Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on July 17, 2017

Some see Nechama Shaina Langer as quite the outlaw in the Hasidic world. But thats not how she sees herself.

The eldest daughter of Rabbi Yosef and Hinda Langer, co-directors of Chabad of San Francisco, has forged her own path from the Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch world she grew up in to one of her own making that is feminist, progressive, outspoken and thoughtful.

Now she has added to her unusual resume a plan to become a Hebrew priestess with the 2019 West Coast cohort of Kohenet, also known as the Hebrew Priestess Institute.

Kohenet, for me, is about the feminine being instrumental in bringing her voice, her commentary, her story and creating meaningful ritual to the wide table or Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Law, said Langer, 41, who lives in Berkeley. Its about exploring the questions the male rabbis have not asked, or even noticed.

Nechama is our first Kohenet student who grew up in a Hasidic context, said co-founder Taya Shere. She brings great creativity to her work, a passion for the sacred feminine and for embodiment, and a depth of knowledge of Jewish tradition.

According to Langer, speaking publicly about her choices is not intended to cause further tension between her and those she grew up with. Rather, she hopes to encourage other women in her ultra-Orthodox community who might be struggling to find their voices.

For many years, I didnt want to fight the system that I was raised in, she said. I went along with it since it seemed easier.

Speaking to her Hasidic sisters, she said, Its up to us women. Transforming the old patterns of patriarchy is not just for the women that are obviously suffering in trapped relationships or who are struggling for years to receive a get, she said, referring to the Jewish divorce certificate. This is also for the women who think everything is just fine.

Langers feminist leanings go back at least as far as her teenage years. When I was 16, some yeshiva [students] came through on their way from Nepal, where they put on a seder for Jewish backpackers. It sounded like the most exciting thing in the universe, she said.

I felt that I was not going to let my being a woman stop me from having that kind of adventure. But at the same time, I knew that two single Chabad women would never be sent to Nepal.

Formerly Hasidic Jews who have left the path and become secular are almost an industry several have written memoirs, others have been widely interviewed, and there are small communities of them in cities like New York and Montreal with large ultra-Orthodox populations.

Langer doesnt identify with this group; she remains close to her family, keeps kosher and is shomer Shabbat. But she has pushed back against many of her communitys traditions she did not start dating at 18, the age most of her observant peers went on the marriage circuit, and instead she married at 30, to a man of her own choosing whom she met in Israel.

Before that she traveled, working with Chabad in China, Australia and Hawaii. She attended a Chabad womens seminary in Israel, but also learned scribal arts (mostly the purview of men) at the Pardes Institute for Jewish Studies, an egalitarian yeshiva-style school in Jerusalem, and attended art school.

I wanted to be able to open a sacred book and study text, to understand it for myself, and not be dependent on someone to translate it for me, she said.

She supported herself for some time as a ketubah artist, creating the design and writing the text for marriage certificates Jewish couples typically display on their walls.

She has degrees in expressive arts therapy and drama therapy and received a certificate in holistic sex therapy. She works as a therapist and teaches a holistic psycho-spiritual approach to sex education at Oakland Hebrew Day School, an addendum to what already existed there; she hopes to bring the class to other Jewish day schools.

Langers formal sex education consisted of one hourlong class from her sixth-grade biology teacher in a Chabad-sanctioned school.

Given that a male rabbi can never experience what its like to give birth or have a menstrual cycle, how can he then make a decision over a womans body?

I designed this class in response to what was lacking in my education as well as what I see as a void in the Orthodox and greater world, where young people do not have a safe container to explore this stage of development, their changing bodies and the strong emotions that come with that, she said.

Langer worked with a nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood who developed the biology part of the curriculum, while Langer focused on the emotional. One of my objectives is simplygetting [students] comfortable with talking about sexuality and things that are uncomfortable to talk about, she said. Too often the first time sexuality is spoken about in school, the approach is based on fear, of sexually transmitted disease and prematurepregnancy. Its usually scientifically based and doesnt have a platform for students to explore their spiritual and cultural values or get the emotional support they need.

Langer is now separated from her husband of 10 years. Last year she received her get, which allows her to marry again; the couple is still going through a civil divorce. They have two children together, a boy and a girl.

While she and her ex-husband did their best to have an egalitarian marriage, she said, there were certain things proscribed by Jewish law and written in the ketubah that she couldnt accept but didnt know why until she encountered feminist theory.

Of course I knew all of this from a very deep place, but not from feminist writing, she said.

Problematic to her was the transactional structure of a Jewish wedding, in which the groom acquires, or symbolically purchases, the bride by giving her a ring.

Then there is the Jewish divorce procedure, in which a woman has to receive her get from the beit din (Jewish court) with her arms outstretched, hands cupped, and that is only after her husband has decided to grant her a divorce. If he does not agree, the woman cannot remarry within Jewish law.

Less formal aspects of Hasidic tradition were just as troubling to her. Langer points to the custom whereby some women dont trust themselves to determine when they can resume sexual intercourse after their menstrual periods, so they send their underwear to their rabbi for his inspection.

These are all examples of women not being part of the halachic conversation about their own lives and bodies, and having as many children as God gives them, she said. Given that a male rabbi can never experience what its like to give birth or have a menstrual cycle, how can he then make a decision over a womans body?

She has channeled her feelings about her divorce in an unusual way, through a creative reuse of her own ketubah.

The ketubah was created by the rabbinical authorities 1,000 years ago to protect women. But how is the ketubah today truly protecting women, men and the sanctity of committed relationship? she asks.

In reading The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Spiritual Leadership by Jill Hammer and Taya Shere, she came across the archetype of the weaver, which resonated for her.

The women weavers wove these curtains for the holy temple, she said. A quote from Enoch 45 [an ancient noncanonical Jewish text] hints that these women were documenting the past, present and future of our people, documenting our story by weaving part of it, by bringing color into the black and white.

Rather than destroy her ketubah, she turned the no-longer-valid document into a piece of wearable art, reimagining it as a priestly breastplate, which both protects and holds her heart. The parchment with its Hebrew script now has multicolored ribbons woven through it. She wore the garment this year to Urban Adamahs Purim celebration.

Its about transforming through the old patterns of patriarchy and weaving in the feminine voice, she said. Not discarding the old, yet weaving in a new story that hasnt yet been told.

Given that claf, or parchment made specifically for a Torah scroll or a document like a ketubah, is created with holy intention, she knew some would find her actions sacrilegious. She chooses to see it as transformative, turning the ketubah into a symbol of her own strength and empowerment.

There are so many problematic verses in Torah for me, she said. But theres something beyond the black letters, theres the white space in between.

When asked to define her Jewish practice now, Langer hesitates. She is still shomer Shabbat but understands the appeal of mixed-gender prayer spaces, and sometimes attends services at places that have them, in addition to worshipping at Berkeleys Orthodox Congregation Beth Israel. She believes that doing mitzvot, as the Lubavitcher rebbe taught, is the most important Jewish value.

What she worries about most is how her choices will reflect on her parents, with whom she is close.

Of course theres this feeling that I have to represent and protect them, she said. I definitely dont want to hurt them by having this dialogue. In some way they understand, and I feel theyve been as supportive as they can be.

Rabbi Langer responded that even though he doesnt always agree with his daughter, I respect her a lot, as a woman and as a Jew.

Every soul has its own journey, added Hinda Langer, who said she always nurtured her daughters artistic talent when she was young. She is very authentic and inspirational to many people. Wherever she goes, she is carrying the spirit of Torah. Its not a contradiction to the way she was raised, its a compliment to us.

Its Langers wish to inspire others, as her mother said. By speaking out, she is signifying that shes there for her sisters Hasidic and otherwise who might be struggling.

I dont want to sound like an angry feminist, she said. I used to get angry that commentators glossed over the problematic issues with women in the Torah. And then I realized that I dont need to be angry anymore. Its not their responsibility to do that. Its our responsibility, as women, to bring that voice.

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This student priestess is pushing the boundaries of Hasidic tradition - Jweekly.com

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Posted By simmons on July 17, 2017

In late June, 19 rabbis gathered in New York City for an urgent meeting. It wasnt secret, exactly, but it certainly wasnt public. The Jewish leadersall members of the Conservative movements Rabbinical Assembly, except for twowere there to decide what to do about intermarriage.

Since the 1970s, the Conservative movement has banned its rabbis from officiating or even attending wedding ceremonies between Jews and non-Jews. The denomination is more traditional than the Reform and Reconstructionist movements, which both allow their rabbis to decide the intermarriage question for themselves. But over time, Conservative Judaism has also been more willing to make concessions to modern life than Orthodoxy, leaving it distinctly vulnerable to challenges from within on one of its most sensitive policies.

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A small, vocal resistance to the Conservative movements stance on intermarriage has been building in recent years. Some rabbis left: Adina Lewittesonce an assistant dean at the Conservative movements flagship school, the Jewish Theological Seminarydecided she couldnt tolerate the lack of welcome for non-Jews anymore. Or they were kicked out: Seymour Rosenbloom, the recently retired rabbi of Philadelphias Congregation Adath Jeshurun, wrote an op-ed about marrying his stepdaughter and her non-Jewish husband last spring. Months later, the executive leaders of the Rabbinical Assembly expelled him unanimously after more than four decades in the organization.

This summer, the dissent has gotten much louder. In June, the rabbis at a large Manhattan synagogue, Bnai Jeshurun, announced they would begin officiating at intermarriage ceremonies. Although the congregation isnt technically associated with the Conservative movement, its longtime senior rabbi, Roly Matalon, is part of the Rabbinical Assembly. Another prominent rabbi, Amichai Lau-Lavie, released a 58-page study detailing why he had decided to start marrying interfaith couples at his artist-driven, everybody-friendly, God-optional, pop-up, experimental congregation, Lab/Shul. These are two very important institutions, said Rosenbloom. Theyre very avant garde. They are the models that many Conservative synagogues look to as a vision for the future. These rabbis decision to break with their denomination about intermarriage is going to give other people encouragement to follow their conscience, he added. It seems like were coming to a tipping point. Everyone is talking about this right now.

The question of whether Jews should be able to marry non-Jews has been a barely contained crisis for roughly as long as there have been Jews in America. The issue picks at the religions most sensitive scabs: Fears of assimilation mix with anxiety that Judaism is becoming irrelevant. The American traditions of self-determination and acceptance clash with Judaisms ancient legal code. And calls for fidelity to Jewish tradition can seem hollow in the face of a young couple hoping to stand together under the chuppah, or Jewish marriage canopy.

This time, the fight seems different. The rabbis have bigger names and flashier pulpits. Meanwhile, the chasm between liberal American Judaism and Orthodox Judaism in the U.S. and Israel is growing; wider affirmation of intermarriage would expand that chasm even further. Even the liberal edges of American Orthodoxy are feeling the pressures of this question.

Perhaps a few prominent rabbis will resign from the Rabbinical Assembly, and that will be it. Conservative Judaism, which is shrinking faster than any other American denomination, will forge ahead with the status quo. But the challenge of intermarriagewhich symbolizes so many of the tensions of American Judaismis not going away. The question has been called, and rabbis know it.

* * *

Intermarriage is already a common feature of American Jewish life. In 2013, the Pew Research Center found that 44 percent of married Jews in the U.S. have a non-Jewish spouse. That number is smaller within Conservative Judaism, which accounts for roughly one-fifth of American Jews: 27 percent of the denominations married members have a spouse who isnt Jewish. But the ranks of intermarried Jews have been rising steadily since the 1970s, and are only likely to grow. Pew found that 83 percent of married Jews with one Jewish parent have a spouse who is not Jewish.

The rise of intermarriage over the past few decades directly mirrors a decline in American Jews engagement with their religion. Of American Jews born between 1914 and 1927, Pew found, 93 percent identify as Jews by religion. Among people born after 1980 who have Jewish ancestry or upbringing, however, only 68 percent identify as Jews by religion. The rest identify as Jews of no religion, meaning they see Judaism only as a facet of heritage, ethnicity, or culture. Of all the American Jewish denominations, Conservative Judaism appears to be shrinking the fastest: As of 2013, only 11 percent of Jews under 30 identified as Conservative, compared to 24 percent of Jews over 65, according to Pew.

Millennials are by far the most Jewishly illiterate Jewish community that has ever existed.

While evidence suggests that intermarriage is linked to less Jewish engagement, people tell different stories about the causes. Theres a huge sociological elephant in the room, said Daniel Gordis, an American Conservative rabbi who helps run Shalem College, a liberal-arts college in Israel. Jewish identity is not clearly that sustainable in the absence of two parents who are Jewish.

Gordis holds a view that is common in Conservative and Orthodox circles: When a young Jew marries a non-Jew, it is often a sign that theyre not very committed to Judaism and wont be that engaged once theyre married. Most American Jewish Millennials have become integrated into the communities around themthey are the most financially successful, the people with the most political access, the most culturally integrated, Gordis said. But they are also by far the most Jewishly illiterate Jewish community that has ever existed.

Some rabbis hold the opposite fear, though: that refusing to oversee interfaith marriages and penalizing diverse families in ritual participation drives people away. The rabbinate has these internal discussions that are almost in a vacuum, Rosenbloom said. They dont want to hear what the laity has to say but the laity are voting by their unhappiness when we refuse to marry their children, and their children are voting by not coming back to our synagogues after weve rejected them.

As intermarried Jewish families have proliferated, Lewittes said, it has become more common for committed Jews to [fall] in love with people of other religious or cultural backgrounds. It might be more common for them to stick with Judaism, too: According to a 2017 study by researchers at Brandeis University, Millennials born to intermarried parents were much more likely to have been raised Jewish than the children of intermarriages in previous generations.

The general stance has been that if we dont do it, it wont happen Thats not true.

There was a time where it was very clear that if somebody chose to marry somebody who wasnt Jewish, they understood the consequence was to be pretty much marginalized, if not exiled, from their Jewish community, Lewittes said. Now, marrying someone who is not Jewish is not an expression of their diminishing desire to stay rooted in their Jewish lives and values, she added. Its something theyve experienced as being entirely consistent with who they understand themselves to be as Jews.

The rise of intermarried Jewish couples has prompted some rabbis, like Lewittes, to reimagine their roles as religious leaderswith job descriptions that arent primarily focused on the observance of Jewish law. My success as a rabbi will be measured to the extent that I can help people access their own authentic understanding as themselves as Jews, Lewittes said.

Those demographic changes were part of the reason why the rabbis at Bnai Jeshurun decided to start performing intermarriages. The general stance has been that if we dont do it, it wont happen, said Felicia Sol, one of the rabbis at the synagogue. What the statistics show, and the reality on the ground, is thats not true ... We could lose a generation, if not the future of Jewish life.

Ultimately, though, the debate over intermarriage is not just a question of how best to get Jewish bodies into sanctuaries. Its also about theology and law. While the Reform and Reconstructionist movements see intermarriage as theologically permissible, if discouraged, Orthodox and Conservative interpretations of Halacha, or Jewish law, see marriage between Jews and non-Jews as forbidden. Rabbis in those movements will typically only officiate if the non-Jewish spouse converts.

To bless an intermarried union is to in some way betray the very thing that Ive given my life to, which is to try to maintain the Jewish tradition, said David Wolpe, the senior rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. It may be beautiful, it may be loving, it may be worth celebrating on a human level. But on a Jewish level, its not fine, and it cant be made fine. Although rabbis would have to have a heart of granite not to feel sympathy toward young people who are in love and want to get married, I dont necessarily feel that someone elses need is my obligation, he said. Someone else may need a rabbi to bless that union, or may want a rabbi to bless that union. It doesnt mean that I have to do it.

Not figuring it out is not an option if we want to have a Jewish future in America.

While the Conservative movement strives to welcome mixed families into congregations, schools, and summer camps, it has to do so within the bounds of Jewish law, said Julie Schonfeld, the head of the Rabbinical Assembly. Judaism is fundamentally countercultural in that its all about boundaries. While Conservative rabbis oversee a great number of halachic, intensive conversions, she said, there are limits to what the movement will do. While emphasizing the openness of our communities to all who wish to come and worship with us, in regard to your question of whether the [Rabbinical Assembly] will consider permitting our members to perform intermarriages, the answer is no, she wrote in a follow-up email after our interview.

The notion of legal boundaries is more complicated in Conservative Judaism than it is in Orthodoxy. The movements rabbis have generally argued that Jewish law can be reinterpreted and adapted in response to the challenges of modern life. Over the years, this has included approving same-sex marriage, popularizing mixed-gender prayer services, and letting women lead worship services and read from the TorahJudaisms sacred scrollson Shabbat and other holidays.

Sometimes the concessions have been small, but their consequences have been big. For example: The movement started allowing Jews to drive on Shabbat in the 1950s in response to Americas suburban shift, a practice that is strictly forbidden in Orthodox Judaism. At this point in the history of the Conservative movement, to start making an argument on the basis of what Jewish law mandates feels to me a bit hollow, said Gordis. Thats not intellectually honest. The horse has left the barn. The train has left the station. For decades already, the Conservative movement has been issuing rulings that are not in keeping with Jewish law. So you cant use Jewish law as your last stand at this particular moment.

There are elements of the tradition that feel tribalistic, and this is one of them.

Some rabbis, like Matalon, dont see any conflict between performing intermarriages and following Jewish law. We have a view of Halacha that considers not just precedent and sources as the only way in which Halacha is decided, he said. It considers narratives and stories and life. Rosenbloom agreed: Halacha doesnt deal with a marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew, he argued. There certainly are statements within the tradition that seem to discourage marriage between Jews and non-Jews. On the other hand, theres ample evidencecertainly, biblicallythat the leaders of our people married people who werent Jewish.

But even though a growing number of Conservative rabbis appear to hold this view, many of them may feel stuck. Unlike Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism is largely centralized and controlled through the Rabbinical Assembly, which sets the movements policies on rabbinical conduct and interpretations of law. The organization also controls pulpit placements and benefits like health insurance and pension plans. So far, the rabbis who have openly challenged the Rabbinical Assembly have been the leaders of prominent, independent congregations, or else close to retirement like Rosenbloom. Even Lewittes, who set out into the intermarriage wilderness before the others, is going to start an interim position at Bnai Jeshurun in August. Several of the rabbis I spoke with observed that the Rabbinical Assembly exerts less control and influence over rabbis in the Conservative movement than it once did. But the prospect of getting kicked out may still be intimidating.

For some people, this is really a matter of their livelihood, so people are hesitating for very good reasons to say, Im in, said Lau-Lavie. Thats why he hasnt yet resigned from the Rabbinical Assembly: He wants to push a conversation. Its not to our best advantage to keep on delaying serious consideration of this, he said. But Im aware of the level of sadness and animosity Change aint simple.

Matalon agreed. If everyone is going to be asked to resign, or will volunteer their resignation, or will be expelled, its going to create unnecessary turmoil, he said. Theres no option but to figure it out. Not figuring it out is not an option if we want to have a Jewish future in America, and if we want to have a Conservative movement that remains relevant to the majority of American Jews.

* * *

The fight over intermarriage might seem like a rabbinical squabble confined to one small corner of American Judaism. But whats at stake is actually the future of Jewish identity and pluralism. This fight matters not just in the Conservative movement, but across denominations; not just in the U.S., but across global Jewry. Rabbis in America must reckon with the countrys tradition of openness and inclusivityalong with the ambient notion that faith and identity are chosen and easily multiple. And that means the tensions between liberal and traditional Judaism will only grow. What some people fearon both sides of the intermarriage debateis that Jews will no longer be one people, but rather two peoples recognized according to radically different standards.

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This is evident in the way the intermarriage debate has spread beyond the bounds of Conservative Judaism to the liberal edges of Orthodoxy. Avram Mlotek, a progressive Orthodox rabbi in New York City, wrote a Jewish Week article in June calling for traditional communities to rethink our resistance to intermarriagenot pushing for Orthodox rabbis to perform interfaith-marriage ceremonies, but proposing a warmer welcome for Jews who intermarry. He saw immediate pushback from the seminary where he was ordained, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, re-asserting the Orthodox position against intermarriage. Once you have clear boundaries, then what it shows is that the other stuff, within those boundaries, is open for discussion, said Asher Lopatin, the Orthodox rabbi who serves as president of the yeshiva, in an interview. It puts people at ease.

Mlotek holds a traditional interpretation of intermarriage: My understanding of Jewish law at this point prohibits my performance of weddings in a halachic way, he said. But he has struggled to reconcile this position with his efforts to reach Jews who are trying to find a home in Judaism. He describes his work with the Jewish organization Hillel as somewhere between Chabadthe influential ultra-Orthodox group known for its extensive hospitalityand Moishe House, a network of houses that host Jewish social events. I see intermarriage along a certain type of landscape of issues that traditional communities need to be engaging with, he said, including LGBT inclusion and the role of women. (Orthodox Judaism prohibits same-sex marriage or relationships and generally forbids women from leading services.) The most honest answer is that Im still figuring it out, he said. There are elements of the tradition that feel tribalistic, and this is one of them.

This is the tension of trying to maintain simultaneous commitments to the rigid laws of Judaism and inclusive, open American values. Some Orthodox communities solve this problem by remaining cordoned off from the rest of American society, but for Orthodox rabbis who are interested in engaging with the culture around them, the dissonance can be challenging.

Ultimately, were headed toward one of the greatest divisions in the history of the Jewish people.

What if its someone who is totally unaffiliated but identifies as Jewish and falls in love with a non-Jewish person, and neither are particularly religious, Mlotek said. The Jewish partner knows she has a Jewish parent or grandparent, and theyve been going to the rabbis house for Shabbat. When they decided to get married, Why not ask the rabbi? he said. For that couple, its even harder to answer from a morally sound or religiously honest place as to why I couldnt officiate for them. Ultimately, Mlotek said, he wont do it, and its really heart-breaking to say.

Mloteks solution is to do everything but the ceremony. Im going to be at that wedding, and Im going to dance with you and lift you up in that chair, and Ill help you prepare for that day as much as I can, he said. He will also connect couples with a colleague whose understanding of Jewish law can celebrate that in a more affirming way than mine might.

This kind of solutiona shift in tone and posture, if not policyis exactly where the Conservative movement ended up on intermarriage years ago. And the mental gymnastics of that positionperforming everything but the ceremony, telegraphing approval while formally disapprovingis exactly what led some rabbis to embrace intermarriage. If were trying to tell people that intermarriage is something we dont approve ofwell, many congregations, before the wedding, have a blessing for the couple, said Rosenbloom. After the couple is married, they say, Now that youre married, come and be part of our synagogue. Either were being hypocritical in inviting them to be part of the congregation, or were being obstructionist in saying we wont officiate.

People like Mlotek are rare in the Orthodox world. In most communities, the boundary around Jews marrying Jews is strictly enforcedeven more so, perhaps, because the American Jewish population is changing so radically. Whats going on in the Conservative movement has sensitized the Orthodox that we have to have a more serious conversation about welcoming intermarrieds, said Lopatin.

This is a big question lurking beneath the surface of the intermarriage debate: Jewish pluralism. Will liberal parts of the Jewish community accept that their traditional cousins maintain a policy they may find discriminatory and unwelcoming? Will the Orthodox affirm other movements decision to embrace multi-faith couples?

Schonfeld hopes so. It is extremely important for the Jewish community, especially in open American society, that there are different paths to take that are right for different people, she said. Other movements make their unique contributions. The Reform movement is also making a very positive and profound contribution, but its a different contribution.

But some rabbis feel another, equally powerful impulse: There is a continuing fear within Conservative Judaism, that has been there since the outset, of incurring the opprobrium of the Orthodox, said Rosenbloom. People like Rosenbloom might see the Conservative movements resistance to intermarriage as a form of running to the rightan attempt to prove their halachic bona fides and avoid feeling delegitimized. But the fear may also be about something deeper: the potential loss of continuity across Jewish communities.

Ultimately, were headed toward one of the greatest divisions in the history of the Jewish people, said Shmuly Yanklowitz, an Orthodox rabbi who leads a Jewish study center in Phoenix. He himself grew up in an interfaith household, and still has one non-Jewish parent. Weve weathered the storm of many different hits, but the divide between ultra-Orthodoxy and liberal, pluralistic American Judaism is maybe irreparable, he said. Not only irreparableit may actually mean that were no longer one people.

There is a midwifery happening in the American Jewish community.

Even synagogues like Bnai Jeshurun have to struggle with this question. According to Conservative and Orthodox traditions, Judaism is exclusively inherited through the mother, meaning that children with only a Jewish father arent Jewish according to their understanding of the law. Even though Bnai Jeshurun will hold intermarriage ceremonies, the rabbis still wont accept such children, often referred to as patrilineal Jews, as Jewish, and would require them to convert if they wished to be accepted as Jews according to Halacha. Sol and Matalon said they are maintaining this standard because they dont want to put children in the position of not being recognized as Jews by part of their community.

The question of Jewish pluralism becomes even more complicated in a global context. Increasingly, Israels ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders do not recognize the validity of liberal, American forms of Judaism, including some aspects of Conservative Judaism. In the last month alone, the Knesset, or parliament, has signaled plans to move ahead with a bill which would give the Orthodox rabbinate sole authority over conversions in Israel. The rabbinate helped quash a long-standing plan to create a gender-mixed worship space at the Western Wall, a sacred site in Jerusalem which is currently divided into mens and womens sections. And it recently released a list of rabbis who performed conversions that were later challenged, which included several dozen American rabbis and prominent Orthodox clergy. Outraged critics in America have referred to it as a blacklist.

While intermarriage is a challenge in Israel, the issue there centers on the emigration of Russian Jews, many of whom would not be considered Jewish by the Orthodox. Otherwise, Israeli society is largely split into two worlds: secular and religious. The gradations in betweenwhich cause all this angst and tension and debate in the U.S.are barely there. The inflexible standards of Israeli Judaism exacerbate the situation in the United States and contribute to the sense among some rabbis that traditional and liberal Judaism may be irreconcilable.

The Conservative movements debates over intermarriage are not just about which rabbis will or wont bless couples or dance the hora or welcome unconverted Jews into their communities. Its about who counts in the broader Jewish community, and how Jews choose to wrestle with ancient traditions in a post-modern world. As Sol put it, There is a midwifery happening in the American Jewish community. Its not clear that one, united Judaism will come out at the other end.

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Conservative Rabbis Fight Over Intermarriage - The Atlantic - The Atlantic

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Posted By simmons on July 16, 2017

CARPENTRAS, France (JTA) The synagogue in this Provence town is Europes oldest functioning Jewish house of worship and one of theprettiest on the continent.

The Synagogue of Carpentras, which this year is celebrating its 650th anniversary,has a Baroque-style interior and a gold-ornamented hall with a blue domed ceiling. The rabbis pulpit is, unusually, on a balcony that overlooks the pews and the Torah ark the work of thenon-Jews who built the synagogue in a Christian style in the16th century atop its earlier structure, which was first established in 1367.

Most impressive of all is that the synagogue is housed withina larger building that once functioned as an ancient Jewish community center of sorts. The space boasts spectacular facilities, including a 30-foot-deep ritual bath, or mikvah, fed by turquoise waters from a natural spring, another heated bath, a kosher abattoir and a bakery with large ovens that burned year round.

Yet the architects did their best to conceal the buildingssplendor. The small, wooden front door is buta drab opening in a simple facade that unlikeEuropes other majestic synagogues does not even hint at the bling inside.

The juxtapositionbetween the majestic interior and basic exterior is theresult of French Jewrys long-held desire to celebrate its greatness without attracting too much attention.

The Synagogue of Carpentras is, to French Jews today, a testament to that conflicted sentiment and tangible proof of their deep roots in a country where many of them nonetheless feel they are treated as outsiders.

At a time when on some streets in France people are shouting Jews, get out, France is not yours, the Synagogue of Carpentras and its 650th anniversary are proof of just how deep our roots run here, CarineBenarous, the communications officer of the Fleg Jewish Community Center in Marseille, 80 miles south of Carpentras, told JTA last week.

Benarous was referring to a slogan that shocked many in France in 2014, when the media reported its use at anti-Israel protests in several cities.

In May,the chief rabbi of France, Haim Korsia whom many French Jews treat with the kind of adoration typically reserved for rock stars traveled more than six hours from Paris tospend Shabbat with the Carpentras Jewish community of 125 members. Alongside a regional archbishop, an influential imam and other rabbis from across the Provence region, Korsia also attended a ceremony marking the 650th anniversary.

Here we acknowledge how deeply our history and our roots are anchored in the soil of France, he said, noting that a Jewish presence has been documented in Provence since the first century.

In his speech, Korsia recalled a different slogan one used several times by Frances former prime minister, Manuel Valls, following a wave of terrorist attacks on Jews. Valls had said that without Jews, France isnt France.

The Synagogue of Carpentras, Korsia said, is proof of that.

I still have goose bumps from his speech, said Franoise Richez, a Carpentras Jew who gives tours of the synagogue.

But Carpentras, she added, is also a testament to the long and, unfortunately, unfinished history of anti-Semitism.

Carpentras was one of only four locales in present-day France where Jews were allowed to stay even after the Great Expulsion of French Jewry, decreed by King Philip IV of France in 1306, according to Ram Ben-Shalom, a historian and lecturer at theHebrew University of Jerusalem specializing inthe Jewry of Provence.

Jews were allowed to live in closed, guarded and crowded ghettos, known as carrieres, in Carpentras, Avignon, Cavaillon and LIsle-sur-la-Sorgue because these locales in Provence were on lands owned by the pope, who took in Jews in exchange for payment. Additionally, he said, Jews were made to wear distinctive clothing, often a cape.

As for the synagogues serving the carrieres, they were designed by Christians because the Jews were only allowed to work as traders or moneylenders, according to Yoann Rogier, a guide at the Synagogue of Cavaillon, which was built in 1494 but now functions as a museum of the towns historic Jewish population, its door frames lacking a mezuzah.

As such, in both Carpentras and Cavaillon, congregants must turn their backs to the Torah ark if they want to face their rabbi, and vice versa. (In most synagogues, the rabbis pulpit sits on a bimah, or platform, situated in front of the ark or in the middle of the sanctuary.) To read from the Torah, the rabbis of both synagogues had to carry the Torah scroll up to their balcony. The Cavaillon synagogue still has a portable ark with wheels for this purpose.

Despite the imperfect circumstances, the Jews of Carpentras ingeniously turned their synagogue into a labyrinthine community center, making maximum use of the limited space allotted to them thanks to partitions, underground passages and interior courts that offered facilities for every aspect of Jewish life. The synagogue complex even had a special matzah bakery.

Gilberte Levy, another member of the Carpentras Jewish community, is among the many local Jews who can trace their lineagenearly to the year that the synagogue was established.

They call me the communitys Brontosaurus, she said, laughing.

To Richez, whose husband is descended from a Jewish family forced to convert to Christianity in Spain during the Inquisition, the Carpentrassynagogue shows that despite everything, we prevailed, she said.

Yet Carpentras also is symbolic of more recent struggles for French Jews.

In 1990, it saw one of the worst cases of anti-Semitic vandalism in France after the Holocaust: Neo-Nazis smashed dozens of tombstones in the ancient graveyard. The incidentpredated the current wave of anti-Semitic violence that is causingmany thousands of Jews to leave France and was particularly shocking.

Today, Carpentras is one of the few active synagogues in France without army protection. Unlike most French synagogues, visitors may enter without first undergoing a security inspection. While this is good for tourism, the important thing is that the tourism stops at 6 p.m. and this returns to being an active Jewish synagogue, said Richez, a mother of two. We dont want to end up with just a museum, like in Cavaillon.

There used to be more incidents, anti-Semitic shouts and such around the synagogue, Richez added, but matters improved after the municipality closed the synagogues street to vehicles.

All in all, she said, I think were pretty privileged here.

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Posted By richards on July 16, 2017

Oral Literature of the Sephardic Jews Samuel G. Armistead, University of California, Davis

The edict by which all Jews were exiled from Castile and Aragon was signed by the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabel, on March 31, 1492 (Baer 1961-1966: II, 433). But we should not think of this banishment, radical and catastrophic as it surely was, as an altogether sudden, definitive occurrence. It was, in a certain sense, a quite gradual, centuries-long process. Some Jews, when threatened by the alternative of exile, were to accept Christianity and some were to become sincere converts, but many other conversos who remained in Spain were to practice in secret their ancestral religion for centuries after 1492. For example, Inquisitional records tell us in detail of just how such Crypto-Jews continued to celebrate, in secret, Sukkoth (Tabernacles) and Pesach (Passover), in Madrid, even in the early 18th century, well over two centuries after the banishment of Jews from Spain (Alpert 1995; 1997). And a number of Crypto-Jewish communities have survived, even down to the present day, in Portugal, along the northeastern border with Spain.[1] There was also a secret Jewish community on the Island of Ibiza until the early 1940s and vestigial memories of the presence of Jews also persist elsewhere in Spain and in the Americas.[2] Over the centuries, many other Crypto-Jews in Spain and in Portugal, faced with oppressive conditions at home, opted to joined their exiled coreligionists in North Africa, the Balkans, the Near East, and later in Holland, where they could practice their ancestral religion openly and without danger of Inquisitional retribution.[3] This aspect of the Exile, as a gradual, ongoing process, was to have an important impact on the folk literature of the exiled communities. The close link between the Moroccan Jewish settlements and the Iberian Peninsula was never brokenfrom Tangier, after all, one can clearly see the coast of Southern Spainwhile, in Eastern communities, more distant and relatively more isolated, there were still numerous conversos who had opted for the welcome offered to Western Jews in the Ottoman domains and who settled in what is now Bosnia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Greece, and Turkey, bringing with them cultural perspectives and oral-literary texts of a more modern character than was reflected in the essentially medieval repertoire brought out of Spain in 1492.

Until recently, two different dialects of Judeo-Spanish were spoken in the Mediterranean region: Eastern Judeo-Spanish (in various distinctive regional variations) and Western or North African Judeo-Spanish (also known as akita), once spoken, with little regional distinction, in six towns in Northern Morocco and, because of later emigration, also in Ceuta and Melilla (Spanish enclaves in Morocco), Gibraltar (Great Britain), Casablanca (Morocco), and Oran (Algeria).[4] The Eastern dialect is typified by its greater conservatism, its retention of numerous Old Spanish features in phonology, morphology, and lexicon, and its numerous borrowings from Turkish and, to a lesser extent, also from Greek and South Slavic. Both dialects have (or had) numerous borrowings from Hebrew, especially in reference to religious matters, but the number of Hebraisms in everyday speech or writing is in no way comparable to that found in Yiddish.[5] The North African dialect was, until the early 20th century, also highly conservative; its abundant Colloquial Arabic loan words retained most of the Arabic phonemes as functional components of a new, enriched Hispano-Semitic phonological system. During the Spanish colonial occupation of Northern Morocco (1912-1956), akita was subjected to pervasive, massive influence from Modern Standard Spanish and most Moroccan Jews now speak a colloquial, Andalusian form of Spanish, with only an occasional use of the old language as a sign of in-group solidarity, somewhat as American Jews may now use an occasional Yiddishism in colloquial speech (Hassn 1969). Except for certain younger individuals, who continue to practice akita as a matter of cultural pride, this splendid dialectthe most Arabized of the Romance languageshas essentially ceased to exist. Eastern Judeo-Spanish has fared somewhat better, especially in Israel, where newspapers, radio broadcasts, and elementary school and university programs strive to keep the language alive. But the old regional variations (Bosnia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Greece, Turkey, for instance) are already either extinct or doomed to extinction (Sala 1970; Harris 1994). The best we can perhaps hope for is that a Judeo-Spanish koin, now evolving in Israelsimilar to that which developed among Sephardic immigrants to the United States early in the 20th centurymay somehow prevail and survive into the next generation.[6]

On their departure from late medieval Iberia, the Hispanic Jews took with them into exile a rich body of oral literature. Ongoing, if in some cases only sporadic, contacts with the homeland significantly modified and enriched this original medieval Spanish corpus. Even more important was the impact of the many linguistically diverse folkliterary traditions of the peoples among whom the Jews settled, particularly in the Balkans and in the Near East, but also in North Africa.[7] Hispanists, who were among the early pioneers in collecting Sephardic oral literature, tended to look on the tradition as an essentially static, richly evocative treasure trove of medieval survivals (Menndez Pidal 1973: 335-336). While there are, indeed, highly significant and invaluable instances of the survival of medieval text-types and other medieval features in both Judeo-Spanish traditions, to assume that any and all texts, simply because they were sung or told by Sephardic Jews, must, for that reason alone, be of medieval origin falsifies and diminishes this tradition, one of whose most characteristic features is, precisely, its rich synthesis of diverse cultural components, gathered from the many peoples encountered by the Spanish Jews during their multisecular pilgrimage in Mediterranean lands.

Sephardic oral literature includes the following generic types: narrative ballads (romansas), lyric songs (cantigas), cumulative songs, prayers and medicinal charms, riddles (endevinas), proverbs (refranes), and folktales (consejas).[8] Other traditionaland partially oralgenres were also cultivated in Judeo-Spanish. Two especially deserve mention here: complas (paraliturgical poetry: popular, sometimes traditionalized, religious or didactic songs) and plays, originally staged to commemorate important holidays (compare the Yiddish Purimspiel). But, though complas especially and, to a lesser extent, also the drama, both involve an oral component, these must be considered essentially written literature.[9]

Though there are, as we shall see, traces of ballads from as early as the mid-16th century, oral literature in Judeo-Spanish began to be collected only in the late 19th century.[10] Such early attempts were haphazard and sporadic. Systematic efforts began only in the early 1900s, with balladsthe supposed repository of an exclusively medieval traditionbeing given almost all the attention, to the grave neglect of other genres.[11] Some folktales were, however, very accurately transcribed and published for their value as linguistic documents. There are also a number of extensive early 20th-century proverb collections, usually edited without interpretive commentary. Only after World War II, faced with the full, horrendous significance of the Holocaust and the ongoing threat of Balkan and North African nationalism, did Sephardic and Western scholars come to realize that the entire folkliterary tradition would have to be collected during the next few decades if it were to be saved at all.[12] Only then did the systematiccollecting and evaluation of various forms of lyric poetry begin to come into its own, while the other forms, though collecting had already started, began to be studied seriously according to the norms of modern scholarship. But riddles have continued to be the black sheep of Judeo-Spanish folk literature and have been gravely neglected almost to the present day.

Judeo-Spanish romansas (Spanish romances) are narrative ballads characteristically embodying 16-syllable, usually monorhymed verses, divided into two octosyllabic hemistichs, with assonant rhyme in each second hemistich.[13] The eight-syllable assonant ballad verse ultimately derives from the anisosyllabic assonant verse of the medieval Spanish epic, and a certain number of Judeo-Spanish ballads, together with some ballads from other Hispanic regions, can be shown to be genetically derived, through direct oral tradition, from medieval Spanish heroic poetry.[14] The earliest evidence we have for the existence of ballads among the Hispano-Jewish exiles does not consist of full texts, but involves an extensive corpus of incipits (or, in some cases, of crucial internal verses), used as tune markers in 16th- and 17th-century Hebrew hymnals (piytm collections): A typical heading might read: Pizmn lean Arbolera tan gentil (A hymn to the tune of Arbolera etc.), thus giving us the earliest Judeo-Spanish documentation for The Husbands Return (in - assonance). In Morocco we have no full texts until the late 19th century, but 18th-century hymnals give us similar, though more limited data from an earlier time (Armistead and Silverman 1973; 1981). The earliest extensive text from the East comes to us in the form of a fragmentary Dutch translation of a ballad, sung as a mystical allegory, in Izmir (Turkey), in 1665, by the false Messiah, Shabbatai Zevi (Scholem 1975: 396-401; FLSJ, V, Chap. 14). By the early 18th century, we have a substantial corpus of handwritten ballads from the Sarajevo community and, towards the end of the century, also from the Island of Rhodes (Armistead, Silverman, and Hassn 1978b). Three early Hispano-Portuguese ballads were copiednostalgicallyby Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam in 1683 (Armistead and Silverman 1980a; 1980b).

The Sephardic ballads are very much a part of the Pan-Hispanic ballad tradition and they cannot be studied in isolation. The two Sephardic traditions (Eastern and North African) and the repertoires of other Hispanic language areasCastilian-speaking regions of Spain, the Canary Islands, and Spanish America; Galicia, Portugal, the Portuguese Atlantic islands and Brazil; and the Catalan-speaking areas of Spain, France, and Sardiniaare mutually complementary, from a philological perspective, offering crucial data for reconstructing the ballads early development and for studying the oral tradition as an ongoing dynamic process, involving constant recreation and a high degree of poetic creativity (Bnichou 1968b). The entire ballad tradition (the Romancero) is, then, very much a Pan-Hispanic phenomenon, but, at the same time, many Hispanic ballads also have recognizable, genetic relatives in other European linguistic communities (RPI: II, 624-644; Armistead 2000a). Like the other branches of the Pan-Hispanic Romancero, the Judeo-Spanish ballads include songs based on medieval Spanish and French epics; others concern events in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian history; still others recreate Biblical episodes, legends from Classical Antiquity, or details of medieval romans daventure; many ballads embody a variety of topical, novelesque plots: prisoners and captives, the husbands return, faithful or tragic love, the unfortunate wife, adultery, various amorous adventures, tricks and deceptions (CMP). Many ballads can be traced back to medieval Iberian origins, others were invented by the Sephardim in exile, still others can be shown to have reached the Jewish communities well after 1492, doubtless brought there by converso emigrants; a few Eastern romances are adaptations of Modern Greek ballads (tragodia), while others translate French chansons populaires, or Italian and Catalan narrative songs.[15] Though the two traditions (Eastern and North African) have remained very different, a few ballad-types have migrated from one tradition to the other (CMP: I2, S6, X6, X13). The Moroccan traditionlike the local Judeo-Spanish dialecthas been profoundly influenced by Modern Spanish traditional ballads brought in by 20th-century Spanish immigrantsparticularly Andalusiansto the Spanish zone of Northern Morocco.

Here is a Sephardic ballad of medieval originsung in both branches of the Judeo-Spanish tradition, as well as in Castilian-, Galician-, and Catalan-speaking areas of Spain, in northern Portugal, and in Mexico and Argentina (RPI S4). Apart from its delightful content, it eloquently illustrates the basic principle that each ballad has its own, sometimes highly distinctiveif not, as in this case, uniqueindividual history. The ballad of La bella en misa (The Beauty in Church) originated as the central episode of a Greek ballad, learned and transcribed by Catalans during their occupation of Greece (1311-1388), then taken back to Catalonia, whence it spread to Spain and Portugal, later to be taken back to its land of origin, when the Jewish exiles departed from Iberia in 1492 (Setton 1948; En torno: 50-60). This ballad also illustrates the very considerable presence of a Christian ambience and sometimes even specifically Christian details and motifs in the Sephardic balladsoriginally learned from an essentially Christian traditionconserved as an integral part of the ballad repertoire, despite almost 500 years of exile (En torno: 127-148; Armistead 2000b). Note, however, how here the originally Catholic priest has been transformed into an Orthodox papazico.

Tres damas van a la misa

Three ladies are going to mass

por hazer la orasin.

to say their prayers.

2 Entren medio va mi spoza,

With them goes my bride,

la que ms quera yo.

the one I love most of all.

Sayo yeva sovre sayo;

She wears many pleated skirts

un xiboy de altornasin.

and a waistcoat of fine cloth.

4 Su cavesa, una torona

Her head is round like a grapefruit;

sus caveyos briles son.

her hair is golden thread

Cuando los tom a peinare,

and when she combs it,

en eyos despunt el sol.

it glistens in the sun.

6 Las sus caras coreladas

Her red cheeks

mansanas dEscopia son.

are apples from Skopje;

Los dientes tan chiquiticos

her small teeth

dientes de marfil ya son.

are all like ivory.

8 Su boquita tan chequetica

In her tiny mouth

y que no le caven pen.

a rosebud would not fit;

La su seja enarkada

her arched eyebrows

rcol de tirar ya son.

are like taut bows.

10 Melda, melda, papazico,

The priest, reading his prayers,

de meldar ya se qued.

stopped in his reading.

Melda, melda, papazico,

Read on, little priest;

y que por ti no vengo yo.

Ive not come here for you.

12 Vine por el hijo del reyes,

I have come for the kings son,

que de amor va muerir yo.

for I am dying of love.[16]

Traditional lyric poetry among the Sephardim also has strong ties to the Iberian tradition.[17] Certain poetic forms, notably the Moroccan wedding songs, embody a vocabulary of parallelistic, synonymous rhyme words identicalin partto that found in early Castilian and Portuguese traditional lyric poetry. Thus, for chemise, beloved, to sleep, and wine, we find the synonymic alternates: camisa/delgada, amigo/amado, dormir/folgar, vino/claro, among many others (Alvar 1985). Though some ballads also have specific communal functionsas wedding songs, lullabies, songs of mourningthe functions of lyric poetry, its uses in specific utilitarian social contexts, are in general much more sharply defined. In many cases, this is liminal poetry, marking the thresholds of human life, the crucial moments of transition: birth songs, wedding songs, funeral dirges (Armistead 1993: 364-367). Many of these songs, either in their poetic form or in their specific genetic relationship to known early counterparts, have ancient Iberian origins. However, some collectors of Eastern Sephardic lyric poetry were astounded to encounter almost exact word-for-word correspondences between certain popular lyric songs, well known in Istanbul and in Salonika, and identical songs, sung even to identical tunes, by modern Spaniards. But these were not ancient, pre-Diasporic survivals. A number of Spanish popular songs reached the Sephardic East on phonograph records and were quickly learned by Jewish singers, who gradually came to consider them as a venerable and authentic part of their own Sephardic repertoire, even despite some very obvious religious and cultural conflicts: A la una nas yo, / a las dos me baftizaron ... (I was born at one oclock, at two I was baptized ...). This same, probably quite modern, song is known today all over the Spanish-speaking world and must be a late addition to the Sephardic repertoire. On the other hand, the Sephardims long residence in Eastern Mediterranean lands also enriched their repertoire of lyric songs, several of which turn out to be close translations of Greek distichs (En torno: 178-182; Armistead and Silverman 1983-1984: 43-44). As an example of an authentically traditional lyric song, the following endechasung at funerals and also during the nine days of the month of Ab (Thish b-b) to commemorate the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem, which is evoked in vv. 1-8. The rest of the poem involves a conversation between a mother and her deceased son or daughter:

aamim nombrados,

Famous wise men,

2 de honra y de fama,

of honor and of fame,

los yevan atados

are carried off bound

4 y arrastrados por la va.

and dragged along the streets.

Yoren, yoren, las seoras,

Weep, weep, you women,

6 las que tienen razn,

for well may you weep,

por la Caza Santa

for the Holy City

8 y el orbn de Sin!

and the destruction of Zion!

Si haba algn consuelo

If there were some comfort

10 y en ste mi corasn,

in this heart of mine,

yo vos rogo, la mi madre,

I beg you mother,

12 por las piadades,

for the sake of charity,

que escribis mi dulse nombre

to write my sweet name

14 y en vuestros lumbrales.

on the threshold of your home.

Y escrito lo tengo, escrito,

And I have inscribed it

16 y en la veluntade.

within my very soul.

Los das que fuere viva,

As long as I live,

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Posted By admin on July 16, 2017

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The Hasidic education reform group Yaffed, led by Naftuli Moster, says it will release a report later this summer on secular education in Hasidic schools.

In a statement yesterday, the organization expressed uncertainty about about that New York Citys Department of Educations own investigation, which will reportedly be released around the same time. Yaffed has been critical of the DOEs investigation, which was launched following a letter Yaffed sent to the department in 2015 complaining about a lack of secular education in Hasidic schools.

Yaffed hopes for nothing short of a comprehensive and truthful report that will lead to improvements in Hasidic education, and not one which seeks to cover up educational failings or to fabricate make-believe progress, Yaffed said in its statement.

Yaffed has questioned the rigor of DOEs investigation, claiming that the agency warned yeshivas before inspections and complaining of little cooperation with Yaffed.

Yaffed did not say what form its own report will take. Last year, the group threatened to bring a civil rights lawsuit in federal court over alleged lack of enforcement of secular education standards in Hasidic schools.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

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Posted By simmons on July 16, 2017

The Israeli chief rabbinate says that its list of foreign rabbis has been misconstrued, and that the list does not imply that those rabbis cannot be trusted to vouch for the Jewish identities of their followers.

Last Saturday, JTA reported on a list of some 160 rabbis whose efforts to confirm the Jewish identities of immigrants were rejected by Israels charedi-dominated chief rabbinate. In order to get married in Israel, immigrants must provide the rabbinate proof of their Jewish identity, often in the form of a letter from a rabbi in their home community.

Rabbis from 24 countries, including the United States and Canada, are on the list. In addition to Reform and Conservative rabbis, the list includes several Orthodox leaders. Itim, the Israeli organization that obtained the list, called it a blacklist.

On Tuesday, three days after the list was released, Moshe Dagan, the rabbinates director-general, said that the characterization of it as a blacklist is misleading. In a letter to the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America, Dagan wrote that the proof-of-Judaism letters were rejected for a range of reasons, and that the list questioned the documentation, not the individual rabbis. Dagan added that these rejections sometimes were temporary.

The list that was publicized is not a list of unrecognized/unauthorized rabbis, Dagan wrote in Hebrew. Rather, he continued, it is a list of rabbis whose letters about marriage were not recognized by the personal status and conversion division of the chief rabbinate of Israel for whatever reason.

Even though the list contained only the rabbis names and did not have any information about any documentation, Dagan wrote in bold type that it is the documents that were presented which are unrecognized, not the rabbis.

He added that I am pained by the anguish caused to the respected rabbis who appear on the list, and will do everything I can to minimize the damage as much as possible and to take care that errors of this kind will not be repeated.

Itims director, Rabbi Seth Farber, who received the list in an email correspondence with the chief rabbinate, called Dagans clarification doublespeak because the list was of rabbis names, not problems with documentation.

The letters were signed by rabbis, he said. If the problem was the documents, why did the rabbinate send me a list of rabbis names? If the problem was the documents, why didnt they just try to clear the documents instead of writing no, unacceptable.

The list contains the names of rabbis whose letters the rabbinate rejected during 2016. Of 66 U.S. rabbis included on the list, at least one-fifth are Orthodox, while almost all of the rest are Reform or Conservative. Among the Orthodox are Avi Weiss, the liberal Orthodox rabbi from Riverdale, and Yehoshua Fass, the executive director of Nefesh BNefesh, a group that encourages and facilitates American immigration to Israel.

Another of the rabbis on that list is Baruch Goodman, who directs the Chabad House at Rutgers University. The other rabbi from this region is Alberto (Baruch) Zeilicovich, who heads a Conservative shul in Fair Lawn, Temple Beth Sholom.

In a separate letter sent on Monday, Israeli Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Laus office apologized to Fass for his inclusion. In the letter to Fass, Laus senior aide reiterated that Lau did not know of the list before its publication, and that it does not imply rejection of the rabbis themselves.

[The lists] intention was not to invalidate rabbis, God forbid, but rather [to invalidate] letters that raised doubts and questions, wrote Rabbi Rafael Frank, the aide. The letter, also in Hebrew, said Lau very much appreciates Fass work.

The publication of the list comes on the heels of a clash between American Jewish leaders and the chief rabbinate over how to determine Jewish identity. In June, Israels Cabinet advanced a bill that would give the chief rabbinate authority over all official Jewish conversions within Israel. Following an outcry from Jewish leaders in America, the bill was shelved for six months.

The chief rabbinates distrust of some Orthodox rabbis outside Israel was evident last year, when it omitted several prominent Orthodox figures from a list of rabbis it trusts to confirm the authenticity of Jewish conversions. The rabbinate also has rejected the validity of conversions performed by prominent Orthodox rabbis in New York City and Chicago.

JTA Wire Service

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Posted By simmons on July 15, 2017

Throughout my years in Jewish outreach I have heard the phrase Dont judge Judaism by the Jews utilized numerous times in response to bad behavior exhibited by religious Jews. I have even employed the expression myself once in awhile. The problem? The words have always rung somewhat hollow in my ears. For as much as there lies some philosophical truth in this expression (after all, it is not necessarily the fault of a religious system when its adherents make sinful choices of their own free will), the dynamics of human cognition perceive it quite differently. Jews, and non-Jews for that matter, judge Judaism by the actions of Jews!

Maurice Glazer, a savvy, active 77 year-old man I met earlier this year, shared with me his story of adolescent Jewish disenchantment, a story that is unfortunately not uncommon, and a disillusionment that finds its roots, not surprisingly, in the actions of Jews, not Judaism.

Maurice, or Morey, as he is known to his friends, loved his Yiddishkeit as a young boy. He diligently studied his Jewish studies, even tutoring others as he got older, and imagined that rabbinic or cantorial school might be in his future. Like most other boys nearing bar mitzvah age, Morey began preparing his readings many months before his date with Jewish manhood, and had his Torah portion ready on the early side. Unfortunately, the familys synagogue informed the Glazers that there was a last minute hiccup with their reserved bar mitzvah date. A wealthy family had recently moved to town and they wanted Moreys bar mitzvah date for their twins, even offering the synagogue a hefty donation of many thousands of dollars for the privilege.

The family was asked if they would share the date and split the portion in three to accommodate all three youngsters. When it became evident that Morey wasnt open to giving up on the leining (Torah recitation) that he had already prepared, it was made clear to the family that the synagogue wasnt really asking. The shul needed the money and that was that. Morey ended up finding another synagogue for his bar mitzvah, but the message from his childhood synagogue rang clear to him Judaism wasnt about lofty ethical ideals, or rapturous prayer. It was, as Morey would emotionally share with me some fifty five years after the fact, all about the money.

The rest of Moreys life reads like many future Jewish American family assimilation narratives. He had three biological children, only one of whom received a bar/bat mitzvah, and none of whom married Jewish, and three stepchildren, only one of whom married Jewish. Morey sees the bar mitzvah debacle as the beginning of the end of his Jewish love affair, and the distant source of his childrens lack of investment in their familial religion. As Morey puts it, I tended not to be strong enough to force them back into the circle of Judaism.

These days, Morey involves himself with all sorts of Jewish philanthropic causes, regarding these good deeds as a way of making up for his past (he also asked that I use his real name for this article to warn others of the dangers of not educating ones children in their heritage at a younger age).

Morey, like most others, wouldnt or couldnt distinguish between Judaism and Jews. If Jewish representatives could put money over principle, then the system they represented wasnt worth his time or his commitment.

I have also found that the opposite is true. Whereas I had quietly hoped that most baalei teshuva (newly observant Jews) found themselves primarily aroused by the search for truth and a recognition of the Torahs G-dly nature (call it the search for empirical truth), the reality, as I would quickly discover, is that the positive experiences that they encounter with observant Jews and their Jewish practice are of central influence (call it experiential truth). Delicious cholent at a Shabbos table holding greater sway than lengthy late night conversations on the historicity of the Sinai revelation (Its worth noting that this is all the more understandable in light of recent discoveries in neuroscience that find the hugely significant part played by emotion in decision making).

I believe that it is for this reason that the Torah is so concerned with our public behavior. The sanctification of G-ds name, and I shall be sanctified amongst the Jewish people (Vayikra 22:32), certainly in contention for foremost positive commandment in the Torah, and the desecration of G-ds name, And you shall not profane my holy name (ibid), considered by Rabbi Akiva as a sin for which no repentance is available.

You see, even as we regard the Torah as the faithful transmission of the divine will from Sinai, and inasmuch as we consider ourselves on solid intellectual ground in this belief, it is not like an algebraic equation, mathematically impervious to all lines of questioning and skepticism. The Torah does require an element of faith, however small that may be.

And it is precisely because of this faith gap that the experiences we have with observant Jews makes all the difference in the world. A positive experience with a religious individual or community closes the faith gap and ignites that long dormant, yet ever-present spark of emuna (faith) found in every Jew, and a negative Jewish experience widens the gap and makes it all that much more difficult to find the way home.

The voice of the Almighty is described by the prophet Eliyahu not as a loud boom, but as a still small voice (Melachim 1 19:12). Its a voice that gets easily drowned out by the the many noises of life, all vying for our attention. Its a voice all that much more challenging to hear when youre not aware of its existence. Its a voice that many of our fellow Jews need help detecting. It behooves us to be the kind of people that lead the kinds of lives, both privately and publicly, that amplify G-ds voice, helping newcomers hear its sweet sound and make the leap of faith.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

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Don't Judge Judaism By The Jews The Forward - Forward

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Posted By simmons on July 15, 2017

Review: 'The Women's Balcony,' a film by Emil Ben-Shimon

3.5Overall Score

Using Orthodox Judaism as a jumping off point for a larger conversation about broader societal issues, Emil Ben-Shimons dramedy The Womens Balcony takes on a specific religious and cultural viewpoint to spin a politically loaded, deceptively secular yarn. On a passing scan, The Womens Balcony might seem to be about a battle between organized religious tradition and modern sexual equality, but the films gently unfolding narrative turns out to be a treatise against cults of personality in any and all forms. Its also highly entertaining, occasionally laugh out loud funny, and one of the most unassuming surprises of the summer.

The Mussayof synagogue in Jerusalem is preparing to celebrate the bar mitzvah of Osher, the young adult grandson of Ettie (Evelin Hagoel) and Zion (Igal Naor), two of the most well respected and liked members of their community. The joyous ceremony takes a turn for the worse when the balcony of the synagogue where the women sit separately from the men collapses, injuring several and leaving their rabbis wife in a coma. With the synagogue now in a dangerous state of disrepair and their rabbi suffering not only a great tragedy but also dealing with the onset of senility, the congregation is left wondering how they could rebuild.

The men of the synagogue think they have found a saviour in Rabbi David (Aviv Alush), a popular teacher at the congregations temporary prayer space in a local school. David agrees to help the people of Mussayof rebuild, but its almost immediately apparent to some members that the rabbi harbours extreme views on women. Blaming the balconys collapse on the immodesty of the synagogues female members, David starts by asking the men to make their women wear head scarves and then refuses to allocate any funds to the rebuilding of the womens balcony as a means of further punishing them. At first the women are skeptical and offended, but eventually, like their male counterparts, many find themselves swayed by the charismatic and fiery David. Ettie remains the only woman unconvinced thats Davids absolute and unwavering beliefs are hateful and backwards, and its up to her to turn the hearts and minds back towards a saner, less extremist viewpoint. Etties job convincing her fellow Jews to join her is easier said than done, especially when David makes great strides to exude absolute control over the synagogue.

Ben-Shimon directs The Womens Balcony with the quick pacing and stripped down staging of a great farce, and while some beats are more serious than hilarious, the intuitive and sharply worded screenplay from Shlomit Nehama provides plenty of dramatic and comedic material. Its a story that ebbs and flows: a life changing event brings about a rift between the women and the men, theres an initial showing of strength and support among the women, a rift develops between the women, and gradually everyone comes back together again. Its a straightforward story told from the perspective of perfectly matched adversaries, but Nehama and Shimon use the simplicity of their tale to give weight to larger issues just outside the pages of their text.

Its very easy to use a religion as a backdrop to talk about the nature of extremism because every religion that has ever graced humanity can count extremists among their ranks. The fact that The Womens Balcony is a relatively genteel and good natured story in no way dampens the insidious nature of the extremist villain at the films core. Alush makes sure that Rabbi David is eminently hateable while also using a great amount of charm and public speaking skill to showcase why people looking for religious guidance would want to follow him in the first place. Like most blowhards who cultivate a cult of personality around themselves and claim to be authorities in certain fields, Rabbi David is the type of person who talks a good game without ever rationalizing or attempting to explain his destructive talking points. His responses are straight out of the Donald Trump playbook, but he also seeks to rule with something arguably more insidious. David holds the fear of death and God over the heads of those he seeks to control, and if the people buying into his arguments are true believers then breaking the cycle of hate and mistrust that has been created becomes a cause worth rooting for, and Hagoels Ettie rises up as a genuine hero that comes from the same system of belief.

Theres something distinctly hopeful and timely that arises from The Womens Balcony beyond the storys overall themes of gender equality and the ineffectiveness of pious, aimless humans that are unwilling to think for themselves. Shimon and Nehama could have made an entertaining film with this same cast and similarly simple underlying premise, but the joy of watching The Womens Balcony comes from the larger questions brought up by the material.

If David is doing his job for the glory of God, then how much glory is too much? At what point does piety become self-serving, and how can a quest for admiration turn a noble profession into something hateful? How much power is too much power, and how careful should those wielding religious power tread around antiquated, outmoded beliefs? At what point is it the duty of a member of a religious or political group to stand up to the power structure of the organization they have fallen in line behind?

None of these questions are easily answerable, and not even a film as captivating as The Womens Balcony could possibly answer them all in a reasonable amount of time, but Sharons film is a sterling example of a work capable of raising such issues while still delivering a rousing piece of overall entertainment that audiences of any background will be able to immediately recognize and understand. It also does so without dumbing down the religious or societal aspects that make its story so unique. The characters also act with a uniform sense of realism despite their well rounded identities on paper. People dance around subjects based around politeness, a desire to maintain a sense of tradition and decorum, or sometimes out of a misplaced effort to not make things seem weird or awkward. The Womens Balcony is an unforced comedy that doesnt pull any ideological punches, and exactly the kind of nuanced crowd pleaser that audiences of all backgrounds have deserved for quite some time.

The Womens Balcony opens at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto on Friday, July 14, 2017.

Check out the trailer for The Womens Balcony:

Aviv AlushEmil Ben-ShimonEvelin HagoelShlomit NehamaThe Women's Balcony

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Review: 'The Women's Balcony,' a film by Emil Ben-Shimon - The Gate - The GATE

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Posted By admin on July 15, 2017

In the aftermath of the drowning of Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, leader of the Jewish Taliban cult Lev Tahor in Mexico, the ultra-Orthodox press in Israel has been rife with reports regarding the location of his funeral and burial, and speculation as to which member of the cult will succeed him as leader of the reclusive group of 40 families believed to be in a remote southern part of Mexico, weeks after fleeing Guatemala, where they had lived for three years.

One ultra-Orthodox website, Kikar HaShabbat, published a short but disturbing video account of life inside the cult recorded in stealth by a 14-year-old member, describing severe abuse at the hands of men in Lev Tahor.

The blurred video showed only the boys hat, chest and sidecurls as he gives his testimony from a bowed position in halting Yiddish. The website bleeped the names of the Lev Tahor members he named.

Ive lived in Lev Tahor for 12 and a half years and I want to tell you everything, the boy says. Ive been living in this hell that everyone claims is made up and untrue it is true. I want to tell you about the things that are happening in Lev Tahor.

I wrote down on a piece of paper all of the things I want to talk about, he continues. Bad things are happening here. First, I want to tell about XXXX. He is a bad teacher. He does bad things to children. He hits children, kicks them and does other bad things.

The boy continues to charge that another member of the group killed a baby and another man. He hits and kicks all of the children. He added that the men he named undressed me and beat me and kicked me many times. And did bad things to me many times. At first, I thought they were good Jews. But then I saw they were bad people.

Another ultra-Orthodox website, BHadrei Haredim, published an interview with a Philadelphia rabbi who said he was in touch with two Lev Tahor members in Mexico. He denied there wasabuse in the cult, saying only that they had a strict regime. The rabbi told the story of Helbrans death, saying that on Friday he was at a river and slipped, hit his head on a rock, was carried away by the current and lost consciousness, and that attempts by his followers to rescue him had been unsuccessful.

Feared Israeli intervention

The rabbi said Helbrans body was recovered by Mexican authorities and examined, but no autopsy was performed. Fearing that the Israeli government would intervene and bring Helbrans body back to Israel, the rabbi said, Lev Tahor members turned to the mayor of Guatemala City, where they had lived previously, asking him to request the release of the body from Mexico for burial in Guatemala. The rabbi said the entreaties had been successful and that Helbrans had been buried in Guatemala.

The group, the rabbi said, had only crossed the border to Mexico three weeks ago, after three years of living in multiple locations in Guatemala. They left, he said, because they feared apprehension by Israeli authorities. Families of Lev Tahor members have been pressuring the Israeli government for years to assist them in repatriating their relatives, claiming they are being drugged and abused, and that underage girls were regularly married off to older men. The group fled Canada three years ago, after authorities there investigated allegations that Lev Tahor was physically and sexually abusing children, and removed some of them from their homes.

A report in the Yeshiva World News said Helbrans would be succeeded as leader by Rabbi Meir Rosner, reportedly the head of Lev Tahors yeshiva.

In a 2014 story on the group in the Canadian press, a former Lev Tahor member charged that Rosner had taken his money, claiming that he wasnt capable of managing his own finances.

Another story, written the previous year, investigated the cults finances, and quoted Rosner vehemently denying that the millions of dollars flowing through the groups accounts went to line the pockets of its leadership while rank and file members lived in poverty. Two of Helbrans sons are with the group, while a third, Rabbi Natan Helbrans, remained in Canada with a breakaway faction. This week, an Israeli ultra-Orthodox website in Israel, Haredi 10, reported that Natan Helbrans followers were preparing to crown him as his fathers successor and invited members of the group in Mexico to abandon the leaders who were at his fathers side and come to Canada and accept his authority.

The younger Helbrans said he would rebuild the community on a more open, normal and successful model that would be less strict and open it to all those who seek God, indicating that while the group would remain strictly Orthodox he would do away with the Taliban-style, burka-like black robes worn by women that earned the group its nickname.

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Posted By simmons on July 15, 2017

July 14, 2017 by Gina Ravenscroft, Nigel Laing And Royston Ong, The Conversation Couples thinking about kids can be screened for genes that may cause disease in their offspring. Credit: Redd Angelo, Unsplash, CC BY-SA

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recently recommended obstetricians, gynaecologists and other related health care providers offer pre-pregnancy carrier screening for genetic diseases to all patients.

Pre-pregnancy carrier screening involves testing healthy adults for the presence of gene mutations that cause diseases that are not present in them, but if both parents have the same recessive gene, could eventuate in their children. This includes diseases such as cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophies.

Who are genetic carriers?

If both partners in a couple carry the same recessive disease, then the couple have a one in four chance of a child with that disease. Carrier couples may therefore have multiple affected children. Some recessive diseases are relatively mild but others are severe, including many that cause death at or shortly after birth.

Newton Morton, one of the founders of genetic epidemiology, estimated from population data as long ago as 1956 that each of us is a carrier of three to five lethal recessive mutations and this has been confirmed by more recent research. This means we are all carriers of something, but most of us are generally unaware of our carrier status unless we have an affected child.

Pre-pregnancy carrier screening

Historically, pre-pregnancy carrier screening programs have been tailored for specific population groups who are more likely to have a recessive disease. For example, the recessive brain condition Tay-Sachs disease, which is usually fatal in early childhood, has a high incidence in the Ashkenazi-Jewish community.

In 1969 it was discovered the loss of an enzyme (called hexosaminidase A) causes the disease. This led to the development of tests allowing carriers for Tay-Sachs disease to be identified. The first pre-pregnancy carrier screening programs in the Ashkenazi population followed in the 1970s. Since then the incidence of Tay-Sachs disease has reduced by more than 90%.

Other such targeted pre-pregnancy carrier screening programs exist in other parts of the world. For example in Mediterranean countries where there is a high rate of the recessive blood disease thalassaemia, pre-pregnancy carrier screening was offered and this also resulted in a reduction in the incidence of the disease.

Today, the country with the most comprehensive pre-pregnancy carrier screening program is Israel. It introduced a national program in 2003 and by 2015, the program was screening approximately 60,000 people annually for nearly 100 recessive conditions. The Israeli program is tailored to the different ethnic groups in the country, but also includes diseases common in all ethnic groups such as spinal muscular atrophy.

Diagnostic laboratories around the world are now using technology that can sequence multiple individuals for hundreds of disorders at once. This technology is used to diagnose many different types of genetic diseases and is more effective than standard diagnostic testing. It has also been investigated for carrier screening and can detect carriers of multiple recessive disorders.

Benefits

When pre-pregnancy carrier screening programs are introduced, they reduce death and disease associated with the screened diseases. They can save families from experiencing the tragedy of a child affected by a significant genetic disease. They also reduce the burden of recessive disease within the population as a whole.

Each recessive disease is rare but there are hundreds of recessive diseases and so collectively they have wide-ranging social and economic impacts. A study of 50 severe recessive diseases found their collective incidence to be greater than that of Down syndrome (one in 600 compared to one in 1,100).

So pre-pregnancy carrier screening programs that include many genetic diseases, as now recommended by the American College, would maximise knowledge of genetic risk for couples.

Limitations

When testing genes, some identified variations are definitely harmful while most are definitely harmless. But for some variations we can't be sure if they are harmful, and whether or not they will cause disease in any children.

And some mutations, called de novo mutations, arise spontaneously during the development of a child. These mutations cannot be detected by pre-pregnancy screening.

So while the risk of having an affected child is reduced by pre-pregnancy carrier screening, it is not eliminated.

There are no guarantees that pre-pregnancy screening will result in a healthy baby, but it will allow couples options to reduce the burden of disease associated with known disease-causing mutations.

Counselling is required before and after the test to explain the risks to couples.

There is little health risk from the test, no more than the risk associated with taking a blood sample. The cost may be prohibitive for many couples, though. While it depends on the number of genes screened, costs may be several hundred dollars per person.

Can and should we have testing in Australia?

A small number of targeted pre-pregnancy carrier screening programs have been in place in Australia for a number of years including for Ashkenazi populations, for individuals with a family history of various diseases, and in IVF clinics. In Victoria the Victorian Clinical Genetics Service offers private pre-pregnancy carrier screening.

Several Australian groups, such as the Australian Genomics Health Alliance, are researching ways to screen larger numbers of genes. It remains to be seen if Australian bodies will make similar recommendations to those in the US.

Explore further: ACOG recommends use of carrier screening before pregnancy

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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What is pre-pregnancy carrier screening and should potential parents consider it? - Medical Xpress

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