Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on February 15, 2022

A couple of days ago, somebody drew a swastika in the second floor boys bathroom at my school. They locked down every bathroom on the floor, and I complained to my friend from Jewish preschool (Gan Keshet, for the locals) that it was more antisemitic that I as a Jewish girl couldnt have a convenient place to pee. I then proceeded to vacillate between comfort in my Jewish identity and wild guilt that I had somehow (and once again) betrayed my already tortured people. It brought to the forefront that I often dont feel Jewish enough.

In another life, I would speak Hebrew. I started off like all the other Jewish kids in Northampton, but after preschool I didnt go on to the private elementary school across the street. I went to my local elementary school out in the hills of Chesterfield, and most of them didnt hear much from me for another decade. When I came to Northampton High School as a transferring sophomore, most of the kids I grew up with didnt even remember me. Theyd all had their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, all gone to Hebrew school, all spent their whole lives together without me. It was hard to feel Jewish in their presence.

I often center my identity in my writing work. In every piece, I always make sure to put in somewhere that Im white-privileged-middle-class-cisgender-etc. But Im also Jewish. I usually omit that because Im not totally sure where that leaves me. On one hand, Im the living proof that one of the worlds most traditionally marginalized groups has not died out. On the other, Im a high school kid who can pass as Christian and forgets where she came from except for when Hanukkah rolls around.

Since that day, Ive been wondering if I have internalized antisemitism. Its rife on both sides of the spectrum when it comes to social justice issues, from the stories of defaced graves from the right to the denouncement of Jews as an extension of the denouncement of Israel from the left. But for me, its not just that. Ive often fallen back on resenting other Jewish kids I see getting their Mitzvahs, speaking Hebrew, and growing up immersed within their culture. Growing up not having to doubt if they really belong in the community they were born into.

These bewildering past couple of days have exposed a gap in my social justice work. Its a gap lots of leftist movements have, as many operate under the assumption that all Jews are white. While Im personally white, and the Ashkenazi group of Jews traditionally is, there are many denominations of Jews that are not, such as the Mizrahi or Ethiopian groups from Africa. There are also many nonwhite Jews in every sector of Judaism. Additionally, Jews as a whole were not considered part of whiteness until very recently. This is to say, antisemitism cannot be excused because Jewishness is equated with whiteness.

Now, Im not here to talk about Israel. Like I said earlier, Im insecure in my Judaism and as a result I dont feel comfortable enough to deliver a concrete opinion. But I can say this: the actions of the Israeli government do not excuse any sort of violence against Jewish people. The horrors committed against the Palestinian people are inexcusable, but they do not mean all Jewish people worldwide are at fault and therefore must be punished. Us Jews are in a tight spot as both the oppressed and the oppressor, and while there must be accountability for Israels actions, they are not an excuse to fall back into old patterns of abusing Jewish people.

In the coming months of this new year, I ask you all to look inward and see how your own identity has influenced how you see the world. While white supremacy has taken great pains to coalesce all white people into a monolith, this is not true. All of us have rich histories and cultures; it just may take some effort to rediscover them. I am telling you now that I am going to look inward this year and see how my Jewishness influences how I think about the world. How I can reconnect with my community, and feel empowered to speak on Jewish issues. How I can stop resenting people I feel are better Jews than me because they were able to take part in Jewish culture since childhood. I have learned that many of my practices, such as mutual aid, are actually integral to Ashkenazi Jewish culture. So much of what I thought was new to me is actually just a return to my Jewish roots.

I am committing myself to unlearning the antisemitism I have internalized, and I invite you all to do some work on that as well. We are surrounded in western Massachusetts by a rich Jewish community, and we owe it to our Jewish neighbors to reexamine our social justice work to better include Jews. Keep the actions of the Israeli government away from your opinion of Jewish people, and actively include Jewish people in the groups that you stand with. This year, I am going to stop forgetting I am Jewish in my work. You should remember Jews too.

Maddie Raymond, who lives in the hilltowns, writes a monthly column.

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Speak Now by Columnist Maddie Raymond: We all have rich histories and cultures - The Recorder

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Posted By admin on February 13, 2022

We were greatly astonished, when we saw Eleazar engaged in the service of the Temple, at the mode of his dress, and the majesty of his appearance (which) created such awe and confusion of mind as to make one feel that one had come into the presence of a man who belonged to a different world. So writes the author of the Letter of Aristeas, about meeting the High Priest Eleazar, who lived 260245 BCE. The multicolored garments of the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) were of such conspicuous beauty, that they left all observers amazed at the spectacle they had seen.

Making an impression was the very purpose of the uniform of all the kohanim. The Rambam says that for the kohanim, the clothes make the man. (A kohen without his uniform was prohibited from participating in the service). The Rambam writes in the Guide for the Perplexed that the average person who visited the Beit Hamikdash (Temple) would judge the kohanim by their clothes, ..because the multitude does not estimate man by his true form but by the perfection of his bodily limbs and the beauty of his garments... Image is critical for the kohanim; they must strike an aristocratic pose, be well groomed, (kohanim were required to take regular haircuts), and wear beautiful, well maintained garments. Kohanim must court public opinion, and inspire the multitude.

The regal bearing of the kohen stands in sharp contrast with another biblical leader, the navi (prophet). Amos describes himself a cattle herder and a tender of sycamore figs. Eliyahu is described as a hairy man,.with a leather belt tied around his waist.; this great navi has long hair and wears a working mans clothes. The neviim had a very different aesthetic than the kohanim, and their attire reflects a fundamental difference between them.

Ahad Haam wrote an influential essay contrasting the kohen and navi. He explains that they represent two ways of doing service in the cause of an idea, and that the navi is a one-sided figure, who wants to make dramatic change. The kohen is essentially the follower of the navi, who attempts to preserve the navis vision within the realities of society.

A navi focuses single mindedly on his idea. A certain moral idea fills his whole being,. He can only see the world through the mirror of his ideaHis whole life is spent in fighting for this ideal with all his strength. The navi is not interested in popularity contests, and many neviim had their lives threatened by the powers that be. Not so the Kohen; his job is to ensure that these ideals are broadly accepted. Ahad Haam explains that instead of clinging to the narrowness of the navi, and demanding of reality what it cannot give, (the kohen) broadens his outlook, and takes a wider view .Not what ought to be, but what can be, is what he seeks. The navi is fixated on a divine vision, and little else matters to him; the kohen is a teacher, trying to coax everyone a bit closer to the ideal. The kohen must be a master of persuasion and public relations; and for that reason, he needs to tend carefully to his image, and ensure that his garments and grooming are presentable.

The kohen has a complex mission. He is the middleman who connects man to God, the one who brings sacrifices to God and atonement to man. And like any intermediary, there is a question of where the kohens primary loyalties and responsibilities lie. The Talmud ponders this question and wants to know if the kohanim are our emissaries, or the emissaries of God? Being a middleman means that the kohen is pulled in two opposite directions.

In Rabbinic literature, the human centered mission of the kohen is emphasized. Aharon, the first kohen, is one who loves peace and pursues peace, loves mankind and draws them close to the Torah. The kohen offers the birkat kohanim (the priestly blessing) to the community, and must do so with love. For this reason, a kohen who has taken a life is disqualified from giving birkat kohanim.

Hillel, the great rabbi of the mishnah, saw the kohen as a role model for the rabbinic community. Hillel advocated that one ought to be a student of Aharon, and like Aharon and the kohanim, focus on personal connections. Hillel himself was a transformative leader because like Aharon, he was humble, open and embracing. Unlike the navi, Hillel did not rebuke and reject.

However, being a people-centered man of God can lead to serious failures. Being constantly focussed on public opinion can cause the kohen to lose sight of his ultimate responsibilities; love of the community can cross the line to pandering. Aharon may be a master of personal connections, but that personality trait causes his greatest failure. When the people ask for a Golden Calf, Aharon obliges them; he doesnt challenge their request, and avoids confrontation and controversy. In this critical moment, Aharon is too responsive to the desires of the community.

This is the kohens dilemma: how to connect to the crowd without losing sight of your unique vision.

This is the kohens dilemma: how to connect to the crowd without losing sight of your unique vision.

Contemporary rabbis are more or less made in the image of the kohen. Yes, there are some rabbis who stand high in the pulpit to issue fire and brimstone speeches that rebuke their wayward flocks. There are communities where words of mussar, of serious self criticism, are welcome. But for the most part, in order to succeed, contemporary rabbis must be diplomatic and discerning, and relate to the community they live in. As Solomon Schechter put it in the 1920s, You cant be a rabbi in America without understanding baseball. Todays rabbi may not have the kohens wardrobe, but he shares the same mission: to make a positive impression, and in doing so, bring people closer to Torah.

Today, American rabbis are very much a part of their community. As American Jewry diminishes in commitment and observance, the question is how rabbis will respond. When the flock keeps wandering, will the rabbi follow them?

In 2018, Jack Wertheimer published The New American Judaism, a book about how contemporary Jews practice Judaism. Wertheimer conducted 160 in-depth interviews with rabbis of every denomination, and this forms the foundation of the book. In it, you can hear the frustrations of rabbis who dont know what they should do next; one laments they cannot get children to attend synagogue programs because the God of soccer is a jealous God. When Wertheimer summarizes some of the assumptions that his interviewees held, you can see how their context shapes their thinking. There is an expectation that synagogues must model themselves after successful businesses; they must be innovative, and expert in marketing and customer service. Time honored traditions are modified to cater to a congregation that is increasingly strapped for time.

Marketing has significant religious value; the Talmud stresses making sure that ritual objects are pleasing to the eye, and make a beautiful sukka, a beautiful lulav, a beautiful shofar, beautiful ritual fringes, beautifulTorah scroll, and wrap the scroll in beautiful silk fabric. But when there is a lack of religious commitment, the kohens dilemma becomes a serious challenge. One can survey the congregation to find what is popular. But that can lead to an unchallenging Judaism, one that is innocuous and banal, an amalgam of nostalgia and good feelings. Wertheimer calls this an ersatz form of Judaism, which re-brands popular tastes and popular political stances as a form of religious expression. It is imperative for a religious leader to meet people where they are; but the belief that the customer is always right is a poor fit for Judaism, which is about challenging man to achieve his best. In a market driven culture, the rabbi is pulled between public relations and pandering.

The kohen is a man of the people. But what happens when the people are no longer interested? This is the kohens dilemma, and one that every American Jew needs to ponder.

Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.

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The Kohen's Dillema: Should Judaism Pander to the Crowd? - Jewish Journal

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Posted By admin on February 13, 2022

JNS.org At a time in American politics when it seems just about anything is possible, it was one of the more bizarre occurrences of a congressional session that has had no shortage of them. Last month, two members of Congress one Democrat and one Republican announced that they were forming a Torah Values Caucus. It would be one among many dozens of caucuses that seek to advance myriad causes.

But there was a really odd thing about this one. Though the title suggests that this group will be guided by the laws of Judaism, neither of the two founders Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who has lately found himself under ethical scrutiny, and Don Bacon (R-Neb.) are Jewish. Nor were any of the three other members who joined the effort. There are 28 representatives and nine senators currently serving in Congress that are Jewish. But none of them, including the two Jewish Republicans whose conservative politics might lead them to agree on most issues with these five, chose to join.

The fact that such a caucus included a man named Bacon didnt escape the derision of some of the groups critics. Wags can also say that this group makes no more sense than any of the 37 congressional Jews forming a Catechism Caucus to make sure that the teachings of the Catholic Church are taken into account by legislators.

But the right-wing tilt of the members and the fact that they are advised by an Orthodox organization called Dirshu, established nearly 20 years ago in Toronto, Canada, and headed by Rabbi Dovid Hofstedter meant that a number of liberal Jewish groups chose not to regard it as either a joke or irrelevant to their own concerns.

February 13, 2022 8:12 am

To the contrary, several groups, including the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism (RAC), Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Truah, Americans for Peace Now and Partners for a Progressive Israel, signed a joint letter denouncing the effort as, at best, misguided.

The letter did acknowledge that the new caucus was resolved to fight antisemitism and also made clear that it would be focused on bolstering support for Israel. But with no small amount of condescension, the letter talked down to the five Torah caucus members, saying that if they had the smarts to consult with rabbis and Jewish leaders from many of the major institutions in American Jewish life, the creation of the caucus might have been avoided.

The groups signing the letter are all fervent supporters of amnesty for illegal immigrants and embrace an open-borders approach to that issue, yet seemed to forget that they chided the caucus for relying on the advice of a foreigner a single rabbi from outside the country who they said caused the group to get a skewed sense of our communitys needs and values.

But the problem doesnt stem from the liberal groups uncharacteristic xenophobia. What they really dont like is that the Torah Values Caucus will be pursuing one set of religious values clearly not in tune with their own, and that in doing so, your legislative activity raises significant concerns regarding the separation of church and state, which has been one of the keys to the long-term safety and security of the American Jewish community.

That is a point of view definitely in line with the views of the overwhelming majority of American Jews, who are politically liberal and vote for the Democratic Party.

But it is not the view of all American Jews. Hence the liberal groups anger about the advocacy of this caucus is meaningless, since many Orthodox and politically conservative Jews agree with like-minded non-Jews that a high or impregnable wall of separation between church and state is not in the interests of Jews or anyone else.

For example, Jews who support school choice believe that the ardent liberal separationists who think it is wrong to spend tax dollars on religious schools are hurting Jewish interests, as well as those of non-Jews who want to be able to choose a different or better school for their children rather than the local government-funded one. Thats especially true for kids of poorer families who are often trapped by failing public schools in inner cities, deprived of a fair chance at a better life because of the political debts owed to the teachers unions by the Democratic Party.

Indeed, there is a very good argument to make that this was in no way intended by Americas Founding Fathers, almost all of whom (with perhaps the exception of Thomas Jefferson, who coined the phrase about separation), believed that what they were doing was establishing a government informed by religious values and freedom of religion, not from it.

That is a point reasonable people can debate. Assuming, that is, that there are reasonable people left in a country where a political tribal culture war has divided Americans to the point where they not only read, listen and watch different media, but isolate themselves from other points of view on social media as well.

What really undermines the arguments against a Torah Values Coalition is the fact that groups like the RAC, which is a major voice advocating in favor of issues that often have little or nothing to do with strictly Jewish interests, do so under the banner of their own, different interpretation of Judaism.

Employing the concept of tikkun olam, groups like the RAC seek to mobilize whatever forces they can muster to enact a laundry list of progressive political causes. The term now usually translated as repairing the world was used in traditional Jewish learning to reference the goal of getting the whole world to accept the sovereignty of the Creator and the laws that were laid down in the Torah. But now its merely a religious clich deployed by liberals to serve as a justification for their partisan platform.

Some of those beliefs are arguably in sync with the social-justice agenda that many American Jews have come to believe are synonymous with Judaism, even if others disagree with the notion that their faith is defined by the Democratic Party platform with holidays thrown in. But they also sometimes include making common cause with radical ideas, such as those associated with the Black Lives Matter movement and defending critical race theory both of which are associated with antisemitism.

Seen from that perspective, the RAC has no more right to speak in the name of Judaism than those who are cheering on the Torah Values Caucus.

Invoking Judaism or the Torah is questionable when advocates conflate faith with politics, no matter which end of the political spectrum they are coming from. But an objective look at the array of forces seeking to influence policy in Washington will show that neither liberals nor conservatives have a monopoly on virtue or the willingness to play the faith card on behalf of causes tangential to specific Jewish interests. And if liberals think it isnt kosher for conservatives to try and chip away at church-state separation, others can say with just as much, if not more, validity that groups like Peace Now, which seek to undermine American support for Israel while claiming to speak for the Jews, are even more treif.

The idea of a Torah Values Caucus may seem comical, but if the new group is to be rejected, its not because its members contradict the views of progressives, who have no more right to claim the mantle of Jewish authenticity. Indeed, they have a place in the free marketplace of ideas, and will rise and fall based on the strength of their arguments and little else.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him on Twitter @jonathans_tobin.

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Is There Any Harm in a Non-Jewish Congressional Torah Values Caucus? - Algemeiner

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Posted By admin on February 13, 2022

Recently Whoopi Goldberg, co-host of the ABC News talk show The View, was suspended for comments she made about the Jewish Holocaust. She said the Holocaust is not about race; its about mans inhumanity to manthese are two white groups of people. The Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish groups took immediate umbrage, and as a result, she received two weeks unpaid leave, even though she offered sincere apologies twice. She said that it was about race AND mans inhumanity to man.

One of the outstanding ironies of this situation is that Whoopi, citing the inhumanity of the Holocaust, accurately pinpointed what was at the bottom of the situation. No one can deny that the Holocaust was about mans inhumanity to man! The race aspect is a little more esoteric. It is a truism that for many years there has been a question as to whether or not Judaism is a race or a religion. Apparently, it is BOTH.

As a result of Goldbergs comments, she is being castigated for what was a misunderstanding; there was no negative intent in her comments. She is being subjected to punishment even though her comments were benign at best. Another irony of the situation is that an African American, Kim Godwin, was the ABC News president who suspended her.

In Goldbergs apology, she cited ADL director Jonathan Greenblatts statement that the Holocaust was about the Nazis systematic annihilation of the Jewish people who they deemed to be an inferior race. Yes, this is true; the Holocaust was carrying out what the Nazis called the final solution; their target was definitely genocide of the Jewish people.

Now that brings up another concern, which is why there is some confusion about the issue.

There are a lot of Black people who say they are the real Jews, and have adopted Judaism as a religion. They consider themselves to be the original Jews (Hebrews). In fact, there are a number of American Blacks who have moved to Israel and have taken up residency. They have adopted the language and customs of Judaism. An irony connected with this is that they have been subjected to extreme bigotry in Israel.

On another note, there is the mystery of the 12 tribes of Israel. To date, the identity of 10 of those tribes is lost; no one has come up with a definitive explanation as to who comprises those tribes. The only groups identified today are the Ashkenazi Jews and the Sephardic Jews.

Another irony of the situation is that ongoing contemporary wisdom posits that there is no such thing as a biological race; that race is a sociological construct.

If race is considered to really be actually non-existent, then the Holocaust could be seen by many to be a struggle between two groups of white people.

Another irony there is a book written by Arthur Koestler called the Thirteenth Tribe that claims the Jewish people who call themselves Jews today are not really Jews; they are Khazars who adopted Judaism as a religion. Arthur Koestler was Jewish.

The ultimate irony is that Whoopi Goldberg was trying to point out mans inhumanity to man, but in so doing, has become the target of mans inhumanity, this time imposed on her! Just about everyone knows that Whoopi meant no harm; in fact, she was citing the evil that human beings inflict on each other. She is being sanctioned, which is impacting her financially and emotionally.

Whoopi is a warrior for righteousness who misspoke, who made an understandable mistake about a situation that is not as cut and dry as we would like to think.

Evidence of this is that the Jews were not the only ones targeted in the Holocaust: Romani (Gypsies), homosexuals, Blacks and Slavs were among others targeted by the Nazis. In fact, the Nazis identified themselves as members of a master race which pretty much relegated everyone who did not have the characteristics of that race, i.e., Nordic characteristics, inferior!

So, the idea of sanctioning Whoopi Goldberg, a member of arguably one of the most maligned races on the planet, is the ultimate irony! In other words, the Jews who are targeting her are like the kettle calling the pot black; they are doing to her what they say is being done to them! A Luta Continua.

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WHOOPI GOLDBERG AND A QUANDARY OF IRONIES - The Chicago Cusader

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Posted By admin on February 13, 2022

Since becoming University of San Franciscos rabbi-in-residence in 2019, Rabbi Camille Angel has been busy, whether shes creating inclusive on-campus spaces, helping to empower students through her classes, officiating Jewish lifecycle events or leading Passover seders.

When Angels hiring was announced, it made headlines. A Jesuit Catholic university appointing a rabbi-in-residence was unprecedented, especially when that rabbi is a lesbian and longtime LGBTQ activist. She says credit for her presence on campus is largely due to the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice.

I was trained and Im a rabbi to serve Jews, and I do I led a shiva two nights ago, so Im definitely still serving Jews, Angel told J. But theres something remarkable for me and totally unexpected about my rabbinate being primarily among non-Jews at this point and that my teaching is primarily with non-Jews.

According to Angel, there is only one Jewish student in her Queering Religion class of 40. The other students represent a mix of religious affiliations, but they gravitate to Angels classes and programs because of the inclusive queer community she has cultivated on campus.

I actually didnt know much about Judaism and what a rabbi was or what they did, said Jade Peafort, a senior sociology major from Redwood City. But honestly, I love it. Ive learned from her that in Judaism, some of the core values are just working with other people and for other people and as a community. Its not just about yourself.

Angel said its important for her to be a visibly Jewish and queer presence on campus both in and out of the classroom. She regularly wears an embroidered kippah and keeps a rainbow pride flag displayed in her office window. She emphasizes how much real representation and inclusion matter, especially when many students have never interacted with Judaism or Jewish thought or even met a rabbi.

Students will often ask me, What should I call you? Professor? Doctor? Rabbi? Angel said. I tell them to call me rabbi, because everyone needs a rabbi, and if you didnt have one before, now you do.

Angel, who had been lecturing at USF for several years before joining the seven-person University Ministry staff as the on-campus rabbi, places a lot of emphasis on being a positive, identity-affirming spiritual adviser regardless of students backgrounds or belief systems. Angel finds that many of her students relationships with religion often are complicated by negative experiences due to their sexual orientations or gender identities. But they are also curious and seeking for themselves to figure out whether they want to explore spirituality.

When I was teaching my first [theology] class, I encountered so many people whod been really damaged and hurt by religion, or who had chosen not to be associated with religion, because they could see that it hurt people they loved, said Angel. According to USF, a majority of undergraduate students are unaffiliated with a religion, while others identify as Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, atheist or Protestant. Fewer than half are Catholic.

According to a 2020 study by the Trevor Project, LGBTQ young adults whose parents held negative religious beliefs about homosexuality were at twice the risk of attempting suicide.

Theres something remarkable for me and totally unexpected about my rabbinate being primarily among non-Jews

In her Queering Religion class, Angel teaches from a Jewish perspective how to navigate religious contexts, especially those religions that have often attempted to negate queer people. Many students credit Angel and this class with helping them re-evaluate and reconnect with their respective spiritual traditions.

This was the case for Luis Anaya, a senior sociology major, for whom growing up Mexican American and Catholic went hand in hand, but being queer and Catholic, not so much.

I had a lot of reservations around religion because growing up and being queer, I innately had a different experience and different perspective on Catholic teachings, said Anaya, who was born in Mexico City but grew up in Stockton.

When he took Angels class, he said, he also was taking strides in exploring and navigating his queer identity, so the intersection of queer narratives and spirituality was particularly meaningful for him. He also said exposure to Jewish thought helped to repair his strained relationship with Catholicism.

Rabbi Angel talks a lot about pluralism, how different identities can coexist at the same time, and the idea of not reading the text literally, but rather interpreting it to get a better perspective of what these people were trying to write about and the messages that they were trying to convey, Anaya said. To question things and almost approach them with a grain of salt.

Peafort had a similar experience. Raised Catholic, she stopped going to church in her teens. She says she struggled with Catholicism for several reasons, but especially when her older sister came out as queer. She says the tools she learned in Angels class helped her figure out how to deal with her conflicting beliefs around religion. Peafort says Angels class also helped her feel comfortable exploring her own sexuality and identity as a Fillipina woman and sister.

Even though I felt like I didnt fit into Catholicism and their values, I was still able to take little pieces and apply it to myself or just reframe it in a way that applies to me and my life and my identity, said Peafort.

With Angel as a facilitator, Anaya and several other students started a peer-led LGBTQ group on campus called Qmmunity, which Anaya describes as a sort of extension of Angels class and the Jewish values she teaches. On Thursdays, the group hosts a lunch program called Breaking Bread and the Binary, in which students come together to share a meal, their thoughts and reflections on current events.

The first session this semester was held Jan. 27 on Holocaust Remembrance Day and shortly after the Jan. 15 Colleyville, Texas hostage crisis. Angel expressed how significant the gathering felt and how it reminded her of the importance of creating inclusive spaces not just for Jewish students but for all marginalized people.

Being in this group out and proud, here and queer, on the lawn in front of the church, its the biggest satisfaction that Hitler and the Nazis and fascism and fundamentalism dont rule our lives, Angel said the next day, reflecting on the session. Were here, together, and we wont be frightened back into our respective closets.

Next month, Angel will host the inaugural Alvin H. Baum Jr. Memorial Lecture, in honor of the San Francisco philanthropist known as a community pillar in the Jewish, civil rights and gay communities who died last year. In April, shes leading a social justice-centered interfaith Passover seder focused on themes of climate justice, interfaith solidarity, peace, health and freedom. She also has plans to expand community outreach to address the issue of food insecurity among college students, something that affects LGBTQ people at twice the rate of others, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

All throughout, her core focus is on the intersection of religion and queerness.

I think its so refreshing to hear a different perspective, Peafort said, and even if its based on a religious point of view, it doesnt necessarily feel like it is. It just feels like shes a very wise woman, and a mentor and a friend.

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Meet the rabbi 'queering' religion at Jesuit Catholic USF J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on February 13, 2022

The lurid murder-for-hire plot that claimed Carol Neulanders life, landed her rabbi husband, Fred Neulander, in prison, and broke the heart of South Jerseys Jewish community has inspired a full-length musical theater piece. A Wicked Soul in Cherry Hill is being produced by the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, where it is set for a world premiere in June.

The show consists entirely of songs by Matt Schatz, an award-winning playwright and composer who grew up in South Jersey and was in high school on Nov. 1, 1994, when the victim, a mother of three, was bludgeoned to death at her home. The rabbi was having an affair with a local radio personality, the widow of a well-known radio host, and had paid a self-styled private investigator and an accomplice $18,000 to kill his wife.

The investigations and court cases arising from the murder made headlines for years and have long haunted the playwright and the community he knows well. A Wicked Soul in Cherry Hill was developed beginning in 2018 while he was in residence at Geffens new play program, The Writers Room.

I just want people to see it, give it a fair chance, and get something out of it, Schatz, 42, said Tuesday from Los Angeles, where he continues to write new songs for the production. A director, Mike Donahue, has been selected and casting is underway.

Schatz said the show will neither be a Broadway-style musical extravaganza nor a comedy. But it may be polarizing for audiences nonetheless.

Its tough material, you want to do justice to it, and you dont want to hurt people, said the married father of a 2-year-old, who described theater as the right place to explore this sort of difficult subject matter.

You have to handle it carefully. But its part of my job to ask questions, he said.

What did it mean for a community who knew the rabbi as this person at their bar mitzvahs, at their weddings? How can you separate the times of joy from the horror?

The rabbi was telling people how to be a person, how to be a Jew, and he turned out to be evil. How do we reckon with that? How do we stay Jews? How do we keep our faith?

Jews recount the story of Passover every year because we want to remember and come to some kind of understanding about why terrible things can happen, said Schatz, who describes himself as a Jewish American writer. He grew up in Washington Township, Gloucester County, moved to Cherry Hill while he was in high school, and is a 2001 graduate of the University of the Arts.

The notion that the gruesome crime could become a musical even one written with humor and chutzpah, as the Geffen Playhouse puts it seems inexplicable to some in Cherry Hill, where many would prefer the murder be forgotten, while others cant forget.

An innocent woman was slaughtered, said Sherry Wolkoff, a longtime member of Mkor Shalom, the congregation Neulander established in 1974.

A synagogue was torn apart. A vulnerable alcoholic was duped by Neulander into killing someone for money, Wolkoff said. Is this musical material? They have every right to offer the musical, but should they?

Rabbi Michael Perice of Temple Sinai in Cinnaminson grew up attending Mkor Shalom and vividly remembers the murder and its aftermath during which he became alienated from, but eventually found his way back to, Judaism.

I feel conflicted about this play, said Perice. On one hand I can see it being very therapeutic for people, because in Judaism we use humor, and song, to touch upon our pain.

Ive listened to snippets of the songs and they sound witty and creative, he said. But lets not forget Carol Neulander was a real person, with a real family. This isnt some made-up story for entertainment purposes. This was a tragedy.

Through a family friend, The Inquirer reached out to the Neulanders children Matthew, Benjamin, and Rebecca for comment about the musical but have not gotten a response.

Mkor Shalom president Drew Molotsky, who has directed Chicago and other musicals at the Broadway Theater in Pitman, issued a statement about A Wicked Soul in Cherry Hill on behalf of the synagogue.

We know nothing about the content of the play. This is our history. It involves our friends and our community, and it is very serious to us. To make light of it or to exploit it for entertainment value is not something we will ever condone.

Molotsky said Mkor would make no other comment. The congregation is in the process of merging with Temple Emanuel in Cherry Hill.

Dee Smoke, a longtime Mkor member who is friends with the playwrights family, said 28 years may not be long enough for the damage caused by the murder to sufficiently heal.

I loved Carol. I thought she was an amazing lady, and we all felt terrible about what happened, said Smoke.

Matt has a lot of talent. Everything else has been set to music ... but it may be too hard [to watch the Neulander play] now. Maybe in another 20 years.

READ MORE: Cherry Hill residents want to know why acres of trees were cut down for new houses

Demos of eight songs that appeared online earlier this week but have since been taken down offered a sample of how A Wicked Soul in Cherry Hill will sound onstage. The acoustic, pop-rock tunes have titles such as Thats What He Said (about Fred Neulanders knack for ingratiating himself) and The Cherry Hill Kosher Cake Company, sung by the Carol Neulander character about her life and her effort to build a successful baking business.

Songs such as Yes and Your Own Story are sung by characters based, respectively, on Elaine Soncini, the grieving widow Fred Neulander seduced, and Inquirer reporter Nancy Phillips, to whom hired hitman Len Jenoff confessed. Soncini could not be reached; Phillips, now an editor, declined to comment.

And in the song titled A Note From the Author, a character based on the playwright talks about the impact of the murder on his own life including having discovered that a Cherry Hill apartment where he and his family were living had once been rented by Jenoff.

Its hard to face/so you have resigned/to put it out of your mind/someday maybe youll write about it/but right now you dont feel right about it.

As someone who is posing questions in his play, Schatz said he understands why people in the community may have questions of their own including about the shows signature promotional image.

It depicts a tabletop where a traditional Jewish cookie called a hamentaschen, sits on a plate, its red jelly dripping like blood from a wound.

Ill take responsibility for that one, Schatz said, noting that the confection is named for Haman, a Biblical figure who was an enemy of the Jews.

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A Cherry Hill rabbi hired a hitman to murder his wife. Now, theres a musical about the case. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Posted By admin on February 13, 2022

REBECCA L. DAVIS begins the acknowledgments to her new book, Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics, with these words:

I am the daughter of a religious convert, with clear memories of well-meaning childhood friends asking me, Well, what are you? and of classmates at religious school observing, But you dont look Jewish! If those formative experiences piqued my curiosity about the subject of conversion, this project swept those interests in wholly unanticipated directions.

The topics the book develops may be signaled respectively in those two sentences. Daviss subject appears frequently to be how people objected to the publicly acknowledged changes of religious identity by Americans over the 30 years or so of what might be termed Americas Cold War era. Her terrain is major political conversions from Clare Boothe Luces embrace of Catholicism in 1946 to Chuck Colsons conversion to evangelical Christianity in 1973 though she follows her converts, among them Sammy Davis Jr. and Muhammad Ali, to the very ends of their respective theological and political journeys.

Chapters cover two main tropes, though her treatment of the material tends to be similar. In the first, a convert is sincere, but the clergy involved are overtly or by implication more interested in what the famous person can do for their faith than in the needs of the individual. In the second trope, the convert is not sincere but rather using the public profession of faith to solve a PR problem arising from previous sexual, political, or criminal associations. Thus, an opening chapter on Luce the playwright, journalist, and congresswoman outlines both the personal needs and the theological problems solved through conversion for a genuine spiritual seeker but suggests that Luce was exploited by convert-making Jesuit priests and media-savvy bishops. There follows a chapter on Cold War Disclosures in which a parade of political operators, from Whittaker Chambers to Louis F. Budenz (editor of The Daily Worker) to former Soviet spy master Elizabeth Bentley, are depicted as having used religious conversion as a sponge to wipe away both inconvenient political associations and politically inexpedient homosexual liaisons.

The chapters continue to alternate between these two tropes, with one contrasting Sammy Davis Jr.s conversion to Judaism with those of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. Davis suggests that the rabbi who taught Monroe was a mercenary publicity-seeker, while Daviss rabbi, Max Nussbaum, is portrayed as disinclined to rush a conversion. Davis is careful in her chapter on Ali (a.k.a. Cassius Clay) not to portray either Elijah Muhammad or Malcolm X as cynical careerists, but still the introduction of Malcolm X ends: Released on parole in August 1952, he headed to Detroit. Over the next ten years Malcolm X became Elijah Muhammads trusted minister, a sought-after orator, and a renowned convert seeker. And Davis says of Ali:

More so than any American religious convert since Clare Boothe Luce, Ali stood in the spotlight of his renown and declared that his new faith gave his life purpose because it reshaped his identity. While many Protestants criticized Luce for misunderstanding Gods revealed truth or being misled by corrupt priests, Ali was not believed to have the mental capacity to weigh one set of options against another. And unlike the ex-Communists, for whom religious conversion offered political legitimacy and lent credibility to assertions of newly normative sexuality, his conversion raised doubts about everything about him: his patriotism, his boxing title, and his masculinity. [] Clays conversion became indicative of the susceptibility of Black men to the Nations controversial message, at once indicating weakness and threat.

One of the strengths of Daviss exploration of Luce is her finely grained use of the endless letters Luce got from a range of Protestant ministers and laypeople objecting to her conversion in strenuous and more or less reasoned terms. There are some telling quotations from newspaper stories about Ali, and some about Davis, but no equivalent trove of material to lend the same authoritative texture to her treatment of any other converts, and in the absence of such gritty detail Daviss tendency to regard most clergy with caution lends her accounts most especially on the former communists and on Colson, which puts him in company with Patty Hearst and Manson murder convict Susan Atkins a tone that suggests she views the whole venture of conversion as highly doubtful. The range of religions covered adds to Daviss habitual cocked eyebrow a danger of misinterpreting milieus she doesnt appear to understand in any depth. How many historians in America today could speak in credible detail about an individuals religious experience in the social contexts of Judaism, Catholicism, Islam, evangelical Christianity, Hare Krishna, and more, in a single book?

Passages such as this demonstrate her ability to get into the head of a subject she does consider sincere with considerable subtlety:

Davis identified with the Reform rabbis he met. They were entertainers, just as he was. They were cool. Rabbis possessed qualities that Davis coveted. Lacking a formal education, Davis reveled in the aura of intellectual gravitas that rabbis exuded. The rabbi was the consummate intellectual and a skilled entertainer; he embodied the quality Davis wished for but lacked and the attribute Davis most esteemed in himself.

Rebecca L. Davis offers no proof for this reading of Sammy Davis Jr.s character other than his saying that the first rabbi to visit him in hospital after the car accident that prompted his conversion was an athletic looking man in a khaki suit and a button-down collar, to which she adds the observation that, unlike the bearded rabbis Davis encountered during his childhood in Harlem, this rabbi impressed him. There is no other mention of bearded (presumably Orthodox) rabbis, so again I have no way of assessing her characterization, but unlike her portrait of Luce, which only occasionally transcends two dimensions (Roman Catholicism became Luces lifeboat), this guess as to why Sammy Davis Jr. was attracted to Reform rabbis seems plausible, perhaps because the author shares the feelings she attributes to the convert. As an Orthodox Jew, I find entirely different qualities charismatic in a rabbi and would have been more likely to respond to the quiet expertise of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the sort of bearded figure one might have encountered on the Lower East Side, but still I find the portrayal of Davis as an entertainer impressed by people he saw as fellow entertainers astute.

Yet even in this chapter where the author knows most whereof she speaks, there are readings of the social milieu that may be disputed. A description of a roast of Sammy Davis Jr. at the New York Friars Club says that Pat Buttram, a white comedian from Alabama, noted that if Davis came to his home town, they wouldnt know what to burn on the lawn. These jokes presented Daviss Jewishness as absurd and made light of threats against Black lives. This fails to see how such jokes were actually acknowledging racial tensions rather than dismissing them. Would she similarly dismiss Woody Allens contemporaneous routine about the Jew who dresses as a Moose to go to a fancy-dress party and gets run down on the way home and mounted on the wall of the country club? The punch line touches on Jewish exclusion from such elite venues: And the jokes on them because its restricted. Are such jokes dismissive of slights to Jews, or only dismissive when told to a convert?

Sympathy for Sammy Davis Jr. and his rabbis is contrasted to the authors response to Monroes and Taylors conversions, which were less threatening public stories but also offered opportunities to view the conversions as further tales of innocents in the hands of rapacious clergy. In Sammy Davis Jr.s conversion, Max Nussbaum is portrayed as a voice of caution who urges his charge to consider first the faiths of his parents, but in speaking of Taylor, the author is much more critical:

Nussbaum wanted Taylor to become a model convert, much as Fulton Sheen and Edward Wiatrak urged Clare Boothe Luce to make her religious conversion the basis for a global mission. [] Having himself survived an anti-Semitic attack, Nussbaum welcomed Taylor, because I know that you will be a great asset to us.

In this account, Nussbaum does not sound at all like the kind of hipster Sammy Davis Jr. admired. There is a lot of detail about Taylors pledge to buy $100,000 of Israeli bonds and then this sentence: Her whiteness and her Zionism nevertheless underscored Jewish fascination with ancestral descent, which typically prioritized Ashkenazi Jews over those who traced their ancestry to the Middle East or global South. Thus, two unrelated phenomena are welded together as if one explained the other.

Elsewhere, Davis notes that, by the 1960s, liberal and conservative Jews increasingly described Judaism as more than a faith, attributing their deeply held political perspectives to a wellspring of ethnic inheritance. I would read the social context differently and suggest that American Jews by the 1960s were largely assimilating and increasingly intermarrying. Zero Mostels son noted of his fathers performance in the role of Tevye in the 1964 Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof that, when the character rejected his third daughters intermarriage, Mostel gave the line No! full force, because that is how Mostels own mother had greeted the news of his own intermarriage. So Jewish fascination with ancestral descent is a polite way of saying that, when Jews stop practicing their faith in every aspect of their lives (which is what the songs opening number, Tradition, was about), they necessarily have to consider Judaism an ethnicity instead, an identity that a convert cannot acquire.

Daviss narrative staple is that converts have a bad time, female converts more so. What about Cold War conversions that do not fit this trope? What about Leonard Cohen and his recalibration of his life as a Buddhist monk? What about Bob Dylans highly public and musically successful dalliance with evangelical Christianity? Dylan eventually found his way back to Judaism via Chabad Hasidism, but the avoidance of such subjects makes me wonder if Davis is only really interested in those she can cast as victims or poseurs.

A concluding chapter puts all of these stories into the context of a present day in which [s]ectarian divisions that once made religious conversions controversial were subsumed into a bifurcated political landscape that sorted beliefs according to liberal and conservative above all other distinctions. Alas, this eras divide between the secular and the religious pervades all Daviss readings of the motivation of her converts. She refuses to enter into the spirit of the Cold War era, which was not necessarily more innocent but where public discourse had not quite eliminated any middle ground. I recently read John Lewis Gaddiss 2011 book, George F. Kennan: An American Life, which had no aspirations to the breadth of Daviss survey but nonetheless managed to explore a kind of quasi-religious public servants intellectual life during the Cold War without the sort of hindsight that Davis often seems circumscribed by. Perhaps Gaddis started his project long before the age of Trump or even Obama and thus didnt read the Cold War through that prism. But there is also the question of breadth. I first read Kennan in the 1980s, while taking a two-semester course on the Cold War as an undergraduate, and I remember telling my instructor that I aspired to write a religious version of Edmund Wilsons Patriotic Gore (1962) charting the lives of US religious thinkers. He said, That sounds like a lot of work. Daviss survey, with its welter of examples from a wide range of milieus, makes me realize just what he meant.

Atar HadarisSongs from Bialik: Selected Poems of H. N. Bialik (Syracuse University Press, 2000) was a finalist for the American Literary Translators Association Award and his PEN Translates Awardwinning Lives of the Dead: Collected Poems of Hanoch Levin appeared in June from Arc Publications. He received rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Daniel Landes and was awarded a PhD in Theology from Liverpool Hope University for a thesis on Jewish commentators in William Tyndales translation of Deuteronomy and its revisions into the King James Bible.

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Victims and Poseurs: On Rebecca L. Davis's Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics - lareviewofbooks

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Posted By admin on February 13, 2022

Religious Composition of Countries

The world has become increasingly more secular in the last few decades. However, religion remains an integral part of many peoples lives, and 84% of the worlds population identifies with a religious group.

The religious profile of the world is rapidly changing, driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and the size of youth populations among the worlds major religions, as well as by people switching faiths.

With the help of data from Pew Research Center, we break down the religious composition of the major religions in countries worldwide.

Determining the exact number of religions across the world is a daunting task. Many religions can be difficult to categorize or to tell apart for those not intimately familiar with their doctrine.

Pew Research Center organizes the worlds religions into seven major categories, which includes five major religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism), one category that broadly includes all Folk/Traditional religions, and an unaffiliated category.

Globally, Christianity has the largest following of these categories. Around 31% of the worlds population are Christians, closely followed by Muslims at 25%. Jews have the smallest population of major religions, with only 0.2% of the world identifying as Jewish.

Lets take a look at the religious composition of the world when accounting for regions:

From Islam being the dominant religion in the Middle East to over 95% of Cambodians and Thais following Buddhism, heres how prevalent every major religion in the world is.

The worlds largest religion, Christianity, is practiced by about 2.4 billion people.

The country with the highest number of practicing Christians is the United States, with a Christian population of 253 million. Brazil and Mexico follow closely with 185 million and 118 million Christians, respectively.

Christianity has historically spread around the globe and today it remains a geographically widespread religion. Over the past century, it has become less concentrated in Europe while becoming more evenly distributed throughout the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region.

Even though its the predominant religion of countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa, by sheer number, countries in Asia have the highest percentage of practicing Muslims in the world.

It may surprise you to know that 14.2% of Indians are Muslim. As a result, the country is home to one of the worlds largest Muslim populations, surpassed only by Indonesia.

Islam is also the worlds fastest-growing major religion. The number of Muslims is expected to increase by 70%, from 1.8 billion in 2015 to nearly 3 billion in 2060. The fact that they have the youngest median age, at 24, also helps this population growth.

While Jews historically have been found all around the globe, Judaism is highly geographically concentrated today. More than four-fifths of all Jews live in just two countries: the United States and Israel. Israel is the only country with a Jewish majority, with 76% of the population being practicing Jews.

The largest remaining shares of the global Jewish population apart from the U.S. and Israel are in Canada (about 3% of the countrys population), France (2%), the United Kingdom (2%), Germany (2%), Russia (2%) and Argentina (between 1% and 2%).

The religiously unaffiliated population includes atheists, agnostics, and people who do not identify with any particular religion. 720 million of the Chinese population consider themselves religiously unaffiliated, while 78% of Czechs feel the same way.

However, it is worth noting that many of the religiously unaffiliated hold some religious or spiritual beliefs. For example, surveys have found that faith in God or a higher power is shared by 7% of unaffiliated Chinese adults, 30% of unaffiliated French adults, and 68% of unaffiliated U.S. adults.

Hinduism is the third-largest religion worldwide, with approximately 1.2 billion Hindus in many countries. Interestingly, however, Hinduism is the dominant religion in only three countries, India with 79%, Nepal with 80%, and Mauritius with 48%.

Although Hinduism is rarely a countrys primary religion, it still enjoys a global presence. Many regions around the world support significant populations of Hindus, including the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, North America, and South America.

According to estimates, half the worlds Buddhists live in China. Still, they make up only 18% of the countrys population. Most of the rest of the worlds Buddhists live in East and South Asia, including 13% in Thailand (where 93% of the population is Buddhist).

Buddhism in Asia is a matter of both identity and practice. Scholars and journalists have documented that many Asian countries may engage in Buddhist practices without considering themselves part of any organized religion.

Folk religion is any ethnic or cultural religious practice that falls outside the doctrine of organized religion. Grounded on popular beliefs and sometimes called popular or vernacular religion, the term refers to how people experience and practice religion in their daily lives.

As of 2020, an estimated 429 million people, about 6% of the worlds total population, were adherents of folk or traditional religions. Some notable folk religions include African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, Native American religions, and Australian aboriginal religions.

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Mapped: The World's Major Religions, by Distribution - Visual Capitalist

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Posted By admin on February 13, 2022

One definition of modesty is behavior, manner, or appearance intended to avoid impropriety or indecency. This covers the Islamic custom of keeping the girls and women covered from the eyes of men and the public.

In a Karnataka institute of education, the authorities suddenly decided not to allow girls into the school premises if they wore the hijab which is not only a part of their cultural upbringing but also identifies their faith. This led to such conflict of interest leading to riots that a three-day ban was instituted in Karnataka for educational institutes.

This is clearly rooted in patriarchy through history but today, it also has evolved into a matter of choice and not compulsion for the girls concerned. Let us take a closer look at the whole issue.

Islam began as a small faith community in the Arabian Peninsula. The community was established in Medina by the prophet Mohammed (c. 570632 CE). From there it spread through the Middle East to Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa, to Central Asia, and to many societies around the Arabian Sea.

After Islam was established in the Middle East and North Africa, it made significant inroads into Europe, as well. Scarves and veils of different colours and shapes were customary in countless cultures long before Islam came into being in the seventh century in the Arabian Peninsula (which includes present-day Saudi Arabia).

To this day, head coverings play a significant role in many religions, including Orthodox Judaism and Catholicism.

A hijab is a veil worn by certain Muslim women in the presence of any male outside of their immediate family or sometimes by men in general, which covers the head and chest. Another interpretation can also refer to the seclusion of women from men in the public domain, whereas a metaphysical dimension, may refer to "the veil which separates man, or the world, from God.

Since the seventh century, Islam has grown to be one of the major world religions. As it spread through the Middle East to Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa, to Central Asia, and to many different societies around the Arabian Sea, it incorporated some local veiling customs and influenced others. But it is only recently that some Islamic states, such as Iran, have begun to require all women to wear the veil (in Iran it is called the chador, which covers the entire body).

Critics of the Muslim veiling tradition argue that women do not wear the veil by choice, and they are often forced to cover their heads and bodies. In contrast, many daughters of Muslim immigrants in the West argue that the veil symbolizes devotion and piety and that veiling is their own choice. To them it is a question of religious identity and self-expression.

There are four kinds of coverings Muslim girls and women are mandatorily must use also by those who fall within Judaism differing in different schools of thought and also in different geographical locations. These are the headscarf or the hijab, the niqab, the chador and the burkha.

Muslim religious writings are not entirely clear on the question of women veiling. Various statements in the Quran and the Hadith (statements attributed to the prophet Mohammed) make reference to Mohammeds wives veiling, but it is debatable whether these statements apply only to the Prophets wives or to all Muslim women.

The burqa is primarily urban, a symbol of non laboring status, and may conceal fashionable modern apparel. (Instead of the burqa, village women, whose farm and household work would be hindered, wear long, loose, baggy shirts and trousers and a large head scarf that they pull across the face in the presence of men outside the specified family circle. Some nomadic women do not cover their faces.)

The Qu'ran (Sura XXIV.31) directs women to "be modest, draw their veils over their bosoms, and not reveal their adornments" except to certain specified male relatives, slaves, eunuchs, women, and children. In practice, this has resulted in the system of purdah (literally, "curtain")-the enforced seclusion of Muslim women and their concealment under special outer garments in any situation where they might encounter non-familial men. These garments have taken different forms in various parts of the Islamic world.

One source claims that the burqa is a custom Muslims took over from the Byzantine Christians. The Quran talks about the need for both men and women to dress modestly. Modest appearance means that erogenous parts of the body should be covered suitably. This modest dress or hijab, meant both for men and women, has been historically understood in diverse ways among different Muslim communities.

The common word used for all these covered robes worn by Muslim women mostly is purdah which means curtain that refers to using a cover to guard the girls and women from men everywhere. But in India, burqa is more commonly used than chador or niqab and purdah has a much wider meaning and use that points out at the forced invisibility of girls and women so far as their physical body is concerned.

There have been attempts, mainly political, to ban the use of the purdah in different countries without success because in some countries and cultures, a percentage of women are all for the burqa and do not want it banned.

The burqa, originally invented to restrict the visibility of women to the outer world and their mobility too, has another edge. Srivastava brings this across with the right dose of irony and humor. If the burqa invests women with confinement of different kinds, it also offers them the opportunity to express their emotions through facial gestures others cannot see.

On the other hand, they can shed silent tears of pain, of suffering, of helplessness, of loss because loud wailing is rendered needless and futile as no one listens to a womans weeping. Women who are not constrained by the burqa are constrained by the same limitations of movement and choice and dictation and any violation of the patriarchal expectation is severely dealt with.

This enforced invisibility, in the shape of a burqa, or, hijab, or chador or scarf, is violence. Is the hijab a ghetto patriarchy designed for women? Is it to protect their women from the dangers lurking in the world outside? Or is it one way of asserting property rights over mother, wife, daughter and sister? Is it a political strategy to keep them within confines so that other men do not see them and they do not set eyes on men beyond the immediate family? Or, is it a form of protection for the men, who, consciously or otherwise, feel threatened by the women who had mothered them, or slept with them, or looked up to them as father, brother, husband or son? Is it a form of first appropriating and then encroaching into their space geographically, morally, emotionally?

But right into the first two decades of the 21st century, should not the choice of wearing or not wearing the hijab best left to the girls and the women concerned? Let them decide once and for all, whether they will or will not wear the hijab. Either way, it is not an issue that should be politicized to lead to violence under any circumstance.

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THE HIJAB STORY - The Citizen

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Posted By admin on February 13, 2022

Eli Rosenblatt, visiting assistant professor of Religious Studies at Northwestern University, presents the first of three presentations in this years Emerging Scholars Lecture Series sponsored by the Center for Judaic and Holocaust Studies at Youngstown State University and the Jewish Studies Program at Kent State University.

The virtual lecture, titled Creole Israel: The Jews of Suriname (1900-1960), will be 5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16. Register here.

The other two lectures are: 5 p.m. March 15, with C. Tova Markenson, C. Tova Markenson, assistant professor, Academy for Jewish Religion, Jewish Feelings: Performing Tsuris (Troubles) at the Yiddish Theatres in Buenos Aires (1880-1940), register here; and 5 p.m. April 12, Elly Moseson, visiting professor of Eastern European Jewish Studies, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Protecting House and Hearth: Jewish Domestic Magic in Pre-Modern Europe, register here.

All lectures are in an online, virtual format and are free.

In the first lecture, Rosenblatt will explore a Caribbean Jewish society on the northeastern coast of South America, among the oldest continuously existing Jewish communities in the Western Hemisphere. He will argue that the Jews of Suriname, though distinctly situated in their tropical environment and largely unknown outside the Dutch sphere today, are the relatives of all American Jews.

Rosenblatts research focuses on modern Judaism, with a particular emphasis on Ashkenazic and Atlantic Jewish cultures in the 19th and 20th centuries. He holds a PhD in Jewish Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He has taught at the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, Georgetown Universitys Walsh School of Foreign Service and UC-Berkeley.

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"Jews Around the World" lecture series begins this week - YSU.edu

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