Just wanted to pass on this job opportunity I saw online:

Seeking: Aggressive, young, independently wealthy independent-minded talent who is able to translate his/her love of Israel in domestic patriotic terms.

Location: Diaspora office in NYC

Report to: Tight-knit, nepotistic old boys club

Experience must include: Conflating American interests for Israel’s. However, the candidate need not demonstrate a successful (in the traditional sense) track record of promoted executed, but only must be able to demonstrate employment of passionate, Bolshevik-style exhortations of all opponents.

Must enjoy: Think-tank conferences, black-tie dinners, and questioning paleo-conservatives’ loyalty to the movement and nation they built.

Preferred education: The forties are over. Ivy League educated only, thank you.

In “Making the Cut“, Rabbi Shafran, the spokesman of Agudath Israel, an organization that fought hard to help keep metzitzah b’peh—the holy blood-sucking of a baby’s newly circumcised penis by a chassid–legal in NY, offers some reasons why liberal and Reform Jews continue at this time to practice brit milah.

My father told the story to demonstrate the innate Jewish desire to enter Abraham’s covenant of circumcision, or brit mila, a most fundamental Jewish obligation. He speculated that, no doubt, an 8-day-old Jewish infant, in some inchoate way, likely also senses the depth of the commandment’s import, and that his soul, pure and new, pines to undergo the procedure. And so, my father suggested, perhaps that idea informs the blessing traditionally called out by those present at a circumcision ceremony – “Just as he has entered the covenant, so may he enter Torah, marriage and good deeds.” The blessing may bespeak a hope that the same deep and pure desire to be holy that inheres in a new soul should later motivate him, when grown, to study Torah, become a husband and perform righteous acts.

This is pure, unadulterated fantasy bullshit. This is the kind of thing you say when you have nothing normal to say.

That circumcision remains practiced among Jews who have allowed other Jewish observances to lapse – or who have outright jettisoned them – has always been remarkable. If any commandment could be expected to be shunned by Jews who view the Torah as mere “inspired” words of mortals and not as G-d’s sacred commandments, one would imagine that cutting the body of a baby would be it.

And yet that is not the case. Reform Magazine recently (Fall, 2008) published an article “Why Reform Never Abandoned Circumcision,” whose author, Reform Rabbi Mark Washofsky, makes his movement’s case for brit mila. While the article’s title was somewhat inaccurate – circumcision was indeed rejected by Reform leaders in the early 1800’s – it is certainly true that the contemporary Reform movement encourages brit mila. The article tries to express why, even though Reform “has done away with a number of ritual observances that conflict with our contemporary cultural and aesthetic sensibilities… this practice remains.”

Rabbi Washofsky’s explanation is that… it is “a tribal rite” and that “that’s why we do it…” Which rather begs the question, of course. But if it satisfies his intellect, who am I to quibble?

It will not hold up if the circumcision rate in the U.S. continues to fall. The reason the circumcision rate continues to hold up in the Reform movement is solely because the American population has not rejected it wholeheartedly, and the Reform only challenge rituals in Judaism when the dominant liberal culture forces the question. Not a moment before.

But that moment is coming. Just look at Rabbi Shafran’s fantastic nonsense to see why. As circumcision becomes increasingly recognized as a form of mutilation — something Judaism does not dispute — do you think this is going to hold up under the weight of child rights?

Manfred Gerstenfeld rebuked Ohr Somayach for “Holocaust trivialization.” The OS essay specifically cited by Gerstenfeld claims,

“1. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, 12 million were left afterwards. Today there are only 13 million Jews in the world. Where are the rest that by natural increase should number close to 20 million? The answer is that the silent holocaust of assimilation has caused them to disappear as Jews.”

Slowly but surely, Ohr Somayach/Neve Yerushalayim and other like-minded institutions are getting the reputation they deserve.

It’s simple to remember. Better out than haredi.

I have picked on Big Aish generally and Big Aish’s boner rabbi, Rabbi Yonason Goldson, a bit in the past, and it could be I might take issue with them at some point in the future. Who knows what lies down the road?

Still, there were a couple of things I read that made me nod — that made a good point.

Big Aish wrote in “David Responds” that,

As with other “products,” the aura of scientific authority is used to mainstream homosexuality. In the early ’70s, gay activists targeted the American Psychological Association — but not with new scientific data: they staged sit-ins and disrupted meetings. The APA accommodated these activists, resulting in the landmark decision to remove homosexuality from the DSM, the APA’s diagnostic guide to psychological disorders.

Not a single new piece of scientific evidence was presented. The change was the result of political arm-twisting.

Is this true? If it is, this is definitely problematic. I have to admit that.

And Rabbi Goldson published a story which warmed even my own cold heart.

Lipstick in School

According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lip stick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Every night the maintenance man would remove them, and the next day the girls would put them back.

Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can just imagine the yawns from the little princesses).

To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.

He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

There are teachers … and then there are educators.

Sailer wrote an essay asking, “What is art?” Within the essay, Sailer discusses the Jewish role of Jewish buyers and critics, of which there is no shortage, and suggests,

“The basic problem is that Jews tend to be cognitively stronger with words than with images, so they are better at making up theories about why a stuffed shark is art rather than determining which art objects are beautiful and which are not.”

There is a good reason to explain why Jews may tend to be better at words than images, of course. Our religion bans the use of images and sculpture to a large degree, so there was simply less incentive to develop those skills, as they were not rewarded.

My own family, it should be noted, has a gift of exceptional hearing. How did that develop? Well, it is more closely related to words and of course, tone, something which is considered of value in the Jewish world. For my own family, it also provided dispensation to live in, say, the then Russian capital of St. Petersburg, when most Jews were not allowed to live within the city limits in the latter 19th century, but where my family resided because they were recognized as proficient professional musicians, as one member worked in the opera. But regardless of this privilege, they got get the hell out of Russia, though that side was quite conservative politically. The family joke is that the single issue my great-grandmother and her parents had with the czar was his anti-semitism.

I can’t say Jews are usually strong in music, as many Jews, to my parents chagrin at any given service they are attending, sing out of tune. But there appears to have been a role and outlets for at least some to excel at music since at least the first Temple period.

Still, I have heard similar complaints about the role of Jews in the classical music world similar to those leveled at the Jews in art world. But it seems a harder case to make, especially from an American perspective, where our composers are pretty critical to our limited canon.

Jeff Eyges writes in about 7 Fat Cow’s “how to” suicide postings,

This suicide business - it’s reprehensible. And I say this as one who believes that the decision to take one’s life is not always a result of depression or psychosis. But this is just inexcusable.

Eli Valley is racking up the hate for his new comic in the Forward. But some of the enraged denunciations are just plain bizarre.

Ed Lasky writes in his essay, “A Challenge to the Liberal Jewish Community,” in the American Thinker that,

Rabbis and other leaders in the Jewish community were in the forefront of criticizing “smears” against Barack Obama during the recent campaign. These comments concerned not only his heritage but also those people he chose to associate with and support-among them, Pastor Jeremiah Wright, Jr. and Rashid Khalidi. These leaders have also been engaged in outreach efforts towards Muslims - some have even broken bread with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who denies the Holocaust and whose regimes sponsors anti-Semitism around the world.

Oh, really? The Jews For Obama and the NJDC…these people broke bread with Ahmedinijad?

Which Reform temple do you think they attend? I personally suspect Temple Rodeph Shalom is affiliated with these guys. Don’t they have that “Classical Reform” look about them?

The Forward gets a bit snarky by awarding Aaron Rubashkin a place in the ‘Forward Fifty’.

The Forward writes,

The company’s problems have sparked a protest movement and, in turn, changed the way people think about kosher food. None of this would have happened without Rubashkin.

So Steve Brizel — don’t complain that there weren’t enough Orthodox Jews on the Forward Fifty list this year. You got Rubashkin! He’s a frummie, right?

A few of the winners in the Forward Fifty were linked to the Agriprocessors scandal. Like Failed Messiah! Am I wrong, or is Shmarya is the only one who made both the Forward Fifty and the the Heeb 100?

Ladies and gentlemen, now you don’t have to shlepp to Coney Island to see the side show. Just watch the rumble between two spokesmen of the most respected groups of American Jewry. mohammed, of “Hurry up and do what you promised, Mr. Ahmadinejad,” and Ariel Sokolovsky, of “Rebbe-God” and “My sweet pilegesh” fame, who are going at it. The issue is: the right to post a “how to” suicide note on 7 Fat Cow. (And, of course, they end up fighting about Israel.)

7 Fat Cow is all about social responsibility, and many were sorely disappointed when a writer deleted his post on how to commit suicide effectively on a blog whose community has been no stranger to suicide and overdose, mental illness and despair. It is so wonderful that they look out for each other like this and think it is funny to encourage people to commit suicide. It is comforting as well to know that these guys leave the haredi world with a strong moral code as intact as their foreskins.

Many of these guys are genuinely brilliant, talented, and quite likable. But without a moral code, they are often not trustworthy or responsible people.

7 Fat Cow has consistently been one of the most irresponsible blogs in the Jewish world, and they think this is a big compliment. Because they have no code. They have no morality. This is what haredism does — it preempts any semblance of morality outside of a haredi one.

I could go on and on…but suffice to say, I like these guys, and feel some sense of kinship and fraternity, but I wish these people would find the strength to see value in themselves, and therefore, enable them to see value in others.

Unlike Modern Orthodoxy, which allow for parallel value systems, Haredism is a jealous theology. Nothing, absolutely nothing except haredism, is allowed to have any value. And so when they leave, they leave value itself behind.

These people have all the mirthful laughter of the cacophonous screams of a madhouse.

And yet…at times…they come together and sing the songs of their youth and communities. They are broken, angry nihilists…but still feel compelled at gatherings to sing praise unto God. On some level, in some way…they still harbor hope and belief.

Notice the woman in this video who claims that male circumcision has no effects on a person’s sexual experience in any way, neither for the man or the woman.

This is simply not true. Nor is it what normative Judaism has ever claimed.

Operation Abraham is resorting to lies to promote and further its vision of universal male circumcision in Africa.