Posts from — November 2006

Harley at Jewbiquitous is annoyed at the pronatalist policies in the U.S. generally and the Jewish world specifically. Harley’s observations of the effects of a pronatalist society on women generally appear both astute and correct. I found Harley’s mapping of pronatalist assumptions useful and helpful, and it did make me rethink my position.

After thinking about what Harley wrote in “Making Jewish Babies� I would now agree with Harley that indeed the current pronatalist positions of both the U.S. and the Jewish community are flawed, and would even argue that they need to be changed. Where we might disagree is in which direction.

The U.S. should strengthen its pronatalist position in the professional world, and in the Jewish world, it should be dramatically increased, and aggressively demote the status of childless Jewish women.

But let’s back up, and first understand where Harley is correct, and why.

Harley wrote,

This process of un-gendering women based on their procreation choices has two effects: (1) you must have children to be considered a “real woman� in this society and (2) to become successful professionally, women must become non-gendered. Either you are a successful woman, meaning you have children or you are successful professionally, meaning you are not a mother and therefore not a woman. (Disclaimer: I am not saying this argument holds true to this extreme, but that the original article logically leads to this conclusion.)

I do not seek to deny that women bare the burden of our society’s pronatalist position. I would only ask you to consider that:

1) Men also bare a burden for this, and always have, just not as heavily, of course.

2) The cost to a society for abandoning a pronatalist position is high. Over a long-term abandonment of a firmly pronatalist position, you risk losing your culture, and perhaps eventually, to some degree, even your country, to those groups, including immigrant and indegenous groups, who retain a pronatalist position. We can talk about the joys of multi-culturalism til we’ve knitted the largest quilt ever, but most of us don’t really want that. And even if you think it’s great, most Jews in Israel don’t want that.

It is, therefore, not in any civilization’s interest in the long-term to completely abandon a pronatalist position unless everyone abandons a pronatalist position, and Jews are not the exception. At least not to the extent that they will end up being overrun by a different civilization, which does seem to be a possibility in certain countries, at least to some degree, but rather, as in the case of Sweden, accommodates women’s other needs, and make the cost of pronatalism as low as possible.

But to ask a civilization — particularly a painfully small one like the Jews — to abandon or even just further weaken a pronatalist position seems like you are advocating a policy of self-destruction. Fine for a far-Left site like JVoices, but an untenable position for a moderate Left site like Jewbiquitous.

I will concede that Harley’s points serve to suggest that the Jewish community needs to always strive to accommodate women’s professional needs better once there, even if not to encourage this — but like in Sweden, this is only in order to more effectively promote a pronatalist position. This was Harley’s second point.

But what I learned from the first point, that “you must have children to be considered a ‘real woman’ in this society” — well, I would say perhaps this isn’t overt enough. It seems it would benefit the Jewish community to employ harsher and more effective ways to stigmatize Jewish women who stay single or choose not to have children.

Harley continues,

Nancy Rome’s piece in The Washington Post inspired me to reflect on women who were childless by choice (or not) in the Jewish world. For a psychological perspective on the effects of not choosing children in a pronatalist society, I read Larissa Remennick study on childless Jewish Israeli women, who also have the double-pressure of a country that privileges progeny and a religion that promotes procreation as a primary mitzvah. Remennick’s research echoed Rome’s article (and confirmed some of my fears): Infertility became a “master status” for these women, undermining any other merits and achievements they might have.

Harley is not happy with this, because she wants the individual’s needs to be placed higher than the communal needs. But is the Jewish community in a position to value anything else more than continuity? Isn’t that our single greatest concern? Are we lacking lawyers, writers, or even Nobel Prize laureates? Israel needs more Jews, and Israel needs more water. There may be a few women who can help with the second problem. Many more can help with the first. It is not in Israel’s interest to alleviate any stigma that remains, but rather, to increase the stigma of childlessness earlier in their lives.

Not that such a path is moral, and not that barren women (or barren because of their sterile husbands) wouldn’t end up being stigmatized as well, but from a communal position, it is clearly too acceptable for female Jewish communal members to remain childless.

So theologically, I would have to say that the most responsible thing the non-Orthodox Jewish community could do through halachic “evolutionâ€? and “processâ€? they are willing to employ is to create rituals that reward mothers and penalize women who aren’t mothers, as we did with men when they were considered the ones who needed the communal pressure.

Perhaps all new rituals seeking to give women a greater or equal role in the synagogue should be restricted to those who are mothers. And women who aren’t mothers would not be considered full communal female members, like men in the Orthodox world prior to marriage.

In the organizational Jewish world, childless women could be excluded from the top positions as bad examples to young people, and quietly declared unfit for leadership.

The fact that a non-radical like Harley has personal antipathy towards motherhood is absolutely understandable. What Dr. Wertheimer and others might call “the cult of individualismâ€? is a quite understandable and reasonable way to view the world and one’s place in it. But what’s good for an individual can be devastating on a communal level. There is good reason for the Jewish community to take a contemptous position against these women who decide to remain childless, just as it does against intermarriage, even though most of us aren’t really sure we see anything wrong with that either.

They may be producing. But not in the way we most need them to.

It has been almost thirty years since Woody Allen’s masterpiece “Annie Hall� was released, in which Alvy Singer further liberates Annie from the suburban Christian world she comes from, but then loses her to the cultural synthesis she completes for herself. But in “Annie Hall,� overt hostility and resentment towards Alvy’s Jewishness is restricted to Annie’s mother, and his own hostility is towards everything outside of Manhattan’s intellectual world, including other Jews in Manhattan. Now, almost thirty years later, a new film focuses on the challenges of an interfaith relationship in a poignant and tragic love story.

Based on his own “most important relationship� in his own life, Jeff Lipsky’s new film, “Flannel Pajamas,� a Dramatic Competition selection at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival which opened on November 15th, focuses on an interfaith romance between Stuart (Justin Kirk) and Nicole (Julianne Nicholson). Stuart is Jewish, and from Long Island. Nicole is Catholic, from a small town in Montana. Though the love and attraction is intense, neither lover truly respects the culture of the other. They love each other despite where they come from. Both Stuart and Nicole seek supremacy of their respective values and lifestyles in different ways. Though this is, according to Lipsky’s own description of the film to Indiewire about “two people who fall desperately in love with each other, but at two completely different times,� this is also a very different portrayal of an interfaith relationship than is usually depicted on the big screen or on television, where challenges such as a family Christmas Tree or a bris may be presented and examined as it was in “thirtysomething,� but a general undercurrent of resentment, if there is any, is often relegated to the older generation: to the parents, as on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,� or even, as in the comedy “American Wedding,� just with the grandparents. After the showing at the Angelika theater in downtown New York Saturday night when asked about the role their different faiths played in contributing to their relationship failing, Lipsky answered, “A high percentage, actually.�

In “Flannel Pajamas,� it becomes increasingly clear that Nicole is not comfortable with her quintessentially Jewish New Yorker lover, and that the qualms of her family weigh on Nicole herself, even before her mother, in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, informs Stuart that she has consistently expressed her disapproval of Stuart and Nicole’s union from the start, that she is against intermarriages generally, that “Jews are too sensitive,� and assures him that she believes “all the stereotypes about Jews.�

But though ardently secular (a family burial includes an open casket viewing, and Stuart does not recognize the name “Ilan� as an Israeli name), Stuart is not just a victim of prejudice, but an active partner in mutual contempt. He is a shyster, making a successful living scamming exactly the sort of people Nicole comes from, convincing them to purchase bulk ticket sales to whichever specific Broadway show he is working to promote, by weaving an imaginary backdrop to the play, parallel and appealing to the specific interests of the prospective tourist community he is selling it to.

But while Stuart may have a discerning and empathetic eye to those different than himself, it isn’t a sympathetic or respectful one. Stuart quickly detects past physical abuse in the family, and uses this as justification for his desire to “protect� Nicole from her family and friends, and the culture of her family and friends. The past is misappropriated to extend to the present, even though no such specific danger exists any longer. Stuart will give Nicole whatever she needs physically, he will pay off her student loans, and he will finance her endeavors to create a career as a caterer, but he will not accept her values, and he will not accept her network into his own life, and her goals and ambitions will not become his.

Generally, secular and liberal Jewish resistance to intermarriage is publicly justified by noting our historical persecution and our communal fear of extinction, or at least, a continued reduction of our already small numbers. What makes “Flannel Pajamas� such a powerful and honest film is that Lipsky assiduously avoids validating these concerns in this specific relationship, but instead examines the deeper and more interesting dynamics that include those that are less comfortable or one sided. The less flaunted reasons for secular Jewish resistance to intermarriage is mirrored and magnified by the Catholic partner’s best friend and family, and perhaps most startling, even through Stuart’s reactions to their anti-Semitism and Catholic sensibilities, as Justin Kirk’s portrayal of Stuart, slick and confident even when desperate, only listens to his critics when he wants something, and even then, he is no victim. Even when he is lobbying for help while receiving abuse and condemnation of his secular Jewish morals, he will counterattack with his own charges of their moral failings and hypocrisy, but not just to call out hypocrisy, but to underscore that he never witnessed such behavior in his family or in the Long Island Jewish world he grew up in. Absent from Stuart is any appeal to universalism one would expect a Jew in his circumstances would make. Because at his core, he doesn’t believe they are both equally acceptable approaches to life either. He isn’t any happier that they are in Nicole’s life than they are that he is in hers.

Our resentment towards interfaith relationships can be for us, just as it is for them, and just as it is for Stuart, perhaps less about victimology, and more about a resentment and feeling of superiority about our culture and our way of life, and a contempt towards those worshipping a God different than our own, even if we ourselves do not even follow our own religion even nominally. Still, we consider our religion and way of life superior, and theirs more fundamentally flawed, and this perception subsists even in the most secular (but still culturally affiliated) of Jewish circles.

Though the movie has its flaws and at times can drag just little, the acting is superb, and “Flannel Pajamas� is a uniquely honest and important movie about the challenges of interfaith relationships.

And actually bragging about it!

Gosh, some of the best NCSY success stories just don’t make it to their website! You have to find them in the periodicals just for other Orthodox Jews.

Like the story found from last year, another inspiring story about how the best and brightest middle class kids (oh yes, there is more than one in this story) are taught to ruin their lives defer college (til when? Who cares!) in order to attend wonderful Charedi institutions. Take NCSY’s high school “club’s” success at Stuyvesant, the prestigious public high school in NYC.

The Orthodox Union’s magazine Jewish Action wrote,

Many club members ended up turning down the finest universities in the nation, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Boston University, Brandeis, New York University and other esteemed institutions of higher learning in order to engage in some genuine “higher learning.� Some of us went to study at Ohr Somayach or Kol Yaakov in Monsey, New York. One member deferred Harvard for a few years, ultimately becoming one of the metzuyanim of the Mir Yeshiva kollel in Yerushalayim (and undoubtedly left someone in the admissions office in Cambridge scratching his head). Two club members went to Neve Yerushalayim College in Jerusalem […]In truth, deciding to defer college in order to further our Jewish education was the proper application of the Stuyvesant school motto, “Pro scientia atque sapientia�(For knowledge and wisdom).

Of course it was. And good news, parents!

“NCSY has over one hundred public high school clubs across North America. To support this effort, please call Rabbi David Felsenthal”.

Actually, Rabbi Felsenthal is no longer running these clubs, because NCSY promoted him to Director of Alumni, so “Rabbi Daveâ€? can give many, many more kids can get the chance to pass up their college education and attend Charedi institutions instead, which is what he is so talented at. But remember, it was their choice! So don’t blame NCSY! They were just giving the kids “options.” And isn’t the Jewish Action article so inspiring?

For help on how to get your secular child to chuck his or her professional future into the trash can where it belongs, please contact the Orthodox Union and NCSY. They can help, because they’re connected.

It’s all in the relationship!

My friend CK of Jewlicious spends much of his time in the Zionist Entity, where cutting edge Diaspora culture is hard to find. But now, thanks to a worldly Buddhist monk, he is studying in Bangkok about what’s going on in Chutz La’Aretz.Hat tip: Mobius

I wrote a guest post for Jewschool about the Orthodox Union’s NCSY’s continued irresponsibility in promoting Ultra-Orthodox institutions to teenagers of unsuspecting secular parents who trust them with their kids.

To my Modern Orthodox critics (and not all the Modern Orthodox disagree with me):

1) If you say that most secular parents are aware of Charedi recruitment within NCSY, and what this means, then there is nothing to worry about in terms of my demanding they be informed of this.

2) If you say that Aish HaTorah and Ohr Somayach are not Charedi, this is simply not the case. They most certainly are Charedi. And don’t tell me you disagree about Aish. You don’t disagree and you don’t care, and that is not why you work with them, or you wouldn’t also have worked with Ohr Somayach, which is more blatantly fundamentalist. You are open about your relationship with Aish HaTorah because they don’t present themselves as Charedi. But they are Charedi. Which is why they obide by the B’nai Torah leaders, and why you don’t.

3) If you say that “there, at least they’ll become and stay frum,� then you are expressing exactly the reason why the Modern Orthodox OU and NCSY should not be trusted by traditional secular Jewry with their kids. Not that I expect the OU or NCSY to care, or to break their alliance with the Ultra-Orthodox baal tshuvah institutions, no matter how deceptive or fundamentalist they are, provided they aren’t anti-Zionist. But even if we are not able to stop the hunters, we may be able to scare away some of the gazelles over time.

Understand that the more the traditional secular Jewish community understands your ties to the ultra-Orthodox baal tshuvah institutions and what that translates into in terms of lifestyle, the less likely they will be to send their kids to an organization that allies itself with them and defends it on the grounds of “inclusion,� “options,� or “choices.�

You clearly believe that Charedism and Jewish fundamentalism are still better than secularism, and perhaps preferable to the risks faced by a Jew from a secular background attending a regular college. Well, you are entitled to your view. Some of us disagree. Let us each take our case to the secular Jewish parents of NCSY, and see whose vision sits best with their values. Because these are not your kids. And it shows. Again and again.

The Jerusalem Post reports,

Three students were lightly injured when a stun grenade was thrown at the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak Sunday evening.

Magen David Adom medics transported the three to the Tel Hashomer Medical Center, Army Radio reported. They were reportedly suffering from smoke inhalation.

The incident is believed to be the latest flare-up between warring rabbis and their followers in an ongoing power struggle for control of Ponevezh, a training ground for the intellectual elite of the Lithuanian yeshiva world.

Since 2001, when Rabbi Elazar Menachem Man Shach, the legendary and unchallenged head of Ponevezh Yeshiva, passed away, a power struggle has ensued between Markovitz, son- in-law of Rabbi Avraham Kahneman, Ponevezh’s founder, and Eliezer ‘Lazer’ Kahneman, Avraham’s son.

We know that the B’nai Torah are fundamentalists. But still, this is shocking and terribly disappointing. The B’nai Torah have long been the favorite fundamentalists of the moderate secular Jewish left. These were the quiescent Jewish fundamentalists, renowned intellectual Talmudic scholars, known for their distaste of spirituality and mysticism, and dry sense of humor, and not like the Chassidim, whose communities seemed all too tolerant to employing violence in their infighting. Even the elite secular newspapers like the Forward and Haaretz are known to sing the B’nai Torah’s praises, and a respect and preference for their smarts specifically and their brand of Jewish fundamentalism generally is not so infrequently discernable.

What a tragedy that Lithuanian Jewish fundamentalism has become violent at its most prestigious academy. Surely some in the secular far-Left, the religious Left, and the Chassidic world are pointing at you and laughing. They are downing vodka shots at 770. Not only would past Litvish religious leaders mourn this occurrence, but so would even important secular Jewish leaders, like Abe Cahan and Ben Gurion. In our own way, many of us held you in high esteem. You have not just betrayed your principals and your community. You have betrayed the Jewish people in our entirety.

Hat tip: Failed Messiah

It would seem to me that one of the problems with pick and choose liberal interpretations of Judaism is that while the more responsible members do recognize the difference between mitzvoth and traditions, they don’t seem particularly bound by those differences.

On Jewcy, Jon Papernick decided try wearing a kippah for two weeks, and explained,

Wearing a kippah seemed an appropriate place to start. Growing up Reform, I’d never covered my head at services. In fact, I found the idea of placing an itchy cloth disc on my head so embarrassing that I didn’t even wear one at my wedding. But if I was faintly ashamed to announce my Jewishness with a kippah, then how could I become a Perfect Jew?

Perfect? In this world? Why not start with practicing? Maybe start with keeping kosher or shabbes? Or if you want to wear something, why not Tzitzis?

No. That’s too obvious for Papernick. And it won’t be the next step either. Rather,

“The next quest: Ritual purification in a mikveh.”

Great. Cause that’s a big one for Jewish men. What Jewish man is complete without the mikveh?

Oy gevalt. Can’t we find any meaning in the main course of Judaism instead of the trappings and the stuff that isn’t really all that intrinsic? Are we so removed from Judaism that the only way we can appreciate it is by turning it on its head?

Frum With Questions did not like my recent post, and suggests that,

“You have to trust the Rabbis that they know their students situations well enough that they know what’s best for them.�

Actually, you don’t. What FWQ is advocating is a blank check. For war on your *previous* life “before you were frum.� Any group or institution that advocates this should be marginalized and stigmatized by the general Jewish community. This includes implicit marginalization through the isolated settings of many of the yeshivas, as well as mandating halachic stringency and separation from the secular world which can translate into divisive forces separating the BT from family and friends. Now, it would seem that I am castigating the Charedi recruiting world in its entirety. But while I have no qualms about doing that, I’m actually not doing so here.

For instance, Beyond BT, the group blog for established Baal Tshuvahs, published an excellent post called “www.beyondbt.com/?p=547 “>My Brother’s Big Fat Secular Wedding.â€? In it, Aryeh Leib Ecker notes that,

“We had asked our rabbi if we were even allowed to attend, and he told us since there is an assumption that Jewish weddings on the whole are at least kosher style that we were permitted to go but that, of course, we shouldn’t eat anything. I was relieved since I knew that telling my family, my mother in particular, that we wouldn’t be able to make it would be the start of World War Three.�

A look at the comments illuminates that in fact, this is not the viewpoint of all Charedi BTs, and remember, these are the BTs that use the Internet. But it is important to note that the editors of Beyond BT are not Modern Orthodox, but are Left-Wing Yeshivish. That is to say, Charedi. And still, they published this piece, and defended Ecker to the hardliners. It seems unlikely such a post would be published on the likes of Cross-Currents, or on Big Aish or Dark Light’s websites, because it could be interpreted as implicitly allowing for a Baal Tshuvah to attend a non-kosher family wedding without first checking with his rabbi because of an existing opinion. Of course, everyone should “check with your Spiritual Guide,� but still…the opinion is out there.

If a BT wants to ask his rabbi about such matters, by all means. But if your rabbi says no on important issues like this, and you’re not comfortable with what that means for your relationships with friends and family members, get a new rabbi. I don’t advocate Charedism for BTs, but you can be Charedi without being a fundamentalist.

And that may be one of BeyondBt’s implicit messages.

Izzy Grinspan expands on a NY Times piece on personal space and intrusion, an article I found interesting as well, and it made a lot of sense intuitively. Particularly, I was struck by the reaction of those who felt a stranger had not sat at an appropriately distant seat at a library table when available.

“If you break those rules, it’s fascinating,â€? he said. “People will pile up books as if to make a wall — glare.â€?

I do that to people at work as well, but it’s less excusable. I mean, it is his cubicle.

But in her otherwise thoughtful post, Grinspan noted,

“What’s so cool about this is that the article never mentions gender.�

Um…exactly how old is Grinspan? Hmm…25. Well, is she targeting 20‘s and 30’s, or was this piece first written for JVibe?

What would be “cool� would be using more specific language appropriate for a big girl’s blog gig. Because when I read descriptive language such as this, I feel either someone is trying too hard, or not trying at all. I will give the benefit of the doubt, and assume it is the latter.

As much as I prefer long coats, they don’t keep you warm. And at some point, winter will come. So I was in Macy’s, a bit lost, since I hadn’t been in a full department store probably in a couple of years, and was wandering around like a Ukranian immigrant in the early 90’s. Now accidentally on the wrong floor (or was it hashgacha pratis!!) I bumped into the women’s coats section. It was a “one day sale.� Charedi women were everywhere. You would have thought it was registration day for a physical therapy course at Touro College.

I became inspired. I eventually found the men’s coats section in the cellar.

Not only did I get one at a mere $125, but I got a further 15% off by signing up for a credit card that I will pay off immediately and never use again.

Then a friend of mine, let’s call him Left-Wing Modern Orthodox Buddy (even though that is simplifying it a little bit), happened to call me, and we decided to make a Tikkun Olam and down a couple of scotches at an Irish bar.

LWMO Buddy claimed that Macy’s has sales all the time. And that they mean nothing. I was going to remind him that, in fact, Macy’s had one of the greatest histories of corporate honesty, and that the story in Miracle on 34th St., where the saleswoman directs a customer to Gimbles for the exact product she is seeking, is based on a true policy of Macy’s. But I realized LWMO Buddy would counter that this proved nothing, as the independence of Macy’s ended in the 90’s, and all was left was the brand.

How was I to overcome my doubts that I had got “a deal?”

But then I pointed to the dense Charedi presence in the womens coats section, where the prices were parallel to the mens in their one day deep discounts. For the Charedim had come from all over. From Brooklyn, and even from other parts of Brooklyn. And they were clearly taking the sale seriously.

“Maybe they were fooled,� he offered weakly.

Did that really seem possible? That the Charedim would be fooled into paying full retail prices? Like, a bunch of them?

LWMO Buddy downed his scotch and nodded thoughtfully. He was trapped and he knew it.

“Well, I’m not saying you didn’t get a good price on your coat. I’m just disputing that it’s like the lowest price ever.�

I conceded that if I waited until January, and the coat was still around, I would certainly be able to get it for the price I had gotten it for. I was only claiming this was an exceptional deal for buying in season. LWMO Buddy took a look at the coat, and conceded it was a good price.

And the second round was enjoyed by me with full peace of mind.

Shabbat Shalom!