Category — Liberal Judaism

One of the differences between religiously Liberal Jews and the heretic is that during the latter’s more bitter moments, the heretic not only suspects that Judaism is essentially ultra-Orthodox, he would prefer to believe that it is ultra-Orthodox.

The more Judaism truly is, at its core, ultra-Orthodox, the easier it is to discard in its entirety.

The more haredi, the better.

Perhaps it is a sign of the seasonal redemption, because what could be sweeter for The Kvetcher than when the Ethical Monotheist leader, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, tag-teams the American ultra-Orthodox spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran with no less than Right-wing Modern Orthodoxy’s best, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb?

Ben Harris has the story on the JTA.

Rabbi Shafran wrote a deplorable essay defending Bernie Madoff, of all people.

After all, Madoff apologized.

…what I admire about him has to do with his owning up to his crime.

Think about it. The man knew for years that eventually his scheme would come apart and that prosecution loomed, yet he took no steps to flee, huge bribe in hand, to some country lacking extradition treaties. Idi Amin, we might recall, died of old age in luxury. Madoff’s millions, moreover, easily could have bought him a new face and identity papers; he could have spent his senior years tanned and well fed among the sunbirds of Miami Beach.

Instead, though, Madoff chose to essentially turn himself in and admit guilt. He apologized to his victims, acknowledging that he had “deeply hurt many, many people,” and adding, “I cannot adequately express how sorry I am for what I have done.”

Rabbi Weinreb responded,

Shafran argues that Madoff’s initial intentions were good, but that he became “inextricably trapped” in his own machinations. From the Jewish perspective there is no such thing as “inextricably trapped” — there are always choices — and he had numerous occasions, indeed daily opportunities, to end the scandal and thereby at least mitigate the losses of his victims.

There is another dimension to Madoff’s treachery. As a Jew, and as one who identified himself strongly with Jewish causes, he created a chillul HaShem, a profanation of the name of the Almighty, of historic proportions, reflecting disastrously on the reputation of all Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish God. Shakespeare’s Shylock and Dickens’ Fagin fade as symbols of supposed Jewish avarice and greed in comparison with Madoff and his misdeeds. Furthermore, reaction to his crimes not only sullies the name of Jews the world over, it endangers them everywhere. It provides confirmation for the most venomous anti-Semitic propaganda. For this, forgiveness is impossible.

Even 7FatCow, which usually demonstrates no morals to be outraged and no code to be violated, was horrified.

Failed Messiah (former BTs are usually more inherently moral than former FFB haredim who run out of venerable downtown non-glatt Jewish establishments without first paying their bill and will be arrested the next time they visit the premises, just try me) declared Rabbi Shafran “America’s worst rabbi.”

To be fair, Rabbi Shafran has apologized.

Big Yasher Koach to both Rabbis Weinreb and Yoffie for speaking up.

I first noticed this thanks to “formermuslim’s,” catch on Jewschool. Shalom Rav described illegal aliens as “undocumented immigrants.” “formermuslim” noted, “My G-d! The brainwashing is self-imposed!”

And apparently, committee approved.

The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (JRF), the political arm of the smallest religious denomination of American Jewry, has endorsed “A Faith Leaders’ Statement on Immigration,” which insists that,

“Anti-immigrant rhetoric has no place in public discourse and should not be used.”

What constitutes “anti-immigrant rhetoric”? Oh, just read the next sentence.

As a country, we value civil public discourse as the reasonable way to address our problems and arrive at solutions. Inflammatory statements and dehumanizing categorizations of any person or people, e.g. “illegals”, should be stricken in favor of factual and more accurate descriptions of the people adversely affected by our broken immigration system.

Okay, so no more talk about “illegal” immigrants, okay? Henceforth, they are to be referred to as “people adversely affected by our broken immigration system.”

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.

I was ranting to Yitzchak Schoenfeld, the intuitive and sympathetic leader of the chulent crowd about my distaste for something or other about Chanukkah, and he relayed what a frum (but questioning) friend of his had once noted about Chanukkah.

“My side lost.”

Comic panel from “Festival of Lights“, co-written by myself and Eli Valley, courtesy of Eli Valley.

As some of you probably know, I descend predominantly from moderate-left, not liberal-left, stock. My mom was (and sort of still is) a feminist. But a moderate feminist. Now you might ask, “what is the difference between a moderate feminist and a regular feminist?” Well, it depends when and where. A moderate feminist in say, the early 70s, might have just started her own local chapter of N.O.W. But a moderate feminist (in say, the early 70s,) might also have left her chapter of N.O.W., the very same chapter she created, because she felt that the crowd that had gathered was, “a bunch of radical, men-hating dykes.”

Now to be sure, the social liberals are not at all the same as the radicals. But they are more…on the cutting edge.

My point, dear readers, is to explain that sometimes, Reform Jews face dilemmas that you and I do not. Take last names, and changing them. And what to do with your own hyphenated last name, when you are a Reform dude(!), and getting married.

For those of us in the moderate-left, the reality usually is the woman keeps her last name professionally if she wants (for awhile), but often drops even that once the kids start growing. This is still different than in the moderate-right world, where even the toughest business woman cannot wait to jettison her last name to show she closed the biggest deal of all…one with a ring!

But dcc has a stickier situation. In today’s crazy world, when one Reform Jew marries another Reform Jew, that can be a lot of names to negotiate. His sister suggested taking a last name which incorporates all of their four last names. Social-liberalism has its own baggage.

Last names didn’t really mean all that much to Jews traditionally. We were forced to assume them over time. In order to avoid the czar’s army, many of our families had more than one. My own family name was once Onikelsky, but we think we had it for about five minutes, and took the name here, because we were possibly from Jonikelish, a shtetl in Lithuania.

And perhaps dcc’s current dilemma suggests that in some ways, last names still don’t mean all that much for Jews.

Anyway, if you know someone who is Reform/hyphenated, you may want to guide them to dcc’s post. And maybe wish both dcc and his fiancé a mazel tov.

Mazel tov, dcc and Abby.

Sometimes, you want to see what’s on the other side. How the right-wingers live.

So JanetheWriter decided stepped to step outside her comfort zone, and decided to see how the frummies spend shabbat. So she went hardcore. To the JTS, the Conservative movement’s theological seminary.

These are excerpts from her tell all report on RJ.

Along the way, Jeanne told me that JTS students are required to be shomer shabbos. Before we entered the building on Broadway, therefore, I shut off my cell phone.[...] After brief introductions all around and blessings over wine and challah, we enjoyed a traditional Shabbat dinner — chicken, rice, vegetables and salad, all prepared by Jeremy, following his Friday classes.

Janetthewriter kept her personal religious identity hidden.

Although I followed only a few threads of the philosophical and intellectual discourse, I picked up enough to sense that among some within this group there existed deep disdain for Reform Judaism and its dismissal of halacha . Nonetheless, I disclosed to Aviva, the young woman across the table from me, from whence I came, and she in turn told me that she works part-time at Congregation Rodeph Sholom, and was surprised at how “traditional” a congregation she’s found it to be.

She further disclosed that she “can’t do the imahot,” and we chatted about the wide spectrum that is Reform Judaism, the autonomy of individual congregations, and the trend toward more traditional practice within the Movement. As is often the case, I was proud to be a Reform Jew.

Following dinner we “benched” – the familiar birkat ha-Mazon sandwiched (no pun intended) between seemingly endless text and melodies that were wholly unknown to me. I found it nearly impossible to keep up without losing my place in the bencher despite a transliteration of the prayers. Not since early in my first semester of college, when I attended a kabbalat Shabbat service sponsored by Hillel at Lafayette, had I felt such a blush of shame at my Jewish illiteracy. And yet, my sense of having entered sacred time was palpable. There was no urgency, no rushing, no gotta-get-it-done frenzy. Rather, a joyful calm filled the lounge and all of us in it.

As Jeanne and I made our way back to the subway a short while later, I pulled out my cell phone. Ready to turn it back on, I remembered the lounge — and that joyful calm – and, still off, put it back into my bag. Whatever messages it contained could certainly wait until the morning.

dreidel hustler, a Heeb columnist, is taking some heat in his futile efforts to legitimize the phrase Tushy-Shtup, which as Jewdar noted, “isn’t even Yinglish, it’s just your own dorky private language used between you and your imaginary friends.”

In the late 60’s, Cynthia Ozick mocked young male Jewish writers who displayed their extensive linguistic knowledge of the various Yiddish words for “penis.” Today our youth don’t even know that. So they just make words up, declare them Yiddish, and publish them in Heeb with great fanfare.

The East Village Mamele is not happy with the voters of California, Arizona and Florida who have “voted to deny families this kind of joy.” What kind of joy is this? The kind of joy we all should recognize is both universal, urgent, and a basic human right. The joy of singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider at a gay wedding ceremony.

“It was more emotional than we expected,” reported my bro-in-law, as Shirley jabbered in the background. “It felt like a renewal of our earlier vows. And having Shirley running around us added to the emotion level.” They sang “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” during the ceremony, to keep Shirley interested. The justice of the peace sang along. Shirley danced with excitement.

However, this isn’t just about the opportunity for a kick-ass family party. Rather, the E.V. Mamele has another darned good reason for Americans to rethink their position on gay marriage.

There are so few moral slam-dunks in this world. I understand ambivalence about abortion. I get anxiety about affirmative action. But I simply do not understand how allowing other people legal and societal parity and the right to true love and family is any threat to straight people’s lives or marriages. In an election year in which “Yes, we can” carried the day, here was an initiative whose sole purpose was to say “No, you can’t.” And I don’t want to get into the biblical justification for intolerance. Rabbis and ethicists way smarter than I am have explained how to contextualize the who-can-lie-with-whom abomination thing. You could look it up.

I could look it up…and you could look up some rabbis who actually have a very different interpretation…but frankly, this issue should not be decided by rabbis. Even rabbis online.

Mamele also notes that,

In Newsweek last week, Anna Quindlen pointed out that the same confident “God doesn’t want this” and “this is unnatural” and “this will cause the breakdown of society” language was used about interracial marriage in the 1960s.

Now, I could give you some biologists to look up online in order to show you why this isn’t really the same, but that isn’t the point. Rather, bringing in racial segregation is a dubious stick with which to hit us holdouts on this issue. Overall, blacks clearly do not see these issues as analogous. And Jews have historically been all too prone to usurping the black Civil Rights movement for their own issues and and their own agenda.

This has incurred a lot of legitimate resentment. We need to stop doing that. It’s really obnoxious.

They can be just as obnoxious as the far-right!

I am not terribly comfortable at how Jews have taken such a strident position in favor of gay marriage. I think if Jews are so convinced that this is a universal human right, then maybe they should first agitate to enact this in the Jewish state. But I don’t see them demanding gay marriage in Israel. Rather, they are screaming that they need gay marriage in the U.S.

Jews should take a back seat on this one. Our own civilization and culture hardly dictates this as normative, despite changes enacted five minutes ago. The Reconstructionists, who pride themselves in being eccentric, have decried a democratic referendum against gay marriage in the strongest terms.

Look at how these arrogant Jews dismiss the democratic referendums!

We are saddened and deeply disturbed by the denial of fundamental human rights—to marry, to adopt and care for foster children—to thousands of gay and lesbian citizens across the United States. We are particularly dismayed by the passage of initiatives that have reversed previously recognized equality for same-sex unions.

Oh, you’re dismayed, are you? A “fundamental” right for gays to marry? Based on what history? Based on which civilization?

I would remind these far-Left Jews that it is not their place to push around the American population for the sake of their Tikkun Olam fantasies. The American population is allowed to disagree with the arrogant and privileged Jew in her unremitting quest for a new civil rights war to wage against her country.

The U.S. and her population do not have to line up in-synch with the agenda of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement. I’m so, so, so, so sorry if that hurts Lefty Jews’ feeling. But Americans are allowed to think differently than you. Yes. Yes they are. Now run to the courts and tantrum.

How annoyed am I? Enough to give Rabbi Shafran of Agudath Israel the last word, because this haredi leader actually makes more sense than the pushy Jewish left whom he effectively stuffs.

Rebecca Kaplan, a newly elected Oakland, California city council member, told those gathered outside City Hall how upset she was with the passage of Proposition 8. According to a news report, she “roused the crowd by blowing a shofar, a ram’s horn blown as a wind instrument in Biblical times. She said it represented a call for solidarity.”

Only it doesn’t. It represents a call for teshuva, the Hebrew word for repentance, literally “return” – to the teachings of the Jewish religious tradition.

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?