kvetch \KVECH\, intransitive verb: To complain habitually. noun: 1. A complaint 2. A habitual complainer.

Apparently seeking to validate the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes of clannishness and exclusionary policies, Big Aish is going far beyond singles events promoting endogamy, and is actually providing subsidized infrastructure for professional networking opportunities that rigidly rejects non-Jews, as well as those who are Jewish-identified but from diverse backgrounds.

With their “Young Professionals in Entertainment,” Big Aish is running an event that offers:

8 Tables. 8 people per table. Infinite Networking Potential.

The idea is simple. [Editor’s note – when a kiruv groups promises something is simple, be very wary – “it's simple” usually means they are about to fuck you!]

Join a table of 8 prospective business contacts on the creative side of TV, Film, Radio, Advertising, Interactive, and Theatre for the first course of a delicious 3-course meal.

Then, switch tables for the main course and meet 8 NEW people.

Enjoy words of wisdom from our special guest speaker, David Gavant, VP and Exec Producer of Major League Baseball Productions

Then, mingle over dessert and round out a night of innovative networking for uniting Jewish Young Professionals in the Entertainment industry.

Limited slots open. By application only.

So the Jewish Outreach Institute noted that,

When should it matter whether or not your mother was born Jewish? That’s the question we at JOI found ourselves asking after receiving a mass email from Aish NY about an upcoming “Young Professionals in Entertainment” mixer here in New York City. The application form has a series of standard questions like name and address, plus an essay box asking what field of the entertainment industry you’re in—but also included the question “Was your mother born Jewish?” This question seems oddly out of place.

Ostensibly, the event is about “innovative networking for uniting Jewish Young Professionals in the Entertainment industry,” and includes a dinner where you change tables three times for the three courses, allowing you to meet and mingle with different people at each new table. If the sole rationale for the event is professional networking—as the marketing would have us believe—the question about participants’ mothers is irrelevant.
[…]
If the applicant’s mother was not born Jewish but had an Orthodox conversion or if the applicant himself or herself had a similar conversion, they can register. But if the conversion was under the auspices of a Conservative or Reform rabbi, the applicant must put that on the registration form and the folks at Aish will “have to talk to their rabbis.”

These requirements are nowhere to be found on the registration page. We only learned this after calling. Imagine how many people end up disqualified for a professional networking event because Aish doesn’t recognize their Jewish background. If Aish has a definition of “Jewish” when they say their event is for “Jewish Young Professionals,” they should simply define who they consider Jewish rather than ask a question that creates doubt, confusion and self-consciousness among a substantial percentage of their stated target audience. At the very least, Aish should include an explanation of why they’re asking the question. But the ethical thing to do would be to simply state who is eligible for this event, period, rather than make people jump through hoops.

Big Aish just keeps putting its big nose into too many places where it doesn’t belong…

Better to cut them off!

Little Frumhouse on the Prairie is troubled that so many go “off the derech.” It’s a real mystery why a BT would ever leave the wonderful world of ultra-Orthodoxy. Why would anyone leave?

Well, one sign of trouble is when some people start asking too many questions. The wrong type of questions.

Little Frumhouse on the Prairie writes on Beyond BT,

Rabbi Maryles feels that when a frum person reaches out to leaders/teachers/community members with questions or statements that can indicate a growing lapse of faith, instead of being taken under wing, leaders/teachers/community members chastise the person or attempt to silence them. A person who asks such questions could be a bad influence on impressionable people within the community. Better to have that “bad apple” go off the derech instead of taking the risk that they might rot the whole bushel. In a way the sacrifice can be seen as pekuach nefesh [saving a soul] – sacrificing the unbelieving rodef [predatory pursuer] for the good of maintaining the believers.

While the frum community officially boasts that, “No one ever died from a question,” the reality is a bit different. The internet was not banned by many right-wing ultra-Orthodox groups because of porn. It was banned because of blogs.

The frummies deride those of us who eventually balked, and found the inner strength to claw our way back to the secular world, with our tail between our legs. They then jeer that we “couldn’t hack it in the frum world.” They act like this was the easy course to follow. In fact, it is a form of very public teshuvah.

What the frum don’t talk about is that they are the ones who could not and cannot “hack” our questions. Even here, they are not seriously addressing them, because they only address those questions and problems that they feel safe acknowledging. Some of the issues are real, such as the issue of poverty. But many may not be broached publicly. The brutality and amputation of an intense kiruv experience is not addressed, nor are the feelings of rage and helplessness as you eventually begin to understand how you were systematically lied to about your own non-haredi traditional Jewish heritage.

We can learn where the Kiruv movement perceives itself to be most vulnerable by those issues that remain unaddressed.

And for just a couple of those questions and problems that are not broached, here are some broad categories not mentioned:

1) The mesorah is dubious, to say the least.
2) For those of us from liberal backgrounds, Jewish and Frum supremacism among the Orthodox becomes increasingly nauseating over time
3) Metzizah b’peh is not condemned outright by any significant sector of Orthodoxy.
4) Too much regulation of daily life. This becomes intrusive over time and feels like rabbinically legislated OCD.
5) The constant push to make less of your life instead of more.
6) Estrangement from friends and family in exchange for the dubious “warmth” of community.
7) Being surrounded by Orthodox Jews—especially FFBs and the flaming BTs – often becomes unbearable for those BTs from secular backgrounds who are or turn moderate.
8.) The artistic culture of the Orthodox is vastly inferior to the secular world. This includes all music, music, music, visual art, fiction, non-fiction (often the most outlandish fiction).
9) The vast sweep of hostility and straw man contempt for the secular world becomes exhausting and alienating over time.
10) The severity of Shabbat and the holidays begin to feel like unnecessary, unwanted, and unremitting speed bumps.
11) Too many of the “rewards” in Judaism are restricted to redemption the “next world.” Far too many.

I could go on and on.

In case you missed it.

Mashiach is coming! Beyond BT has the full scoop. Apparently, it has something to do with the sacred year of 2009 A.D. So…what does Beyond BT’s writer suggest we spend time doing? That’s right, my fellow heimeshes…teshuvah!

Sometimes I think that “Mashiach” is just a euphemism for The End Of The World. Or at least, the end of the world as we know it. Which really, we all believe will happen. Now more than ever. Sure makes at least one of those 13 principals of faith look a bit more realistic.

If we look at Mashiach from that light, maybe they aren’t so crazy.

Isn’t that really what they are referencing in part? When not talking about The Gedolim who promised it is so happening this year (Remember, it’s going to be 2009! And someone had a dream…about Gedolim! And THEY promised!), the writer references Iran’s nuclear goals, financial meltdown, and global warming.

You say potato, I say potahoh. You say Mashiach, I say we’re screwed.

We may not really be all that far apart. And why should we pretend otherwise? We spend almost as much time talking to each other as we do not talking to each other or screaming at/around/about each other. Okay, well, we spend some time talking, right?

One of the most intriguing things about traditional Judaism is that if you look for some underlying concepts, they are quite appealing, and may mean something different than what is stated. Most civilizations understand this humans on earth thing will not last forever, just as we won’t personally last forever. We hope this was for a reason. And we recognize that we aren’t in control.

Frummies just call that sorrow, acceptance, and hope against hope, “Mashiach.” And Christians and Muslims do the same thing. It kind of makes sense. Except for the actual Mashiach part.

Literalism in religion so frequently gets in the way of an otherwise good idea.

In a shocking break from even a modicum of menschkeit, Cross-Currents, a site run by Yaakov Menken, an unofficial Agudath Israel operative, and the site where the spokesman of Agudath Israel publishes his essays, has compared the popular Democratic nominee for president of the United States to the wicked Haman who plotted genocide against the Jewish people in the Megillat Esther.

In a “guest column” published by Toby Katz on Cross-Currents, Chava Willig Levy writes,

Even Obama acknowledges his “spooky good fortune.”

It certainly looks as if God is guiding Mr. Obama straight to the White House. But if God is guiding his history, and ours, aren’t we mere spectators forced to watch passively — some might say helplessly — as it unfolds? Several of my coreligionists think so, fatalistically pointing to the fact that the secular date of Obama’s breakthrough keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention — July 27 — coincided with Tisha B’Av, a fast day commemorating the many seismic tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people.[...]

It looks as if the smooth-talking Haman, whose ambitions have been fulfilled at every turn, who has been blessed with “spooky good fortune,” is destined to succeed. It looks as if God is guiding his history so that he will have his way. But Mordechai knows that, at this juncture, fatalism would be fatal. He beseeches Esther to intervene, to help halt history in its tracks. And when she demurs, Mordechai upbraids her (Esther 4:14): “Who knows whether it was for just such an opportunity as this that you attained your royal position?”

In the absence of full disclosure, Esther has to resist her temptation to follow protocol, to be politically correct. But she accedes to Mordechai’s demand only after he agrees to accede to hers (Esther 4:16): “Go and gather all the Jews in Shushan, and fast on my behalf for the three days…My maidens and I will also fast.”

We have no Esther today. But over 2,400 years after she left the world’s stage, her example remains. We must emulate her two-pronged strategy: politics and prayer.

The AP reports,

MOGADISHU, Somalia – A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said.

Dozens of men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said.

Initial local media reports said Duhulow was 23, but her father told Amnesty International she was 13. Some of the Somali journalists who first reported the killing later told Amnesty International that they had reported she was 23 based upon her physical appearance.

Calls to Somali government officials and the local administration in Kismayo rang unanswered Saturday.

So sorry I don’t have happy (if dubious) Somali stories like Jewschool does. Oh, well. It doesn’t matter. We’re a “nation of immigrants.”

If we bring in millions of Somalis, what could possibly go wrong?

Hat tip: Sarah/froylein

I hate to be a baal machlockes, but on a Jewlicious post praising my extraordinary–some might say, superhuman–restraint in the face of Big Aish machinations, a regular Jewlicious reader named Chutzpah has excoriated Beyond BT in scathing terms.

Chutzpah writes,

It has been 20 years since my former chevre from “Beyond Teshuva” and I all started “learning” in Israel and then “continued on” with the JHC.

That means these college-educated and highly-successful people have gone 20 years without having a single independent thought or action. They have not had made love without asking the Rabbi to check their panties first and many of them have not tasted their Mother’s home-cooking in that long.

These people have spent every ounce of their time and energy for 20-plus years trying to raise Frum-From-Birth children and there is no turning back. They have indoctrinated each of their 5-7 children every minute of every day with how corrupt, base and evil the outside world is.

Independent thinking is not a reward for these people, they prefer to bask in their self-righteousness than to actually admit that maybe life is not a frum-contest.

I am showing a lot of self-restraint here…I think I better go sit in Kelsey’s cage for a while.

I don’t agree that “these college-educated and highly-successful people have gone 20 years without having a single independent thought or action.” I would just say it isn’t something they would recommend for everyone.

ck has nothing but nice things to say about the ultra-Orthodox kiruv movements and how (relatively) swell they are. But just as many of his best writers know better (i.e., froylein and TM), so too many of his readers do as well.

Especially the ones who were actually there. Not like ck, an FFB.

ck, like many Modern Orthodox Jews — in fact, I would say MOST Modern Orthodox Jews — is absolutely insensitive to the destructive impulses of the baal teshuvah movement. And ck is hardly an insensitive person.

But when it comes to kiruv, they are pretty much all like that. They are not allies in this important issue, but rather, are sympathizers and collaborators with the black-hatters. It is solely up to those of us from the secular world to rise up and protect our own.

Rak kach.

I didn’t get involved with Big Aish’s distribution of “Obsession,” mostly because while I am on the other side of the political mechitza, I don’t have a problem if someone wants to disseminate warnings about the dangers of Islamicist goals, because it might lead to a wake-up of sorts on immigration. It doesn’t matter if their real goal is to affect the election. I think there is plenty to fear. And I knew about this early on. So all you frummies and religious-Zionists should give me some credit for not jumping on that bandwagon, despite my very understandable concerns about Big Aish.

However…concern over Big Aish is spreading beyond specific distribution of this film.

Jeffrey Goldberg writes in The Atlantic,

I neglected to mention a whole set of other issues about Aish HaTorah, including and especially its pre-modern attitude toward women, pluralism and non-Jews.

Oh, boy. Now the big dogs are starting to bark. The veneer is falling…Big Aish and the other fundie kiruv orgs are probably in for some serious resistance.

Aren’t you glad you stopped partnering with these guys?

And who is backing Big Aish, ultimately? No less than the State of Israel herself. This is whom they have chosen to represent the light of traditional Judaism. These yahoos. What a joke. But the joke is on Judaism.

In the editorial, “The Socialism Smear,” The Forward writes,

In the long run, laissez faire capitalism actually doesn’t work. Sure, we got to party for a while, but under our feet the market revolution was unraveling an economy that had been doing quite well before the free-market fundamentalists took over.

Between World War II and 1973, the New Deal’s glory days, with regulation vigorous and high-income tax rates topping 70%, Americans enjoyed three relatively stable decades of brisk growth. A true middle class was born, and affluence transformed all levels of society. Then came Reaganism, kicking off three decades of virtual growth punctuated by a series of ever-harsher bailouts, bubbles and busts. Instead of creating wealth, we created an illusion of wealth, borrowing trillions of dollars and spreading them around so we could feel rich. Far from fostering genuine growth, we shipped productive industry and real jobs overseas, leaving workers here to flip burgers and run up debts.

Lowering the taxes of the wealthy, supposedly meant to generate investment and new jobs, instead spawned a generation of billionaires and an orgy of conspicuous consumption.

We should have known better. However elegant it looked on paper, the ideology of the free-market fundamentalists defied common sense. It seems incredible that anyone could seriously believe you can hand pots of money to a lucky few and expect them to invest wisely and nurture general prosperity, as opposed to hoarding or splurging on jewelry.

Full editorial.

You guys aren’t going to believe this, but apparently, there is an increasing discrepancy in the number of blacks and Hispanics qualifying for New York City’s gifted programs compared to whites (often known elsewhere as “Jews”) and Asians.

The NY Times reports,

In a school system in which 17 percent of kindergartners and first graders are white, 48 percent of this year’s new gifted students are white, compared with 33 percent of elementary students admitted to the programs under previous entrance policies. The percentage of Asians is also higher, while those of blacks and Hispanics are lower.

Parents, teachers and principals involved in the programs, already worried at reports this spring that the new system tilted programs for the gifted further toward rich neighborhoods, have complained since school began that they were wasteful and frustrating, with high-performing children in the smallest classes in a school system plagued by pockets of overcrowding.

Intuitively, it actually seems like a very good idea to spend more on your brightest when it comes to education.

And do not let the term “white” fool you. “White” in New York disproportionately means Jew anyway, never mind in terms of gifted programs. The Jewish community has to be aware of what the complaint really is from a communal perspective. The complaint is that Jews, whom have the highest IQ average in the nation and an obsessive tradition of education, are overrepresented in the gifted schools compared to blacks, who have the lowest IQs, here and elsewhere, and who in NY, as in other major metropolitan areas, often come from a very disadvantaged socio-economic background that does not provide the same average skill-set.

The rich Jews like Bloomberg and Klein will sell out middle class Jewry. These are not great men like Koch. And these programs are already suffering because they are tinkering with them to appease the “diversity” advocates. If we don’t fight back, they will eventually capitulate.

Do not trust these men.