With the announcement that Jewish reggae/rapper/pop artist Matisyahu would be releasing a new album on July 17th (Spark Seeker, be there or be… not there) came the news that the artist would also offer a free download of its lead single. Above is the video. Click through for more info on how to get an MP3 of the track.
What follows is an excerpt from the press release about the album:
Now based with his family in Los Angeles, Matisyahu blasts off yet again with Spark Seeker, a bold new studio album that finds the one-of-a-kind vocalist and songwriter exploring uncharted territory with help from an expansive cast of collaborators from around the globe. The album mixes ancient traditional sounds with futuristic electro beats, rapping with singing, and songs of the spirit with songs of the body.
The album has a depth to it as well as a lightness, which alludes to the most essential theme of the record–that everything in life, especially music, exists in mixtures and blends. “Things are not as black and white as we would like to think. Not everything can be oversimplified,” says Matisyahu.
The first single, “Sunshine” rides what might be the most uplifting groove in Matisyahu’s catalog. In the hard-hitting “Live Like A Warrior,” Matisyahu describes feelings of frustration and desperation, while; elsewhere, “Searchin” pairs a gritty digital-dancehall beat with chanted lyrics and “I Believe in Love” exemplifies the album’s deep melodic streak.
Throughout Spark Seeker you can hear Matisyahu embodying the album’s title—and embracing its humble promise. “This is definitely pushing the boundaries of what I’ve done before,” he acknowledges. “It’s a new kind of record for me.” At this point we’d expect nothing less.
Anat Hoffman, Women of the Wall, featured on CNN [Umm, CNN?]
This is a little late in coming, but this great piece about Anat Hoffman, women’s rights in Israel, etc., is currently on the CNN “Amanpour” blog. Written by Samuel Burke, this is one of the widest recent exposures of the Israeli organization.
“Hoffman is the Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center and was arrested at the Western Wall in Jerusalem in 2010 for carrying a Torah at the holy site in Jerusalem. She told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, ‘I was conducting a religious act that offends the feelings of others – and that’s against the law.’ While women carrying a Torah in Reform Judaism is common place, it’s not sanctioned by Orthodox Jews, whose customs have become the norm at the Western Wall. Hoffman was never charged with a crime.
(…)
When asked how the rise of Orthodoxy and its political impact affect any possibility of a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians, Hoffman said, ‘I look at Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu – deeply religious people that used religion to mend their country. When you think of South Africa, you see how religion can actually act not as an obstacle – the peace and reconciliation committees are drenched in religious rhetoric. You see religion at its very, very best.’”
Well said.
Muslim school in Toronto teaches of “crafty” Jews [Forward]
In yet another edition of “Paranoid Extremists Blaming the Jews,” we have this bizarre story, out of Toronto, Canada:
“The curriculum at the East End Madrassah, a Sunday school for Muslim children that rents space from a public school, taught boys to exercise so they are ‘ready for jihad,’ refers to ‘crafty’ and ‘treacherous’ Jews and Jewish ‘plots,’ and contrasts Islam with ‘the Jews and the Nazis.’
By early this week, the school had removed from its website the controversial portion of its curriculum. Later the same day, its website went offline.”
Rabbinical Assembly (Conservative Judaism) gets new president [JTA]
The Conservative movement of Judaism has elected its new president. Rabbi Gerald Skolnik has extensive experience in both congregational and administrative work. JTA reports:
“Skolnik, 59, spiritual leader of The Forest Hills Jewish Center, was elected Monday at the convention in Atlanta. He succeeds Rabbi Gilah Dror, who held the position for the past two years. Skolnik had served as the RA’s vice president.”
And in related news about the Rabbinical Assembly…
Joe Biden “crosses” himself in presence of rabbis [ABC News]
There’s this little gem from ABC News, reporting on Vice President Joe Biden’s message to members of the Rabbinical Assembly:
“The rabbi introducing him says, with Biden standing behind him to his right: ‘Were Joe Biden not the Vice President of the United States, but still a senator from the state of Delaware, a position that he held with great distinction for 36 years, it would still be a signal…’
At the mention of how long he served in the Senate, Biden makes the sign of the cross on himself – to laughter and applause from the rabbis in the audience.”
The next headline should read: “Joe Biden schukles during Mass.” Bridging those divides, man. Bridging those divides.
Ultra-Orthodox protesters to get counter-protested… umm… ? [Five Towns Patch]
Looks like the ultra-Orthodox aren’t the only ones to show up for a protest on May 20th. While the Haredim will be protesting the Internet (isn’t that a little like protesting electricity, at this point?), it seems a counter-protest is planned. More below:
“The secondary protest is titled ‘The Internet Is Not The Problem,’ and has been organized on, of all places, Facebook.
The pro-Internet faction hopes to fly in the face of a loose confederation of Ultra Orthodox leaders who have reportedly raised $1.5 million to rent out the inside of the stadium on May 20. They will reportedly use the massive space to rally against and discuss the problems the Internet has caused the insular community.”
Is this where we say, “May the best protestor win?” No?
As John so eloquently posted yesterday, the death of a celebrity always leads to an outpouring of grief, real or feigned. Maurice Sendak’s profound influence on children over the past fifty years stands on its own. And if I may hypothesize, someone who spent so much of his life breaking barriers wouldn’t want to be constructed along the same lines of everyone else in death. So, I leave you, dear readers, with the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are, and an invitation to post your favorite childhood memories connected to his books in the comments section. For Sendak’s influence was transcendent, and the way he stood out as an author was in the way his readers resonated with his characters – for their flaws as well as their virtues. Sendak taught generations that it was okay to be wild.
My favorite memory; I loved Wild Things, but I was particularly attached to In the Night Kitchen. My favorite part was when Mickey created the airplane – I admired his inventive thinking and boldness. What’s your favorite memory?
As the latest round of superhero adaptations makes its way into theaters, JTA harks back to its Jewish roots, which this time, go further than the creators. The Avengers was a handle taken on by a group of Jewish resistance fighters in Lithuania during World War Two.
“So as you’re chewing on your popcorn, just remember that lurking behind the colorful costumes, special effects and superhero banter is a deeper real-life storyline.”
Maurice Sendak, beloved children’s book author, passes at 83 [NY Times]
Sendak, the author of Where the Wild Things Are, was well known for revolutionizing his field, introducing bratty protagonists and situations that did not end in a neat moral. His crude and lovely illustrations defined the childhoods of many.
“A largely self-taught illustrator, Mr. Sendak was at his finest a shtetl Blake, portraying a luminous world, at once lovely and dreadful, suspended between wakefulness and dreaming. In so doing, he was able to convey both the propulsive abandon and the pervasive melancholy of children’s interior lives.
His visual style could range from intricately crosshatched scenes that recalled 19th-century prints to airy watercolors reminiscent of Chagall to bold, bulbous figures inspired by the comic books he loved all his life, with outsize feet that the page could scarcely contain. He never did learn to draw feet, he often said.”
Netanyahu forms new coalition government [Haaretz]
In a move that stunned many Israeli citizens, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached out to leaders of Israel’s Kadima party. The new coalition controls 94 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, making it the broadest government in Israeli history. Netanyahu stated that he hopes the new government will bring much needed stability to Israel, however, opposition leaders have levied their own criticisms of the move.
“Earlier on Tuesday, Netanyahu and Mofaz reached a surprise agreement to form a national unity government, a decision which came as the Knesset was preparing to disperse for early elections, which were expected to be scheduled for September 4.”
The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece condemned Sunday’s elections, in which Golden Dawn, an extremely conservative right wing party which ran on an anti-immigrant platform, won 21 seats in Greece’s coalition government. The Jewish community believes that this party carries strong Nazi overtones, and released a statement urging tolerance and vigilance.
“Sunday’s elections resulted in a fractured parliament as voters protested against the mainstream parties they blame for the country’s financial crisis and accepting harsh European austerity measures. If no party can put together a coalition, the most likely scenario, then Greece will hold a new vote.”
A debate over Zionism and its future between two heavyweights – Peter Beinart, a senior writer for The Daily Beast, and Dr. Daniel Gordis, the senior vice president of the Shalem Center – was hosted by Tablet and Columbia’s The Current last week. Though the two rehashed many points they’d already made, the event gave both men the time to sit down in the arena and hash out their differences, an act that, in American Jewry, will always be appreciated.
“Beinart…Gordis had for weeks been engaged in an acrimonious argument in print over Beinart’s controversial new book, The Crisis of Zionism. Gordis…had written in the Jerusalem Post that his earlier belief that Beinart “loved Israel” was dashed by Crisis. ‘This book convinced me I was horribly mistaken.’”
Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said this is not the first time he’s been invited to defended GOP positions in front of Jewish audiences. “Not a pretty sight,” he said.
It made sense that, as Kristol debated Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) in front of the 2012 American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum crowd, his positions on the Iran question—and not much else—elicited widespread applause from the crowd. Frank cleaned up everywhere else, if the applause said anything.
Kristol did what Kristol does best. An effective polemicist, his ammunition was the understanding that Israel—or the conception of Obama as less-than-friendly to Israel—is the only issue that might cleave Jews from their long-time Democratic Party loyalty.
Of what it would take for Jews to move rightward, Kristol said that it takes a while for Jews to learn; they are a stubborn people. “Jews need to shed old-fashioned ideas about the Republican Party of Bush and of the 30s and 40s,” he said.
If you’re a neocon like Kristol, the apocalyptic notions of Iranian nuclear war trump any domestic concerns. Kristol defended GOP economic policies, but his main point was about the Israel-friendly GOP record. (Pat Buchannan notwithstanding.)
Both debaters agreed on the liberal tendencies of American Jews. It is clear that Kristol is resigned to the fact that Jews and liberals are forever intertwined. He even called out Frank for not running against Obama’s “selling out of liberal policies.”
That crack formed the basis of Kristol’s argument, asserting that the current body politic consisted of a center-left party, the Dems and a center-right party, the GOP—a reality he hopes will appeal to Jews that historically vote left but may cross the aisle to a center-right GOP. Frank disagreed noting that the current GOP forced out Romney’s foreign policy advisor for being gay. No comeback from Kristol.
Frank said the idea that the Republican Party is full of “Reagan Republicans” is “laughable,” given that Romney attacked Rick Santorum for voting to raise the debt ceiling—a measure that Reagan used numerous times during his presidency.
That’s when the debate settled into Frank’s wheelhouse. Refuting the notion that Obama is anti-Israel, Frank flashed his wit recounting the story of Bush I’s tabling of Israeli loan guarantees in the House. Frank recalled former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s declaration that the West Bank will remain Israel “as far as the eye can see,” adding that Shamir was “old and short at the time and probably couldn’t see very far.”
Kristol’s response, that the current GOP “isn’t full of arabists and oilmen” anymore was odd to say the least, considering the amount of funding provided by the energy lobby. To his credit, Lawrence of Arabia isn’t a registered Republican, though both debaters agreed that American feelings of positivity toward Saudi Arabia have more to do with “Lawrence of Arabia” than anything else.
Frank also pressed the GOP for their anti-gay stance, a view that played well with the crowd. Kristol is no idiot and his sale of GOP positions was markedly absent of any social policies.
Both speakers were asked if they viewed the election as a referendum on Obama’s record on Israel for Jewish voters. They seem to agree that it wasn’t, citing polls showing the economy to be more important to Jewish voters than Israel, but it’s clear Kristol would like that to be the case.
Anytime an entertainer (actor, musician, novelist, you name it) passes away, it seems the collective culture leaps up and cries, “They were one of my favorites!” See the Internet on Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Davy Jones, Dick Clark, et cetera. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, especially when it’s true. But for every heartfelt fan who feels they’ve lost a close, personal friend (I confess: I was despondent for days following news of Michael Jackson’s death) is someone else who uses the occasion to appear cultured, “in,” or otherwise hip. This has got to stop.
In an act of good faith, let me confess that prior to the passing of the Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch, I had never heard a single song by the band. Oh sure, I knew who they were. I even knew enough to tell you that they were supposed to be (read: absolutely, entirely) influential to modern hip-hop. Beyond that, though, I’d never consciously listened to anything they’d released.
So to break the cycle of opportunistic Internet mourning, and to rectify the situation of my complete non-coolness, I thought I’d post a few Beastie Boys tracks, as I listen to them for the first time. You’ll find them below. For the record, putting this piece together was a hell of a lot of fun. These guys were authentically awesome, and I feel completely lame for only giving them a chance as part of writing a posthumous blog post. I lose the Internet.
Bob Marley’s heirs to Israeli MK: “Stop using ‘Iron Lion Zion’” [Haaretz]
Given the title of the Bob Marley song, it’s probably a given that someone might think to use it for Israel-related material (propaganda or otherwise). But it seems a recent use of the song has raised the ire of Bob Marley’s heirs. Haaretz reports:
“Heirs of Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley have sent a warning letter to MK Aryeh Eldad, threatening legal action over the unauthorized use of the song ‘Iron Lion Zion’ for propaganda purposes.
In the film clip, which was removed from the Internet in light of the warning, the National Union MK can be seen with his grandchildren, while Marley’s song plays in the background. Added to the words of the famous song were phrases that promote Eldad’s political outlook:
‘If you support two states for two peoples, where one of them is Jordan, if you are against the Arab occupation, say ‘Amen.’ Just one hope on the right [wing], Yes.’”
Adam Yauch, member of the Beastie Boys, passes [Forward]
In light of the news that a member of the rap outfit the Beastie Boys, Adam Yauch (may his memory be for a blessing; his life certainly has been), has passed, the Jewish Daily Forward shares some thoughts about the relationship the band’s music had to Jewish culture, identity, and youth.
“For fans like me, the Beastie Boys are inseparable from the times in our lives when we listened to them most. As a teenager starting a non-Jewish high school after years in day school, I spent hours trying to divine crypto-Jewish messages in their music. I’m half embarrassed to admit it, but the first MCA lyric that came to mind when I heard about his May 4 death wasn’t one of his great expressions of social consciousness, like ‘I want to say a little something that’s long overdue/ The disrespect to women has got to be through,’ or his public apology in 1999 for the band’s early misogyny. That came later, when I had to think about Yauch and what he meant. The first thing I thought of was this line from ‘Get on the Mic’: ‘Mike … don’t be so selfish/ Get on the mic ‘cause you know you eat shellfish.’ In what universe other than a Jewish one does that taunt make sense? They were already megastars when the song was released in 1989; were they really still worried about Jewish dietary laws?”
Kabbalah, secretism, and the culture of the elite [Zeek]
In this fascinating piece from Zeek, Hartley Lachter explores the history of Kabbalist thought, and the presumption that historic Kabbalist teachings were reserved solely for the “elite” members of the Jewish faith: the favored, the few (versus the wider public).
“Late 13th century Castilian kabbalists were prolific writers. They composed commentaries on the Torah, explications of the secret meaning of rabbinic texts, detailed interpretations of the kabbalistic meaning of the commandments, poetic allegories, and texts intended to provide a general overview of Jewish law. One genre of kabbalistic writing from late 13th century Castile is the peirush or ‘commentary’ on the ten sefirotor ten divine luminosities that serve as the basic symbolic structure of kabbalistic theosophy (Chavel, 1984, p. 7). Over one hundred of these commentaries were written in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. These compositions vary in length from a single page of text to 60 or 70 folios. The object of these commentaries is to provide a general grounding in kabbalistic symbolism by enumerating how each individualsefira corresponds to biblical names and terminology, letters, colors, directions, heavenly bodies, the human anatomy, and the practice of traditional Jewish law and ritual. An examination of these texts reveals a very different picture of medieval Kabbalah — one in which kabbalists are actively engaged in spreading their doctrine and providing tools to help bring neophytes into the conversation.”
A mirror, or a window: using the Internet as a learning tool [Sh'ma]
In this great piece from Sh’ma, a Journal of Jewish Ideas, Andrew Silow-Carroll explores the downsides to the way in which Internet search engines (one of our primary tools of knowledge seeking online) reinforce our thinking without challenging us to look at new perspectives, etc.:
“The Jeremiah of narrowcasting — targeting a narrow audience — is Eli Pariser, an online organizer and the author of the 2011 book The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. In it, he warns how search engines and advertisers link conservatives with other conservatives, liberals with other liberals, cheese lovers with other cheese lovers. While the ‘filter bubble’ provides your own unique universe of online information, you don’t decide what gets in — nor see what gets edited out. ‘The Internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see, but not necessarily what we need to see,’ says Pariser.
Pariser’s warning could well apply to the Foxification of the news business — that is, an explosion of ideologically narrow cable outlets and web sources, from mainstream newspaper sites to blogs to aggregators like the Drudge Report and The Huffington Post, that allow us to tailor our media choices and filter out the messages that clash with our worldviews.
I see the impact of this kind of filtering on the Jewish conversation. For most of my career as an editor, when people would object to the ideas or opinions expressed in an article, they would either argue back or turn the page. In the past decade or so, however, people are more likely to complain about having to see the opinion or article at all in ‘their paper.’ We’ve all gotten spoiled by the ability to consume information in splendid isolation from one another — or, more importantly, in isolation from those with whom we disagree.”
(Above, an otherwise unrelated video of Rabbi David Rosen talking about Hindus)
The American Jewish Committee Global Forum, currently underway here in the basement of the Washington D.C. Grand Hyatt, is full of impressive people. In the span of 30 seconds at last night’s reception, I spotted a half dozen people whose conference badges identified them as ambassadors — and then accidentally wandered into the middle of a cadre of at least a dozen cocktail-sipping Israeli Defense Forces colonels.
But my favorite so far is Rabbi David Rosen, AJC’s international director of interreligious affairs, who gave a talk over breakfast this morning billed as “Religious-Secular Tensions, Pluralism and Interfaith Relations in Israel.” Rosen is a sharply groomed gentleman with a reassuringly authoritative British accent. His rabbinic smicha is ultra-Orthodox, but today he is a refreshingly and unabashedly confident proponent of relatively left-wing Modern Orthodoxy. Best of all — and most romantically — he was introduced to the breakfast crowd like this: “He is a Commander of the British Empire, a Knight of the Vatican and he knows all the best restaurants in Jerusalem.” (Rosen: “But I live in Jerusalem because if Britain and the Holy See were to go to war, I would be in trouble.”)
Rosen’s talk was a description of the history of the relationship between the government of Israel and Zionism on the one hand and right-wing ultra-Orthodox Jews on the other. One of his main thrusts, a point that I got the sense he sneaks in whenever he has an opening, was that civil marriage is the most important piece of Israel’s religion-secularism puzzle.
The issue of civil marriage is so important to Rosen that, as he put it, “Lack of civil marriage is Israel’s greatest flaw.”
The first question of the post-talk question and answer session came from a man who pointed out that, while the problems that could be solved by civil marriage in Israel are moving to American Jews, those problems irrelevant to them. Conversion, however, is much more relevant to American Jews. So, the question went, why emphasize the issue of civil marriage on behalf of the American Jewish Committee?
This piqued my interest. In an April 17 op-ed for the Forward, I wrote about my own recent conversion status dilemma withing the American Jewish community. However, I don’t know much about the even more complex conversion situation in Israel.
Rosen’s answer was that both problems, the lack of civil marriage and the messy conversion situation, are symptoms of the same underlying problem. Israel, Rosen said, chose long ago to mirror the old Ottoman millet system, a system under which the Ottoman Empire gave every religious community total authority over internal matters like membership and marriage. In Israel, Muslims, Jews and Christians marry under their own separate standards, which are recognized by the state — just as they did under the Ottoman millet system.
As Rosen sees it, the Israeli adaptation of the millet system is what keeps civil marriage from becoming a reality and it empowers the ultra-Orthodox to create the problematic situation regarding conversion. To solve the conversion problem, undermine and dismantle the millet system, Rosen said. To undermine and dismantle the millet system, advocate for civil marriage. It may not be the most important thing to American Jewry, but civil marriage is far more important to Israeli voters than conversion.
Another question: “The theme of this year’s Global Forum is ‘From Insight to Action.’ You’ve given us plenty of insight. Help us translate that into action. What can we do?”
Rosen hedged, “I don’t want to undermine the position of the organization I work for, but….” Rosen said the AJC should start bringing up the issue of the preferential treatment given to the ultra-Orthodox by the state in every meeting with any Israeli official. This, he said, has probably never been discussed in any high-level AJC meeting, but it should be. He said it would do more to fundamentally improve the relationship between Israel and the diaspora than anything else the AJC could possibly do.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom, once awarded to Bob Hope. | Photo by Flickr user cbcastro (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Bob Dylan, Madeleine Albright, Shimon Peres and Jan Karski will all receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom this summer.
“These extraordinary honorees come from different backgrounds and different walks of life, but each of them has made a lasting contribution to the life of our nation,” President Barack Obama said in a press release.
The four honorees will be given the nation’s highest civilian honor along with nine others sometime in late spring at a date not yet released.
Madeleine Albright
Albright only found out she was Jewish as soon as she was simultaneously becoming the first woman to serve as secretary of state, even though she was raised as a Roman Catholic. In a recent Washington Post interview, Albright described the experience as “being asked to represent the country in a marathon, then being handed a heavy package and then being asked to unwrap it while you run.”
Albright, born as Marie Jana Korbelová in Prague, didn’t know her heritage for most of her adult life because her parents fled with her from Czechoslovakia shortly after the Nazi occupation in 1939.
Albright served as the American ambassador to the U.N., a tenure that she now regrets because “of the failure of the United States and the international community to act sooner to halt these crimes [during the Rwandan genocide].” As secretary of state, Albright was deeply involved in the U.S. foreign-policy considerations in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Middle East (check out this really cool pic with Albright alongside some of the biggest names in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict).
Bob Dylan
Singer/songwriter and American icon Dylan’s voice can be recognized by just about anyone with a love of American rock and folk music. And unlike his grandson Pablo, the fledgling rapper, Dylan has forever transformed music with such classics like “Like A Rolling Stone” and “The Times They Are A-Changin.’”
Dylan was heavily involved in the Civil Rights Movements, releasing the song “Hurricane” in opposition to the imprisonment of a black boxer for a crime many believed he was innocent of.
Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, came from a very Jewish household. He went to Herzl Camp as a child, and his father was the president of B’nai Brith.
And it turns out, Dylan and Obama have met at least once before. Dylan has performed at the White House.
Jan Karski
Obama announced at the Holocaust Museum on April 23 that he would be awarding the medal posthumously to righteous gentile Karski, who died in 2000 at Georgetown University Hospital.
Karski “carried among the first eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust to the world,” the White House said during his time working for the Polish Underground, spreading knowledge fo the Shoah, both during and after WWII, by infiltrating the Warsaw Ghetto and a German concentration camp.
Shimon Peres
Israeli President Peres has been a force in Israeli politics for many years. A avid supporter of the peace process, Peres told AIPAC Policy Conference 2012 attendees that Obama has been “such a good friend” to Israel shortly before being introduced by a choir of children in white robes singing the Hatikvah.
Similar to the Karski announcement, Obama used his address at AIPAC to announce Peres’ reception of the award while Peres was in the audience.
“The public (…) does not want governance or rulers. The public wants leaders of another kind. Not the sort who stand up and say: ‘I am on top, I am a hero, I am strong,’ but rather the sort who go forward. The sort who want to serve, not to reign. When I was prime minister, I tried to be that sort.”
And if that didn’t convince you, he also lauds the Jewish people for being “the people of the Facebook.” He has quite a way with the kids nowadays, doesn’t he?
While it is widely known that the Orthodox world does not accept the halachic decisions of the non-Orthodox (Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, etc.), including their conversions, being one of those converts carries with it a certain emotional weight: the knowledge that, for many, you just aren’t “Jewish enough.” In this powerful piece, Rivka Cohen talks about her experiences as the daughter of a convert:
“Doubt found me anyway, introducing himself at my university’s Hillel as I discussed conversion with a friend. My mother converted, I said proudly. My friend’s eyebrows raised. ‘Through what movement?’ She asked. I did not know. The atmosphere changed. ‘You should find out,’ she said. I did, and reported back. She was the first to tell me that I might not be Jewish.
The Orthodox movement requires three male, Jewish witnesses who observe halachah (traditional Jewish law) to validate a conversion. Given the differences in observance across different Jewish movements, many Orthodox leaders consider the witnesses in a Conservative conversion to be problematic. Having been raised Orthodox after my family moved to West Virginia, I can understand why they might feel this way. Even so, I cannot describe the pain I felt that day. It was like being deeply in love for 18 years, only to learn suddenly that the relationship was ‘maybe’ over.”
In this piece from Tablet Magazine, Anne Grant (a potential convert to Judaism) shares her experiences at a Jewish retreat, and its impact on her relationship to Judaism:
“Shortly after I arrived at Jews in the Woods—a spiritual Shabbaton at a campground in Rhode Island—on a Friday evening in March, I was approached by two girls who asked if I’d come with them for a moment. Following them over the hardened snow, I came to a small blue sedan loaded with food. Visibly nervous, they took turns explaining that, since sunset had fallen and very observant students would not eat meals carried inside by other Jews, they needed me, a gentile, to bring all of the food to the kitchen. To alleviate the discomfort of observant Jewish participants, I had been appointed the Shabbes goy.
My head was spinning; I was surprised, angry, humiliated. It was not the best way to start the weekend.”
Once a Jew, always a Jew, right? What if that wasn’t the case? Instances have arisen where the conversions of Jews have been revoked by a rabbinic court. But is that a valid undertaking? In effect, when is a Jew no longer a Jew? In this “ask the Rabbi” piece from the Jerusalem Post, the history of this phenomena is explored.
“The most controversial conversion nullification took place in 1972. Against the previous rulings of several judicial courts, then-IDF chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren nullified the (undocumented) conversion of a distinctly non-observant Polish man that had allegedly taken place 30 years earlier in order to declare his wife to have been legally unmarried when she married her ‘second’ husband. This ruling was celebrated by many politicians because it allowed her children to marry without the stigma of being mamzerim (born of a relationship that is considered illicit according to Halacha) and partially led to Goren’s election as chief rabbi. Yet it was derided by many rabbinic scholars, including Rabbi Yosef Elyashiv, as logically flawed and against all norms of protocol. As such, scholars from a wide ideological spectrum believe that at times a conversion may be nullified.
The recent controversy relates to the standards of conversion and who has the authority to determine them. Rabbi Sherman asserted that Israeli population registries must follow the ruling of leading haredi (ultra-Orthodox) decisors including rabbis Elyashiv and Eliezer Schach, who had declared that any conversion that did not entail full-fledged mitzva observance was meaningless. He further contended that his court had supervisory jurisdiction over all courts in the state’s system, and that in contemporary times all declarations of fidelity to Halacha remain subject to examination based on future observance.”
In this analysis by David Turner, the links between the debate over Jewish identity and the basic tenets of Zionism are explored. Can Zionism support a traditional, halachic interpretation of Jewish identity, or must the umbrella be wider?
“Also in 2007 Hebrew University professor Ruth Gavison, described as a ‘perpetual Supreme Court candidate’ maintains, ‘The desire to complete the ingathering of the exiles is counterpoised with the state’s interest in maintaining the wellbeing of all its citizens. A responsible country (that is a post-Zionist country with no obligations beyond its borders) should not volunteer to absorb groups of people with little chances of being absorbed and who are likely to live on the fringes of society in anger and frustration.’ In plain English, the ‘perpetual Supreme Court candidate’ would abolish both the Grandparent Clause, and the Law of Return of which it is an amendment!
A Zionist definition of Who is a Jew is embodied in Israel’s Basic Laws: anyone facing persecution as a ‘Jew’ will be provided sanctuary in the state of the Jews. By any standard of imagination, even were the haredim ‘religious Zionists,’ an effort to conform Who is a Jew to a strictly halachic interpretation is, by definition, anti-Zionist.”
