Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on April 11, 2022

At age 77 a stage of life when many retire Phil Pizzo is starting over. After a career in medicine, public service and academic administration littered with achievements and accolades, Pizzo is enrolling at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California (AJRCA) seminary and training to become a rabbi.

His course of action is even more stunning given that Pizzo was raised Roman Catholic. He converted to Judaism two years ago.

But those who know him say this move is exactly in keeping with who Pizzo is: a man who embodies the ideals of lifelong learning and reinventing oneself.

Some people want to just hang on forever. Not Phil, said Pam Hamamoto, a former fellow at Stanfords Distinguished Careers Institute (DCI), a program Pizzo founded and directed for the past 10 years that brings people who have had a successful career back to the classroom at Stanford. He isnt afraid to move on, even at his age and with the laurels he could rest on.

Pizzo, who currently serves as Founding Director of DCI, is stepping down at the end of this academic year.

To Pizzo, change and continued challenge are part of a recipe for a fulfilling and purposeful life. Looking back, I can see how the threads of my life came together to bring me here, Pizzo said. But I never would have thought it when I was young.

Lifelong learning, lifelong healing

From his childhood in the Bronx, NY as a son of immigrant parents, to his advancement of life-saving research on childhood cancers and AIDS, to his tenure leading Stanford Medical School, learning, questioning and caring for others have always been core to Pizzos identity.

As a kid, Pizzos local library was his haven. He read on subjects ranging from biology to history and taught himself a great deal about each.

A voracious appetite for reading remains foundational to Pizzos life. He wakes up at 4:30 a.m. and listens to an audiobook during his roughly 10-mile daily run. He estimates that he finishes at least one book each week, and hes hoping to get back into marathon training, so this number is likely to rise.

Even with the tens of thousands of books Pizzo has read, its his commitment to caring for others and fighting for a better life for patients especially children that has taught him the most.

One youngster (as he callsthem) whom he remembers is Teddy, one of the two first bubble boys. Pizzo treated Teddy early in his career.

He became Teddys doctor just after finishing his residency in pediatrics at Boston Childrens Hospital, where he became interested in infectious disease and pediatric oncology. Pizzo was called to the National Institutes of Health to care for Teddy, the son of the director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

At dramatically high risk of infection due to aplastic anemia, or bone marrow failure, Teddy was confined to a sterile protected environment the size of a modern bathroom. He stayed there for seven years, during which time Pizzo became his primary doctor and only trusted caretaker.

Teddys condition was too advanced for treatments available at the time to save his life. He died after seven years under Pizzos care.

The experience instilled in Pizzo the importance and urgency of medical research. It also brought him to the boundaries of my efforts to understand life, death and human suffering, Pizzo wrote in an application essay to the AJRCA rabbinical school.

Leading research and advocacy

Just a few years later, in 1982, still early in his career at the age of 38, Pizzo made good on his learnings. At the time, he was running the pediatrics program at the NCI. HIV/AIDS had become a major national concern, embroiled in a climate of extreme anxiety and fear.

Seeing the implications of a burgeoning deadly disease for children, Pizzo was adamant that the NCI devote meaningful resources to studying it.

It was an uphill battle, Pizzo remembers. Nurses didnt want to be part of it, my colleagues didnt want to be part of it. Everyone was scared.

But Pizzo insisted. I had to go and do battle with the FDA, with drug companies everybody, he recounts. It was a slow, tortured process.

Pizzo ended up steering the institute to take on pediatric HIV cases and eventually developed new retrovirals to treat the disease.

His absolute devotion to treating HIV in children and finding answers was incredible to witness, David Poplak, a medical fellow at the NCI during Pizzos tenure, and one of his oldest friends, told Stanford Medicine magazine. His leadership and commitment to the cause made a profound impact in the field.

Neurodevelopmental problems were a hallmark of the disease in children, which exhibited very differently from HIV in adults. Children who were talking would either stop advancing in their communication skills or see them rapidly decline. Mothers were witnessing their children who had learned to talk suddenly go mute.

Under Pizzos guidance, the NCI was able to develop drug delivery techniques that reversed this process.

An exemplary moment of Pizzos career happened in 1987 when he was chief of the Pediatric Oncology Branch at the NCI. President Ronald Reagan was scheduled to visit the facility ahead of announcing his special Commission on HIV. As chief, it was Pizzos job to show Reagan the importance of research funding and, daringly, to get a picture of the President embracing a child with AIDS in the ward.

When the moment arrived for Reagan to hold the child, he did nothing.

Resolved to deliver on the vital agenda of the Institute, Pizzo picked up the child, who was named Michael.

I literally plunged this youngster into the Presidents arms, he recounted. The press snapped a photo and it appeared in The New York Times the following day.

The photo belied the Presidents comfortability with the issue, but it changed the narrative around AIDS in America.

I think it did more to destigmatize the disease than any other photo, Poplak said. The shot humanized HIV with a stamp of cultural approval from the top.

If you really care about something, you need to stand up for it and take the risk, Pizzo said.

Fundamental to Pizzos philosophy about risk and reward, though, is the absolute disavowal of seeking credit or recognition for any of his work.

Ive never sought recognition or a position or title. Its about the cause, not the credit, Pizzo said.

Remarkable is how entirely Pizzo lives this ideal. Hes such a role model, says Mike Takagawa, a current DCI fellow. He so perfectly exemplifies humility, integrity and strong leadership.

After his career in medicine and research, Pizzo became the Dean of Stanford Medical School, serving in this role for 12 years.

Redefining longevity and purpose

Even with all his medical and leadership accomplishments, its the way Pizzo embodies a new way of thinking about longevity that those who know him say makes him truly inspirational.

Pizzo founded the DCI after contemplating his own transition out of his deanship at Stanford Medical School.

I had seen early in my career the need for all of us to proactively transition before someone says its time to go, Pizzo said.

He had an epiphany: what he had been planning applied more widely than to just his own path.

As lifespan has meaningfully increased over the past century, people at many moments in their mid- and late-career need opportunities to rethink and renew their purpose.

This was a point to think transformatively about how individuals could change the arc of their own personal life course, Pizzo said.

DCI was founded as a place for people to pause, take stock, reflect and re-engage in learning, with the goal of revitalizing their sense of purpose. Fellows have no requirements and can take courses freely across all the schools of the University.

The Institute, housed in Stanfords Center for Longevity, also seeks to help educational institutions rethink the traditional mantra that universities are for educating young people.

Most broadly, DCI is about added impact for society.

How can this growing demographic of people over 65 become an asset to society instead of a cost? says Katherine Connor, Executive Director of DCI and 2018 program alumna. With a wealth of knowledge, skills and experience, this demographic is vastly underutilized.

So far, the program has been a success. Whats not to love? Connor said. Its an amazing chance to step back and reflect, reframe and think very intentionally about what you want to do with your next 25 to 30 years, and how you can make a difference in some way.

Other universities are also picking up on Pizzos example. Notre Dame, UT Austin, the University of Minnesota, the University of Chicago and Oxford all count themselves among a growing group of universities establishing similar programs.

Turning to Judaism

And now Pizzo is walking the walk starting rabbinic school this coming September.

Pizzo discovered Judaism through his wife, Peggy. As a spiritual woman, she has explored multiple religions including Catholicism, Buddhism and Quakerism. Peggy became involved with a local synagogue, Beth Am, because the community was supportive of early childhood development, an area where Peggy devoted her career. She had no intention of becoming involved in the religion.

Pizzo started to come along, accompanying his wife to weekly Friday night services.

It just felt right, Pizzo said. From the very first time, it felt like this is where I belonged but didnt know it before.

I used my usual method, Pizzo explained; by this, he means he read hundreds of books fiction and nonfiction to learn everything he could about the Jewish religion and the history and philosophy of the Jewish people.

Phil and Peggy converted to Judaism together in 2019.

Seeking the usual level of depth and understanding he has his whole life, Pizzo became interested in becoming a Rabbi nearly concurrently with his interest in converting. He saw how much the desire made sense given his interest in philosophy and theology and his lifelong passion for being a healer, guide and advisor.

I thought to myself, If I could start over again, what would I do? Pizzo recounted. And then I thought, Well, can I do it?

He sees rabbinic study as an opportunity to learn a discipline new to him but deeply connected to values and interests he has held his whole life. He especially hopes to develop a greater understanding of the connection between physical and spiritual healing.

Pizzo envisions a new chapter of his life as a teacher and scholar, in addition to being a pastoral counselor and healer. He plans to develop learning opportunities for students to explore the intersections between science and religion and to write and publish about these topics for academic and public audiences.

Ive been lucky in my life to never have had a job, Pizzo said. Ive always had a calling.

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From Stanford to the rabbinate: Phil Pizzo moving on - The Stanford Daily

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Posted By admin on April 11, 2022

Jewish people often wish each other on a birthday may you live till 120. One hundred and twenty is indeed a full circle of life. After the flood, God said that the life of a man would be 120 years. This week we mark the 120th birthday of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of righteous memory.

The Rebbe was a revolutionary in the world. Not only did he turn Judaism outward, sending thousands of Chabad emissaries around the world to bring Judaism and Jewish observance to every Jew, but he introduced the world to concepts and ideas that psychologists and therapists are only awakening to today.

One of the core concepts that the Rebbe imbued in his followers and to those who sought his counsel, Jews and non-Jews alike, was the idea of not only maintaining a positive outlook but acting with positivity. This has been coined as a positivity bias. The bias was so ingrained in the Rebbe that the Rebbe did not even use the word bad unless absolutely necessary. Bad was often coined as not good. The positivity that the Rebbe exuded reached far beyond what could seem to be mere semantics.

The Rebbe demanded positivity in action. The Rebbes famous calling of adding in deeds of goodness and kindness to prepare the world for the messianic era echo to this day around the world. The Rebbe was profound in his view that the benefit of goodness and kindness is not only for the recipient but even more so for the giver.

In 1969, Shirley Chisholm was serving as the first Black woman ever elected to Congress. She hailed from the same neighborhood as the Rebbe, Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York.

Chisholm fostered hopes and dreams of being appointed to the House Education and Labor Committee. It was where she felt that she would have the most influence and benefit to her constituents.

Powerful politicians sought to blunt Chisholms effect and instead placed her on the Agricultural Committee. The purpose of this was to render Chisholm meaningless to the many big metro inner city people that she served.

Chisholm was frustrated and even angered by this. Chisholm sought the counsel of a member of her neighborhood, the Rebbe.

The Rebbe urged Chisholm to view her situation with positivity. Chisholm related how the Rebbe instructed her to note how much surplus food goes to waste in America, while children in the inner cities and elsewhere starved. The Rebbe urged Chisholm to use her position on the Agricultural Committee to do something about this problem, which seemed to have an obvious solution.

Inspired by the positive outlook of the Rebbe, Chisholm went back to Washington where she met with a first time senator from Kansas named Bob Dole. Dole bemoaned the plight of midwestern farmers who had surplus produce that was going to waste and hurting the farmers bottom line.

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Sen. Dole and Rep. Chisholm led the way in ensuring that those most in need would have access to sustenance and avoid starvation playing a critical role in the creation of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).

When Chisholm retired from Congress in 1983, she credited the Rebbe: A rabbi who is an optimist taught me that what you may think is a challenge is a gift from God. And if poor babies have milk, and poor children have food, its because this rabbi in Crown Heights had vision.

As he counseled Chisholm, the Rebbe counseled every one through his teachings that a positive outlook is of paramount importance. The Rebbe stressed that a persons existence in this world is indicative of the fact that God is certain that the world cannot exist without them. And if God insists that the world cannot exist without you, then by the grace of God, the Rebbe encouraged all of us to make this world a better and more positive place.

Rabbi Levi Hodakov directs Chabad of Clearwater with his wife, Miriam.

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Seeing life through the optimistic lenses of the Rebbe | Column - Tampa Bay Times

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Posted By admin on April 11, 2022

This is the fifth part of my multi-part story of how, as a non-believer, I spent years in my teens and twenties looking at all the evidence for and against Christianity as fairly as I could, eventually concluding it wasnt true. The introduction is here, and Ill link all the parts back there as I write them.

At this point in the story, I was still in sixth form (the last two years of school).

The Messiah

One thing that did strike me as notable about Christianity was that it hadnt, in general, convinced the Jews. Specifically, the Jewish people had rejected the claim that Jesus was the Messiah. Which struck me as an important point; I knew that Judaism regarded the Messiah as vitally important and believing Jews were really looking forward to him turning up, so it sounded as though theyd have been thrilled had they actually thought hed done so. Which meant that they must have had good reason to believe that Jesus wasnt the one they were waiting for. I concluded it would be worth finding out what that reason was.

Of course, the traditional Christian explanation of this was that the Jews had failed to recognise their Messiah when they saw him as he didnt fit their incorrect expectations of what the Messiah would be. Yup; Christianitys explanation for this awkward point was that the Jews were wrong about a key part of their own religion. This was still more than two decades before the coining of words like mansplaining and whitesplaining, so I did not think of this as Gentilesplaining when mentally shaking my head at it; but I got the concept even if I didnt have a term for it. So, no, I wanted to hear what Judaism had to say about the Messiah and why they thought Jesus didnt fit the bill.

Since this was also several years before the Internet, this was not particularly easy. I spent a lot more time looking through the religious sections of all available libraries, and eventually found a book with the information I needed. Im afraid I cant at this stage remember either what the book was or precisely what information on the subject I got from that book as opposed to what Ive learned from numerous sources since, so some of this I might not have picked up until later; therefore, on this key point Im going to have to be a bit vague. However, the gist is that messiah (which is an Anglicised version of mashiach, the Hebrew word for anointed) is on one level a term that Judaism used for any king or priest, but that the Messiah was a title used for a particular king and descendant of King David, who was supposed to rule over Israel in a time when Israels enemies had been miraculously and permanently defeated and Israel herself was living in a time of peace and plenty.

That seemed pretty conclusive. Since Jesus clearly didnt fit the definition of the Messiah, it seemed entirely logical that the Jews had concluded that he was not, in fact, the Messiah. Sadly, I dont think I thought of the Monty Python quote at that point, so that was a good cue missed; but the message was still clear enough.

So where did this leave me?

Thinking about it now, Im really not sure why this wasnt the end of the argument for me. Christianity claimed that Jesus was the Messiah. He clearly wasnt the Messiah. Thats a pretty basic point on which to be wrong. I genuinely cant remember how I excused this to myself; I guess I was so determined to give Christianity a fair hearing that I gave them a free pass on this blatant inaccuracy.

Next up: More of the same sort of thing, but this time during my medical school years.

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My nonconversion story. Part 5: He's not the Messiah - Freethought Blogs

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Posted By admin on April 11, 2022

EDISON, N.J. Local weeb Mitchell Cohen has recently begun expressing excitement at the prospect of Judaism becoming a big part of his life thanks wholly to the fact that you read the Torah right to left like a manga series.

Ive never considered religion before, said Cohen, but once I saw someone in a movie reading the Torah from right to left, I thought, well damn this would be just like reading What Did You Eat Yesterday? or Assassination Classroom. I doubt the Jewish holy book has many squid monsters or vampire hunters, but Im pretty sure the Torah has a death note in it. Pretty excited to find out though.

Cohens local rabbi, David Biron, expressed confusion at Cohens sudden interest, but welcomed the boy to temple with open arms.

Mitchell is an excitable young man and he talks a lot about Japan, whether it be the food, the music, or the language, said Rabbi Biron when reached for comment. There are some elements of this obsession I find objectionable, however. I mean, I started watching One Piece on Toonami but then I learned there were over a thousand episodes. Are they out of their minds? Who has the time to catch up on that? I hope Mitchell continues with his Hebrew study and less with his Japanese study.

Andrew and Dierdre Cohen voiced concern at their sons choices and interests.

You see this kinda stuff online, said Andrew from their New Jersey home. Kids getting mocked and ostracized for what they like. Weve constantly worried about Mitchell and how he would turn out so you can imagine our embarrassment and worry when he turns around and starts saying hes a fan of organized religion.

It was much easier when he was young and wanted to watch Akira all day, added Diedre. Cause that movie is dope as hell.

Cohen hopes that his newfound interest in Judaism will not get in the way of his Japanese language studies or his daily 2 hour walks to catch neighborhood Pokmon.

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Jewish Weeb Excited to Learn You Read the Torah Right to Left Just Like Manga - Hard Drive

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Posted By admin on April 11, 2022

The story of American Reform Judaism can be reviewed simply by walking up one side and down the other of the central hallway at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religions main classroom building in Cincinnati. On those walls hang the pictures of every graduating class since 1883 (including mine in 2006) and every faculty member who taught us. Looking at those more than 130 class pictures, you can see when the movement was in a state of expansion or contraction, how attitudes have shifted about wearing ritual items like kippot and tallitot, which social norms have changed, and how the role of women has evolved. Our challenges, triumphs, disappointments, and struggles are all right there on display.

That hallwaylined with the classrooms where generations of our leaders have learned about Torah and humanityis located, perhaps counterintuitively but surely luckily, in Cincinnati, right where the founders of the movement breathed life into it and where generations of dedicated men and women kept it alive.

Now, a small group of people seeks to shutter the birthplace not just of the seminary they claim to serve, but of the movement whose future has been entrusted to them. If the board of HUC-JIR allows it, we will trade yesterday for tomorrow and wind up with neither.

HUC-JIR (the College) consists of a Rabbinical School, a School of Sacred Music that trains cantors, a School of Education, a School of Jewish Non-Profit Management, a School of Graduate Studies, a D. Min. program in Pastoral Care, museums, libraries, other resources for the study of Judaism including the American Jewish Archives. But in a few days, the Board of Governors of the College will meet to consider a strategic plan that will, in the kind of euphemistic language one might expect from politicians or used car salesmen, restructure the Rabbinical School. In other words, after nearly a century and a half, theyll stop training rabbis in Cincinnati.

The College was founded by Isaac Mayer Wise, the Cincinnati rabbi whose vision is considered to have founded the American Reform movement and who was vital in creating its institutions, in Cincinnati in 1875. At the time, Cincinnati was one of the countrys largest and most significant cities. The College opened a New York campus by merging with the Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR) in 1950. JIR had been established by Stephen S. Wise in 1922 over disagreements in the Reform movement about Zionism and the freedom of clergy to speak their minds from the pulpit. The College further opened a Los Angeles campus in 1954 and the Dodgers followed them there four years laterat least, thats how I learned it.

In 1963, the College opened a campus just inside the Green Line in divided Jerusalem. For a movement that had, at first, been officially anti-Zionist, it sent an unmistakable message that, the State of Israel having been born, American Reform Jews would participate in her survival and growth as a center for Jewish life. Sixty years ago, it seems, the leaders of the College understood that choices about campus location send messages.

Throughout this period of expansion, the Collegelike the American Jewish communitythrived. It was ably led by world-renowned archaeologist Rabbi Nelson Glueck and boasted a faculty roster that included titans of American Jewish scholarship. It educated a student body that would go on to distinguish itself in service to the American Jewish community. It created and grew an extraordinary collection of Jewish literature and Judaica, housed today at the Klau Library in, you guessed it, Cincinnati. It expanded outward from southwest Ohio because its product was unquestionably excellent. And it had no greater benefactor than the Jewish community of Cincinnati (Gluecks hometown, as a matter of fact), which relied on its institutional heft and supported itand supports it stillwith reverence and generosity.

But, today, the College has undeniably fallen on hard times. According to its own publications, HUC has identified what it believes are the major problems: Enrollment at the College has steadily declined in the last 15 years; the College runs a large and growing budget deficit; other schools calling themselves seminaries have been founded in recent years and congregations seem willing to hire their graduates; and Jewish movement particularism and Jewish religious identity have both waned dramatically.

Opinions differ as to the causes of these problems and/or their solutions, but there is general agreement that these are, in fact, problems. (They are not, however, the biggest problems. Well get to those later.)

And so, the leadership of the College has proposed to the Board of Governors to close the residential rabbinical program in Cincinnati, turn that campus into some kind of glorified retreat center, and develop a low-residency clergy program there. This is the relevant passage from the strategic plan:

It is, to be kind, debatable whether or not the College has been attracting high-caliber students or educating outstanding rabbis. But again, more on that later.

To bolster this contention, the College supplied us with a lot of disheartening information, none of which points to shutting down the Rabbinical School in Cincinnati as an obvious or even plausibly efficacious solution. The year I was ordained, 2006, there were 214 rabbinical students across the three American campuses of HUC-JIR. Last year, that number was 134. Next year, it will be 108. This is part of a larger decline at all non-Orthodox seminaries but seems to have hit the College the hardest. Those 108 students are disproportionately sent to the coastal campuses: 44 in New York, 44 in Los Angeles, and only 20 in Cincinnati. It is worth pointing out that the distribution has changed greatly since I was at the College, when students were assigned to a city and simply expected (with some appeals and grumbling) to matriculate to the assigned campus.

The strategic plan includes an extensive defense of consolidating rabbinical education to fewer campuses. None of those arguments, however, addresses why it should be Cincinnati that gets the ax. For that, you have to go to the Location Recommendation Memo.

You can read the memo for yourself, but its very difficult to do so without concluding that the primary finding is this: We have to get smaller and we dont want to leave New York and Los Angeles because theyre New York and Los Angeles and Cincinnati is, well, barely separated from Kentucky by a river. And a brown river at that. Bless their hearts, the College tries to make it about partnerships and Jewish vibrancy but, really, its about Cincinnati being in the Midwest, literally on the Mason-Dixon Line, and the 36th-largest Designated Market Area in the countryjust behind Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina. Would you want to go to Jew school in Greenville-Spartanburg? Of course not.

The documents prepared by the College to justify its decision are full of gaslighting and manipulation, which generally means the author intends to obscure rather than clarify. At one point, the College laments that, yes, the American Jewish Archives will be harmed by the decision, but fewer than 17 percent of all researchers at the AJA have a connection to HUC-JIR and the actual number of faculty and students in Cincinnati who use the AJA for research is much smaller. See? The students dont even use the AJA! Perhaps thats true (its notI used the archives). But imagine that all 108 students at the Colleges three campuses and all 28 faculty members were consolidated to Cincinnati instead of the coasts. Would the percentage of AJA users who are HUC-JIR students and faculty go up or down? Want more students and faculty to use the world-class resources at the AJA that youre never going to be able to afford to move? Heres an idea: Stop sending them to New York.

Another reason for scaling back the Colleges geographical reach is financial. Here, the College engages in magical thinking and fantasy about fundraising. The decision is not, they insist, a financial one. They will still have to maintain the property in Cincinnati. There will be little cost savings. But theyll be able to raise more money. Whats stopping them from raising that money now is unclear. But its true that the College doesnt raise enough money. Based on HUCs own figures, $18 million in restricted funds may be at risk if the proposal is approved and another $11 million for the Klau and AJA. Many donors are driven by regional considerationsthe Cincinnati campus is an enormous part of non-Orthodox Midwestern and Southern Jewryand consider the closure of the rabbinical program to be violative of their donor intent. And there is a sneaking suspicion among many, myself included, that this plan is merely the first step in closing down or selling off the Cincinnati campus altogether. The proposed plans for the campus are completely unserious.

At this point, you may be saying to yourself, OK, but New York is New York and Los Angeles is Los Angeles and Cincinnati is basically one Chiefs game away from being Kansas City and has fewer Jews than Hartford. Fair enough. And if one could only learn Torah by dancing Friday night away on the Upper West Side or getting a steak at Shilohs, youd have a point.

Now, rabbinical students definitely need formative experiences and exposure to a breadth of Jewish life and practice that isnt native to Cincinnati. Thats why we spend our first year in Jerusalem. After that, what a rabbinical student really needs is the time and space and resources to learn deeply. They need to immerse themselves in text and philosophy and debate with other students and faculty, which can be donein fact, has been done for nearly a century and a halfin Cincinnati.

This brings us to the big problems HUC-JIR faces. Chief among them: The product sucks. This is not to demean the quality or scholarship of the current faculty. Far from it! Thank God many of my beloved teachers are still trying valiantly to raise up rabbis. I merely point out that the institutions of the movement have swung radically from concerning themselves with creating a thriving American Judaism to concerning themselves with radical leftist politics masquerading as Judaism. The College now churns out a growing cadre of activists and a shrinking number of knowledgeable Jewish scholars. In fact, the Collegeagain, not the facultydoesnt seem particularly interested in producing scholars. HUC-JIR now sees itself as a professional school in competition with a handful of other coastal professional schools for the same group of candidates, typified by bland, conformist slacktivists without an original thought in their heads.

This is the new Reform orthodoxy. You may know a Reform rabbi who totally defies this description. Im blessed to know several. But, if you know many Reform rabbis and youre honest, you know a lot more who embody it.

Another problem is that the College has forgotten what it is and what it exists to do. A fact my teacher, Rabbi Dr. Mark Washofsky, reminded us of in a spectacular, surprisingly in-your-face Founders Day address just a few weeks ago.

Today, a growing subsection of the Jewish communityincluding those of us who desperately wish it werent sobelieve HUC-JIR offers a spiritually meaningless, academically frivolous product preparing candidates for a declining set of job prospects in a dying movement.

It doesnt have to be this way. The Board of Governors doesnt have to settle for this nonsense anymore. HUC-JIR can choose to be a center of serious Jewish learning again instead of the professional school its become. But it needs leadership that stops paying lip-service to serious Jewish learning and starts prioritizing it. It needs leaders who envision the ideal congregant of 2072 and start cultivating, recruiting, and training that congregants rabbis now. They can solve their budgetary problemsand respect donor intent by consolidating the rabbinical program in Cincinnati. They wont. But they should. This is the market differentiation the College has been looking for. Its right in front of their faces. The Collegeindeed the entire movementneeds to reorient itself away from the production of political activists and toward the production of literate Jews.

Do these things, and the movement will survive because it will deserve to and because it will produce the kind of leaders who will rise to these and future challenges. Selling off our historyfailing to preserve our archives and our sacred bibliographymay buy us another day. But the cost is too high and the reprieve too short.

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The End of the Road in Cincinnati? - Tablet Magazine

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Posted By admin on April 11, 2022

What makes Israel a Jewish state? As someone who moved to this country from the US, I would say that the dominance of Jewish cultural norms makes Israels Jewish character unequivocal. The holidays in Israel are Jewish holidays, Sunday is a workday, the day off is Shabbat, kosher food is readily available in any official setting and in most malls and shopping centers. The language is Hebrew, synagogues and mikvaot are ubiquitous, Jewish history is the default perspective in schools, there is a bagrut in Bible and in Jewish thought, etc.

More than 20 years ago, I was listening to the radio on the way to Jerusalem, and a cow mooed on the show. It kept happening and then someone on the show in a clear set up for a joke asked the host what was going on and he responded to her, Its Shabbat Parah! The joke was the insiderest of inside baseball: Shabbat Parah is the term for the Shabbat when the law of the red heifer (parah adumah) is read. It goes without saying that this joke will never be told on New Yorks Z100 or Atlantas Power96.

A few years before this, in the mid-1990s, I was newly married and living in Tel Aviv. I saw an advertisement on the movie station we had that began with a man singing Chag Purim. Someone else then said to him again a set up for the joke that it wasnt Purim but Rosh Hashanah. The man responded, Rosh Hashanah! That means it is time for our Rosh Hashanah movie special! All the hits

I cracked up. For me this was doubly funny. I had only just moved to Israel, so the idea of Purim and Rosh Hashanah being mentioned at all on TV was strange. Moreover, I have always been religious: Rosh Hashanah is a yom tov (holiday) when I dont watch TV, and, in any event, between hours of shul and long meals, who would have the time? But I felt a kind of pride in the fact that Rosh Hashanah was a set part of the years rhythm, even for those Jews who are not religious; such was not necessarily the case with secular Jews outside Israel.

In the US, the standard holidays are Halloween, Thanksgiving, New Years, and July 4th, and the Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter are so dominant that they are virtually impossible to ignore, even for those of us who try. At the same time, other than Hanukkah and maybe Passover, Jewish holidays are unknown in broader culture. When my wife and I, back in New York for a while, were checking out a hospital for a birth, and we said something about Purim, I heard a woman next to me whisper to her husband, What is Purim? and he responded, Jewish Halloween.

Our culture is not Americas culture, and religious Jews constantly debate things like whether it is better to say Happy holidays or Merry Christmas to your neighbors and whether it is okay to eat hechshered chocolate eggs (with rabbinic kashrut supervision) on Easter. Those of us who felt connected to Judaisms practices did so despite the dominant culture in which we lived. For me, therefore, the cultural Jewishness of Israel has been a great relief.

Idit Silmans recent announcement that she is leaving the coalition reminds me that there is another perspective on what it means for Israel to be a Jewish state. Over the past month, Silman has crossed swords with the secular left branch of the coalition over two issues. The first is whether to move forward with the Kotel Compromise, which would fix up a space near the remains of the Western Wall, where Jews who pray in egalitarian style would have an experience comparable to those who pray at the Western Wall, with its Orthodox style, gender-segregated prayer space. Silman feels that going forward with this plan disrespects the holy spot, and that non-Orthodox movements are irrelevant here in Israel.

The second clash was over Health Minister Nitzan Horowitzs reminder that secular Jews in hospitals should be allowed to consume hametz (leaven) on Passover in the hospitals where they are staying (they are allowed, by law). The hospital food would be hametz free, regardless, but religious patients might be subjected to seeing a roommate eat a sandwich brought by relatives from home. This was too much for Silman, and she quit, essentially bringing the government to a halt, since the split is now 50-50.

Apparently, Silmans concept of a Jewish state features a light form of religious coercion. She is not advocating making hametz illegal on Pesach, but the government must enforce Pesach rules in its corridors, and religious patients should not be subjected to the trauma of seeing bread on Pesach.

Why is this important enough to her to freeze the government? There is no way for me to know really, but I conjecture that this comes from a fear borne of insularity. For some Israeli datiim (religious folk), being presented with Jews eating hametz in front of their faces on Pesach calls their own Judaism into question. Unlike those who live as part of a minority culture, they have not experienced the need to affirm their commitment despite the prevailing mores. I suspect that deep down lies a fear that, given the opportunity, many of their adherents would simply drop religious practice altogether.

Religious coercion, however, is morally problematic; why shouldnt a hospitalized person be able to eat a sandwich just because religious Jews object? Certainly, religious patients and staff should have easy access to kosher Pesach food, and the hospitals kitchen should be kashered for Pesach, etc., but why should the secular Jew who does not keep this rule at home have to keep it in the hospital just because it may hurt a roommates religious sensibilities? Dont secular Jews have their own sensibilities?

Finally, those who advocate this kind of soft coercion do not understand its negative effects. The best sell for Judaism is seeing the satisfaction observant Jews receive from their practices. Coercion accomplishes the opposite; it makes the coerced resent these practices. Moreover, it implies that the religious are not really content with their observance and are jealous of the secular, for why would they be so overcome by seeing their roommate eat a subway sandwich on Pesach if they werent dying to have a bite themselves?

In short, even soft religious coercion is an ethical and tactical mistake. In the long run, far from strengthening Israels Jewish character, moves like that of Silmans endanger it.

Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber is the senior editor of TheTorah.com and a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute's Kogod Center.

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Posted By admin on April 11, 2022

On December 20, 2013, a young woman named Justine Sacco was waiting in Heathrow airport before boarding a flight to Africa. To while away the time, she sent a tweet in questionable taste about the hazards of catching AIDS. There was no immediate response, and she boarded the plane unaware of the storm that was about to break. Eleven hours later, upon landing, she discovered that she had become an international cause clbre. Her tweet, and responses to it, had gone viral. Over the next 11 days she would be Googled more than a million times. She was branded a racist and dismissed from her job. Overnight she had become a pariah.

Social media has brought about a return to an ancient phenomenon, public shaming. Two books Jon Ronsons So Youve Been Publicly Shamed and Jennifer Jacquets Is Shame Necessary? have discussed it. Jacquet believes it is a good thing. It can be a way of getting public corporations to behave more responsibly, for example. Ronson highlights the dangers. It is one thing to be shamed by the community of which you are a part, quite another by a global network of strangers who know nothing about you or the context in which your act took place. That is more like a lynch mob than the pursuit of justice.

Either way, this gives us a way of understanding the otherwise bewildering phenomenon of tzaraat, the condition dealt with at length in last weeks parsha and this one. Tzaraat has been variously translated as leprosy, skin disease and scaly infection. Yet there are formidable problems in identifying it with any known disease. First, its symptoms do not correspond to Hansens Disease, otherwise known as leprosy. Second, the tzaraat described in the Torah affects not only human beings but also the walls of houses, furniture and clothes. There is no known medical condition that has this property.

Besides, the Torah is a book about holiness and correct conduct. It is not a medical text. Even if it were, as David Zvi Hoffman points out in his Commentary to Sefer Vayikra, the procedures to be carried out do not correspond to those that would be done if tzaraat were a contagious disease. Finally, tzaraat as described in the Torah is a condition that brings not sickness but rather impurity, tumah. Health and purity are different things altogether.

The Sages decoded the mystery by relating our parsha to the instances in the Torah in which someone was actually afflicted by tzaraat. It happened to Miriam when she spoke against her brother, Moses (Num. 12:1-15). Another example was when Moses, at the Burning Bush, said to G-d that the Israelites would not believe him. His hand briefly turned as leprous as snow (Ex. 4:7). The Sages regarded tzaraat as a punishment for lashon hara, evil speech speaking negatively about or denigrating another person.

This helped them explain why the symptoms of tzaraat mold or discoloration could affect walls, furniture, clothes and human skin. These were a sequence of warnings or punishments. First G-d warned the offender by sending a sign of decay to the walls of his house. If the offender repented, the condition stopped there. If he failed to do so, his furniture was affected, then his clothes, and finally his skin.

How are we to understand this? Why was evil speech regarded as so serious an offence that it took these strange phenomena to point to its existence? And why was it punished this way and not another?

It was the anthropologist Ruth Benedict and her book about Japanese culture, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, that popularized a distinction between two kinds of society: guilt cultures and shame cultures. Ancient Greece, like Japan, was a shame culture. Judaism and the religions influenced by it (most obviously, Calvinism) were guilt cultures. The differences between them are substantial.

In shame cultures, what matters is the judgment of others. Acting morally means conforming to public roles, rules, and expectations. You do what other people expect you to do. You follow societys conventions. If you fail to do so, society punishes you by subjecting you to shame, ridicule, disapproval, humiliation and ostracism. In guilt cultures, what matters is not what other people think but what the voice of conscience tells you. Living morally means acting in accordance with internalized moral imperatives: You shall and You shall not. What matters is what you know to be right and wrong.

People in shame cultures areother-directed. They care about how they appear in the eyes of others, or as we would say today, they care about their image. People in guilt cultures areinner-directed. They care about what they know about themselves in moments of absolute honesty. Even if your public image is undamaged, if you know you have done wrong it will make you feel uneasy. You will wake up at night troubled. O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me! says Shakespeares Richard III. My conscience hath a thousand several tongues / And every tongue brings in a several tale /And every tale condemns me for a villain. Shame is public humiliation. Guilt is inner torment.

The emergence of a guilt culture in Judaism flowed from its understanding of the relationship between G-d and humankind. In Judaism we are not actors on a stage with society as the audience and the judge. We can fool society; we cannot fool G-d. All pretense and pride, every mask and persona, and the cosmetic cultivation of public image are irrelevant: The L-rd does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the L-rd looks at the heart (1 Sam. 16:7). Shame cultures are collective and conformist. By contrast, Judaism, the archetypal guilt culture, emphasizes the individual and their relationship with G-d. What matters is not whether we conform to the culture of the age but whether we do what is good, just, and right.

This makes the law of tzaraat fascinating, because according to the Sages interpretation, it constitutes one of the rare instances in the Torah of punishment by shame rather than guilt. The appearance of mold or discoloration on the walls of a house was a public signal of private wrongdoing. It was a way of saying to everyone who lived or visited there, Bad things have been said in this place. Little by little, the signals came ever closer to the culprit, appearing next on their bed or chair, then on their clothes, then on their skin, until eventually they found themselves diagnosed as defiled:

And a blighted person, one bearing the disease their clothing shall be torn, and the hair of their head disarrayed. And they shall cover their upper lips as they cry out, Impure! Impure! They shall be in a state of impurity for as long as they have the disease; they are impure. They shall live apart; outside the camp shall be their dwelling (Lev. 13:45-46).

These are quintessential expressions of shame. First is the stigma: the public marks of disgrace or dishonor (torn clothes, unkempt hair). Then comes the ostracism: temporary exclusion from the normal affairs of society. These have nothing to do with illness and everything to do with social disapproval. This is what makes the law of tzaraat so hard to understand at first: it is one of the rare appearances of public shaming in a non-shame, guilt-based culture. It happened, though, not because society had expressed its disapproval but because G-d was signaling that it should do so.

Why specifically in the case of lashon hara, evil speech? Because speech is what holds society together. Anthropologists have argued that language strengthens the bonds between human beings in order to co-operate in groups. What sustains co-operation is trust. This allows and encourages me to make sacrifices for the group, knowing that others can be relied on to do likewise. This is precisely why lashon hara is so destructive. It undermines trust. It makes people suspicious about one another. It weakens the bonds that hold the group together. If unchecked, lashon hara will destroy any group it attacks: a family, a team, a community, even a nation. Hence its uniquely malicious character: It uses the power of language to weaken the very thing language was brought into being to create, namely, the trust that sustains the social bond.

That is why the punishment for lashon hara was being temporarily excluded from society by public exposure (the signs that appear on walls, furniture, clothes, and skin), stigmatization and shame (the torn clothes, etc.) and ostracism (being forced to live outside the camp). It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to punish the malicious gossiper using the normal conventions of law, courts and the establishment of guilt. This can be done in the case of motsi shem ra libel or slander, because these are all cases of making a false statement. Lashon hara is more subtle. It is done not by falsehood but by insinuation. There are many ways of harming a persons reputation without actually telling a lie. Someone accused of lashon hara can easily say, I didnt say it, I didnt mean it, and even if I did, I did not say anything that was untrue. The best way of dealing with people who poison relationships without actually uttering falsehoods is by naming, shaming, and shunning them.

That, according to the Sages, is what tzaraat miraculously did in ancient times. It no longer exists in the form described in the Torah. But the use of the Internet and social media as instruments of public shaming illustrates both the power and the danger of a culture of shame. Only rarely does the Torah invoke it, and in the case of the metzora only by an act of G-d, not society. Yet the moral of the metzora remains. Malicious gossip, lashon hara, undermines relationships, erodes the social bond and damages trust. It deserves to be exposed and shamed.

Never speak ill of others, and stay far from those who do.

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Posted By admin on April 11, 2022

Rabbi Michael Feshbach prepares to join colleagues on a mission to Poland to help Ukrainian war refugees sheltering there. (Submitted photo)

Why is this Passover not different from all other Passovers?

Because this month, while Jews throughout the world prepare to commemorate their forebearers flight from bondage thousands of years ago, another people are being driven from their homes by a cruelty that reeks of genocidal hatred.

For Michael Feshbach, rabbi of the St. Thomas Hebrew Congregation, the Passover themes of Liberation and Redemption ring especially true now as millions of Ukrainians have become refugees because of Russias invasion of their homeland.

Thats why he is joining a group of about 25 Reform and progressive rabbis and cantors who are heading to Krakow, Poland, this weekend, bringing supplies, money and hope to a small segment of those who have been displaced by the war.

On the mission are rabbis from North America, Israel and Europe, he said. The trip is supported by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the World Union for Progressive Judaism, and the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism.

It is also supported by a wide swarth of the U.S. Virgin Islands community, both within and without the St. Thomas Synagogue.

Feshbach will be traveling with just one suitcase for himself and with four duffle bags crammed full of such practical items as toothpaste, clothing, and baby food. He said several local doctors and dentists have donated medicines and business people and attorneys have given other supplies. There have also been generous cash donations.

We have had, as far as I know, universal support, within the congregation and the wider USVI community, he said.

Remembering how donations arrived for Virgin Islanders following the devasting 2017 hurricanes, he said, We got back on our feet with support from all over the world. Now its our turn to help.

Collectively, the group going to Poland will be transporting 3,000 pounds of supplies and about $500,000 in donations, Feshbach said. The rabbis are coordinating with a Jewish religious group in Krakow that sponsors a number of programs addressing various needs, including housing, food, medical services, and trauma support.

Poland has taken in roughly 2.5 million of its neighbors. Another 2 million Ukrainians have fled to other countries. But high as those numbers are, Feshbach said they dont tell the whole story, because many millions more are still in Ukraine, homeless and displaced by bombs and other destructive forces.

One in four Ukrainians have left their homes, he said. Many of them hope to go back, but there is nothing for some to go back to.

The rabbi has supported other international humanitarian causes, including opposing genocide in Darfur and helping resettle a Syrian refugee family, but the current mission holds personal meaning, he said. His fathers family emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900s from Khotin, in Ukraine. And his father was a noted author and expert on Russia and the USSR.

Feshbach said only a cause as important as the present one would induce him to leave St. Thomas just as the synagogue is preparing to celebrate Passover with the first in-person Seder it has been able to hold since Covid restrictions were imposed in 2020. But he plans to return on April 14, just in time for the celebration.

To donate to the Ukraine mission, call the synagogue at 340-774-4312 or go to smile.amazon.com and designate your donation as for Friends of JCC Krakow.

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Posted By admin on April 11, 2022

Atlantic County is a special place. We live in a community with a high number of LIFE & LEGACY donors, spanning multiple generations. Jewish Federation of Atlantic & Cape May Counties Co-president Lois Fried (LF) and her daughter Kathryn (KF) believe in the Jewish community and the transformational power that the LIFE & LEGACY program offers. They were gracious enough to share their feelings about the program and its meaning to the Fried family with Voice at the Shore.

Q: How has the community impacted your decision to give a gift?

A: LFMy late husband Mort and I moved here in 1969. The community has always been a huge support for my family. Ive gotten a lot of pleasure out of being here and I want my community to be here for generations to come. Ive been very fortunate and through my gift, I hope to help others, including those who might not have had the same privileges as I have had. Also, this community has never let me down and I want it to stay strong for my grandchildren and other peoples grandchildren so Judaism can continue to thrive here for future generations.

KFI grew up in this community, but have not resided here since high school. I feel it is important to give back to the community that has given so much to me and my family. Its always been a special place to me. The resources and institutions made up so much of my childhood and consequently influenced who I am as a Jewish person. I graduated from the Hebrew Academy, swam and participated in activities at the JCC, visited the seniors at Seashore Gardens, attended services at [then] Beth Judah, danced with the Torah in the street in Ventnor on Simchas Torah, attended Hebrew High, participated in NCSY, Kadima and USY, went to Israel, and can go on and on. All of this was made possible because of the community and its support for Jewish institutions and programming. Even more, it truly helped shape my youth and love for Judaism. A Legacy gift is my way of saying thank you and helping the institutions I deem most significant sustain themselves while making benefits available to others.

Q: Lois, your upbringing as a Jew was very different from how you raised your children. Can you elaborate?

A: LFI was raised in a community in North Carolina with just about 100 Jewish families. My family was not very religious and I did not have a bat mitzvah until I moved to South Jersey as a married mother. Growing up in a small town in the South was not easy. To put it in perspective, I recall my mother telling me and eventually my kids how there were some parents who did not want their children to come to my home to play simply because we were Jewish. In addition, I was the first Jewish valedictorian of my high school, and it was apparently a shock to the local community when a rabbi was asked to give the benediction at the graduation ceremony. Fast-forward, my life and my childrens experiences were completely different in this community. I finally had a bat mitzvah in 1978, when I was part of the first bat mitzvah class at [then] Beth Judah. As years went by, my late husband and I continued to instill Jewish values in our children and I know this has helped make a difference in who they are as people.

Q: Kathryn, you dont live here, but still find value in giving a gift to this community. Why is that?

A: KFI still consider this my hometown. When Im in town for Jewish holidays, I go with my mom to services at Shirat Hayam. If Ive needed to say Kaddish, I can always find a minyan, and when there have been times to rejoice, I know that it will be fun with family and friends in the community. Simply put, I can count on the Jewish community by the shore. Where else do the seagulls gobble up our symbolic sins so quickly at Tashlich? Plus, the key memories, knowledge and relationships I formed have stuck with me and still impact me to this day.

Q: Did you intentionally pass along philanthropic values to your three daughters?

A: LFI was always active in philanthropy, but it was just as important to me to spend time participating with organizations and volunteering at events. My kids needed to know that I donated my time and my money.

KFI am inspired by my mothers dedication to this community. I remember her going from meeting to meeting and serving our community in many leadership roles for as long as I can remember. She still found time for bake sales, swim meets and whatever else my sisters and I were participating in, but chose certain institutions that meant a lot to her and genuinely gave of herself. She set a great example for me growing up and still does to this day. Its important that I have seen my mom give back and help her community. Her contributions reflect her care about our community and its future. Part of her and my fathers legacy will be positively impacting the community. My sisters and I would like that to be part of ours too.

Q: Any parting words?

A: LFId just say that Im very proud and gratified that my children have grown up to be good people and they care for the future of this community. The fact that all three of my daughters have made gifts too means that my late husband and I have instilled the importance of ldor, vdor.

LIFE & LEGACY is a partnership of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and Jewish Federation of Atlantic & Cape May Counties that promotes after-lifetime giving to benefit local Jewish agencies, synagogues, and organizations. Through training, support and monetary incentives, LIFE & LEGACY motivates Jewish organizations to integrate legacy giving into their philanthropic culture in order to assure Jewish tomorrows. If you have questions or would like to make your own LEGACY gift, please contact Samantha Hammond at samantha@jewishbytheshore.org.

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Posted By admin on April 11, 2022

It is no secret I keep tabs on the online Jew-haters, so I can continue to shine a light on their hate. I do this primarily:

For this reason I keep tabs on Jew-hater Ariyana Love (like many other antisemites), primarily by monitoring her Telegram channel.

You may have noticed from previous posts how Love is becoming increasingly unhinged. Take some of her audio recordings from today for example, in which she claims to have had such a great influence, the UN would broker ceasefires as a result of information she provided.

But shes no narcissist!

I have a sneaking suspicion, Loves unhinged rants might just become a new Israellycool series.

A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media

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