on stand-alone fast-food outlets.

But she has run into problems on several fronts. A 14-acre plot of unused land in her district, cultivated by urban farmers in the wake of the 1992 riots, was reclaimed in 2006 by the owner — a Jewish developer. Subsequent evictions enforced by Perry not only brought down the calumny of urban farmers everywhere (and locally, with some anti-Semitic overtones), but also an Oscar-nominated 2008 documentary, “The Garden,” in which Perry was cast in a less than heroic role.

Perry also caught flak for her role as City Council president pro tempore, taking over City Hall in the absence of Mayor Villaraigosa and Council President Garcetti, at a time that coincided with the funeral of Michael Jackson. Perry extended police, sanitation and other services to help cover the cost of public mourning for the King of Pop, to the tune of about $4 million. With the city in dire financial straits — a $457 million projected shortfall on the $6.9 billion 2011-2012 operating budget — Perry scrambled to solicit private contributions to offset the costs.

Divorced after 16 years of marriage and with a daughter in college, Perry is shy about her private life, which could be tough under the scrutiny of a campaign. She did disclose a taste for ballroom dancing and that she makes her home downtown, close by her office.

“She’s warm, genuine, the opposite of pretentious,” effuses Rabbi Moshe Greenwald, who presides over Perry’s neighborhood synagogue, a loft known as The Downtown Shul, where Perry has celebrated the major holidays. Greenwald said he thought that Perry’s Judaism “plays a role in her sense of helping people.”

“I try to be a good listener,” Perry said, betraying some impatience with the political process. She recently resigned her pro tempore position, publicly declaring her “disgust” with the council’s backroom wheeling and dealing. “It’s no longer enough to do a good job, you have to fight,” she said.
In the battle for the top spot in L.A. City Hall, Perry’s fight has just begun.

(The Forward)

Tintin and the Anti-Semites

Young Adventurer Is Noble but Author's Past Questioned

Cartoon Hero: Tintin is nothing but an upright cartoon hero. But what about his Belgian creator, who has a history of anti-Semitism?

By Ezra Glinter

The setting: a tiny monarchy, poor but beautiful, on the Balkan Peninsula. The population is a mere 642,000 people, mostly peasants. The country’s main exports are wheat, mineral water, firewood, horses and violinists.

The scene: A ruffian has stolen the king’s scepter, but is caught just steps from the border. Documents are found in his pocket revealing a planned invasion by the neighboring fascist state. He belongs to a fifth column called the Iron Guard. Its leader’s name is Müstler.

The year: 1939.

Steven Spielberg works on the set of ‘Tintin.’

The country is Syldavia, a fictional creation of Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi in “King Ottokar’s Sceptre,” the eighth adventure of Tintin, famed boy reporter. In previous exploits Tintin battled gangsters in America, explored the pyramids in Egypt and became the confidant of Latin American revolutionaries. In coming years he would find the Yeti in Tibet, escape from a live volcano and go to the moon almost 20 years before the actual 1969 moon landing. Not least, he would go on a hunt for pirate treasure with his friend Captain Haddock, an adventure that, thanks to Steven Spielberg and 3D motion capture technology, is now on screens everywhere.

But “King Ottokar’s Sceptre” had a special significance. Though Syldavia was modeled on Albania, other historical parallels are evident. Remi — or Hergé, to use his nom de plume — identified the story as a “failed Anschluss,” recalling the 1938 annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. Like all Tintin adventures the story is humorous and high-spirited, ending with our tuft-haired hero’s triumph and, in this case, his investiture with Syldavia’s Order of the Golden Pelican. But despite the good cheer, the condemnation of German expansionism shines through.

Hergé’s own stance was not so simple. Following the fall of Belgium in the summer of 1940, and after serving briefly in a Flemish infantry unit, Hergé accepted a job at the collaborationist Brussels newspaper Le Soir. (After the war he was arrested — four times — for collaboration.) Not only did his drawings appear alongside Nazi propaganda, but his next Tintin book, “The Shooting Star,” featured a hook-nosed, cigar-chomping financier named Blumenstein, who tries to subvert a scientific discovery for personal gain. The name was later changed to Bohlwinkel and the character’s country moved from America to the fictional São Rico, but the anti-Semitic implications of the caricature remained.

Of course, anti-Nazism and anti-Semitism were never mutually exclusive. But the problem posed by Tintin goes deeper than Hergé’s questionable World War II alliances. His first Tintin comic, “Tintin in the Land of the Soviets,” was a crude piece of anti-Soviet propaganda created for Le XXe Siècle, the right-wing Catholic newspaper whose children’s supplement, Le Petit Vingtième, Hergé edited for 12 years. His second book, the colonialist “Tintin in the Congo,” is even worse. Its depiction of Africans as childlike primitives has made some readers try to ban it from libraries and bookstores. In one panel an African woman bows before Tintin, exclaiming, “White man very great. White mister is big juju man!”

These episodes are confounding because, unlike his creator, Tintin is never a racist. In fact, his appeal rests on his inhumanly decent character. Tintin is good. Tintin is incorruptible. Tintin cannot be threatened or bribed. Tintin does not drink or smoke. And who could resist his checked plus fours and charming coif?

Tintin is also a perpetual defender of the oppressed. He bears witness to the plight of Native Americans who are evicted from their land, and he stands up for Chinese peasants against Japanese and Western imperialists. He stymies multinational corporations that would provoke war to get their hands on another oil field, and he frustrates unscrupulous arms dealers who would sell weapons to both sides. Together with his trusty dog Snowy he foils international drug smugglers, counterfeiters, gunrunners and modern-day slave traders. In the new film he helps catch a pickpocket and recovers Haddock’s family honor. How could the creator of such a paragon have been a racist?

Hergé’s transgressions have vexed Tintinologists for years. They are often explained by apologists as youthful follies stemming from a naïve acceptance of contemporary mores. Hergé himself claimed as much. In a lengthy 1975 interview with the French writer Numa Sadoul, he said: “I was fed on the prejudices of the bourgeois society in which I moved… I only know things about these countries that people said at the time…” It is easy to imagine that the Nazi occupation had a similar effect on Hergé’s outlook.

This explanation may seem like a pettifogging excuse, but in fact it is a damning indictment. It indicates not only a disturbingly acquiescent sense of morality but also, for a creative artist, a stunning failure of imagination.

Though some critics have tried to claim the Tintin comics as great works of literature, they are not. Despite their charms, they contain no three-dimensional characters. Rather, Hergé worked with types, albeit entertaining ones. Tintin is the pure Boy Scout hero. His mate, Captain Haddock, is an irresponsible but loyal drunk. The detectives Thomson and Thompson are bumbling slapstick nitwits. The famously deaf Cuthbert Calculus is the brilliant but slightly mad professor. In all these cases, Hergé’s characters are both refreshingly new and comfortingly familiar. But when it came to presumed racial characteristics, Hergé’s reliance on type backfired disastrously.

Yet Tintin has his attractions, besides his own unimpeachable character. Hergé’s ligne claire drawing style, in which all lines are given equal weight and all colors equal shade, has a certain modernist ésprit. Though Tintin’s adventures start in the late 1920s, his gusto (not to mention his wardrobe) belongs to the first part of the century — a time of technological creativity that, until the carnage of the First World War, seemed to promise a boundless future.

With this unclouded spirit it’s no wonder that Tintin’s popularity endures. To date, the books have been translated into over 50 languages and adapted into films, TV shows, exhibits and plays. There is a raft of Tintin paraphernalia for the discerning collector, from original copies of Le Petit Vingtième to Christmas ornaments to a 70-piece set of model cars whose originals are featured in the comics. He is even on the stamps of four different countries and a special edition of the 10-euro coin.

In his latest big screen incarnation, Tintin is both a disappointment as well as a great success. The plot of the movie is based primarily on “The Secret of the Unicorn,” but it weaves together original elements with bits of other volumes. Unfortunately, the stitching shows. Poor pacing and the elision of large chunks of the story leave the ending anti-climactic, and the overuse of action scenes doesn’t compensate for weaknesses in the plot. Chasing haphazardly from one country to the next was a prominent feature of early Tintin, when the books were produced first for weekly or daily newspaper publication, but Hergé later refined his plot structures, and the screenwriters should have done so as well. And Spielberg, being Spielberg, couldn’t help sticking in a family drama, a difficult feat in a story with an all-bachelor cast of characters.

But the motion capture technique does a surprisingly good job of translating Hergé’s aesthetic onto the big screen. Despite a number of scenes being thrown together in a disjointed way, it’s a pleasure seeing many episodes redone verbatim in the new medium. However murky his past, Tintin carries on undaunted.

(The Forward)