Lynne on Jewish stuff

Does Religion Make You Nice?

2008-11-10T16:24:00.001-05:00

Does atheism make you mean?

By Paul Bloom
Posted Friday, Nov. 7, 2008, at 7:05 AM ET

Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew. Many would go further and agree with conservative commentator Laura Schlessinger that morality requires a belief in God—otherwise, all we have is our selfish desires. In The Ten Commandments, she approvingly quotes Dostoyevsky: "Where there is no God, all is permitted." The opposing view, held by a small minority of secularists, such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, is that belief in God makes us worse. As Hitchens puts it, "Religion poisons everything."

Arguments about the merits of religions are often battled out with reference to history, by comparing the sins of theists and atheists. (I see your Crusades and raise you Stalin!) But a more promising approach is to look at empirical research that directly addresses the effects of religion on how people behave.

In a review published in Science last month, psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff discuss several experiments that lean pro-Schlessinger. In one of their own studies, they primed half the participants with a spirituality-themed word jumble (including the words divine and God) and gave the other half the same task with nonspiritual words. Then, they gave all the participants $10 each and told them that they could either keep it or share their cash reward with another (anonymous) subject. Ultimately, the spiritual-jumble group parted with more than twice as much money as the control. Norenzayan and Shariff suggest that this lopsided outcome is the result of an evolutionary imperative to care about one's reputation. If you think about God, you believe someone is watching. This argument is bolstered by other research that they review showing that people are more generous and less likely to cheat when others are around. More surprisingly, people also behave better when exposed to posters with eyes on them.

Maybe, then, religious people are nicer because they believe that they are never alone. If so, you would expect to find the positive influence of religion outside the laboratory. And, indeed, there is evidence within the United States for a correlation between religion and what might broadly be called "niceness." In Gross National Happiness, Arthur Brooks notes that atheists are less charitable than their God-fearing counterparts: They donate less blood, for example, and are less likely to offer change to homeless people on the street. Since giving to charity makes one happy, Brooks speculates that this could be one reason why atheists are so miserable. In a 2004 study, twice as many religious people say that they are very happy with their lives, while the secular are twice as likely to say that they feel like failures.

Since the United States is more religious than other Western countries, this research suggests that Fox talk-show host Sean Hannity was on to something when he asserted that the United States is "the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the Earth." In general, you might expect people in less God-fearing countries to be a lot less kind to one another than Americans are.

It is at this point that the "We need God to be good" case falls apart. Countries worthy of consideration aren't those like North Korea and China, where religion is savagely repressed, but those in which people freely choose atheism. In his new book, Society Without God, Phil Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes—probably the most godless people on Earth. They don't go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don't believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they're nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality. And—even without belief in a God looming over them—they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.

Denmark and Sweden aren't exceptions. A 2005 study by Gregory Paul looking at 18 democracies found that the more atheist societies tended to have relatively low murder and suicide rates and relatively low incidence of abortion and teen pregnancy.

So, this is a puzzle. If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well—better, in many ways, than devout ones.

The first step to solving this conundrum is to unpack the different components of religion. In my own work, I have argued that all humans, even young children, tacitly hold some supernatural beliefs, most notably the dualistic view that bodies and minds are distinct. (Most Americans who describe themselves as atheists, for instance, nonetheless believe that their souls will survive the death of their bodies.) Other aspects of religion vary across cultures and across individuals within cultures. There are factual beliefs, such as the idea that there exists a single god that performs miracles, and moral beliefs, like the conviction that abortion is murder. There are religious practices, such as the sacrament or the lighting of Sabbath candles. And there is the community that a religion brings with it—the people who are part of your church, synagogue, or mosque.

The positive effect of religion in the real world, to my mind, is tied to this last, community component—rather than a belief in constant surveillance by a higher power. Humans are social beings, and we are happier, and better, when connected to others. This is the moral of sociologist Robert Putnam's work on American life. In Bowling Alone, he argues that voluntary association with other people is integral to a fulfilled and productive existence—it makes us "smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy."

The Danes and the Swedes, despite being godless, have strong communities. In fact, Zuckerman points out that most Danes and Swedes identify themselves as Christian. They get married in church, have their babies baptized, give some of their income to the church, and feel attached to their religious community—they just don't believe in God. Zuckerman suggests that Scandinavian Christians are a lot like American Jews, who are also highly secularized in belief and practice, have strong communal feelings, and tend to be well-behaved.

American atheists, by contrast, are often left out of community life. The studies that Brooks cites in Gross National Happiness, which find that the religious are happier and more generous then the secular, do not define religious and secular in terms of belief. They define it in terms of religious attendance. It is not hard to see how being left out of one of the dominant modes of American togetherness can have a corrosive effect on morality. As P.Z. Myers, the biologist and prominent atheist, puts it, "[S]cattered individuals who are excluded from communities do not receive the benefits of community, nor do they feel willing to contribute to the communities that exclude them."

The sorry state of American atheists, then, may have nothing to do with their lack of religious belief. It may instead be the result of their outsider status within a highly religious country where many of their fellow citizens, including very vocal ones like Schlessinger, find them immoral and unpatriotic. Religion may not poison everything, but it deserves part of the blame for this one.

Paul Bloom is a professor of psychology at Yale University, and author of Descartes' Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human. He is currently writing a book about pleasure.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2203614/

Slate Article: Does Religion Make You Nice?

2008-11-10T16:19:00.000-05:00

Lynne has sent you an article from .

faith-based

Does Religion Make You Nice?
Does atheism make you mean?
By Paul Bloom
Posted Friday, Nov. 7, 2008, at 7:05 AM ET

Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew. Many would go further and agree with conservative commentator Laura Schlessinger that mor! ality requires a belief in God—otherwise, all we have is our selfish desires. In The Ten Commandments, she approvingly quotes Dostoyevsky: "Where there is no God, all is permitted." The opposing view, held by a small minority of secularists, such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, is that belief in God makes us worse. As Hitchens puts it, "Religion poisons everything."

In a review published in Science last month, psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff discuss several experiments that lean pro-Schlessinger. In one of their own studies, they primed half the participants with a spirituality-themed word jumble (including the words divine and God) and gave the other half the same task with nonspiritual words. Then, they gave all the participants $10 each and told them that they could either keep it or share their cash reward with another (anonymous) subject. Ultimately, the spiritual-jumble group parted with more than twice as much money as the control. Norenzayan and Shariff suggest that this lopsided outcome is the result of an evolutionary imperative to care about one's reputation. If you think about God, you believe someone is watching. This argument is bolstered by other research that they review s! howing that people are more generous and less likely to cheat when oth ers are around. More surprisingly, people also behave better when exposed to posters with eyes on them.

Maybe, then, religious people are nicer because they believe that they are never alone. If so, you would expect to find the positive influence of religion outside the laboratory. And, indeed, there is evidence within the United States for a correlation between religion and what might broadly be called "niceness." In Gross National Happiness, Arthur Brooks notes that atheists are less charitable than their God-fearing counterparts: They donate less blood, for example, and are less likely to offer change to homeless people on the street. Since giving to charity makes one happy, Brooks speculates that this could be one reason why atheists are so miserable. In a 2004 study, twice as many religiou! s people say that they are very happy with their lives, while the secular are twice as likely to say that they feel like failures.

It is at this point that the "We need God to be good" case falls apart. Countries worthy of consideration aren't those like North Korea and China, where religion is savagely repressed, but those in which people freely choose atheism. In his new book, Society Without God! , Phil Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes—probably the most godless people on Earth. They don't go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don't believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they're nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality. And—even without belief in a God looming over them—they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.

So, this is a puzzle. If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well—better, in many ways, than devout ones.

The first ! step to solving this conundrum is to unpack the different components of religion. In my own work, I have argued that all humans, even young children, tacitly hold some supernatural beliefs, most notably the dualistic view that bodies and minds are distinct. (Most Americans who describe themselves as atheists, for instance, nonetheless believe that their souls will survive the death of their bodies.) Other aspects of religion vary across cultures and across individuals within cultures. There are factual beliefs, such as the idea that there exists a single god that performs miracles, and moral beliefs, like the conviction that abortion is murder. There are religious practices, such as the sacrament or the lighting of Sabbath candles. And there is the community that a religion brings with it—the people who ! are part of your church, synagogue, or mosque.

The positive effe ct of religion in the real world, to my mind, is tied to this last, community component—rather than a belief in constant surveillance by a higher power. Humans are social beings, and we are happier, and better, when connected to others. This is the moral of sociologist Robert Putnam's work on American life. In Bowling Alone, he argues that voluntary association with other people is integral to a fulfilled and productive existence—it makes us "smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy."

The Danes and the Swedes, despite being godless, have strong communities. In fact, Zuckerman points out that most Danes and Swedes identify themselves as Christian. They get married in church, have their babies baptized, give some of their income to the church, a! nd feel attached to their religious community—they just don't believe in God. Zuckerman suggests that Scandinavian Christians are a lot like American Jews, who are also highly secularized in belief and practice, have strong communal feelings, and tend to be well-behaved.

The sorry state of American atheists, then, may have not hing to do with their lack of religious belief. It may instead be the result of their outsider status within a highly religious country where many of their fellow citizens, including very vocal ones like Schlessinger, find them immoral and unpatriotic. Religion may not poison everything, but it deserves part of the blame for this one.

The Chanukah Song (Part 1)

2007-12-09T00:14:00.001-05:00

Click here to link to the SNL version of trailer for Apocalypto, Mel Gibson's new movie!

2006-12-11T17:19:00.000-05:00

A Chanukah house!

2006-12-11T09:43:00.000-05:00

Saw this on University, just east of Henderson.

Saw it on a tee-shirt...

2006-12-10T18:28:00.000-05:00

"The Rapture is not an exit strategy!"

Really, if I had the extra money right now, I'd buy one of these for Dr. Cohen, just for making us read that awful Left Behind book!

Lynne's paper

2006-12-07T22:49:00.000-05:00

Oh, dear fellow class members, I am going to post my paper, but let me tell you, I have no idea if it even makes sense. I had all my notes, a pile of my books on my desk, ready to write...and last night came down with a nasty sore throat and chills. So, I'm writing but feeling awful, and have no idea if the thoughts in my head were in any way translated to the page...

It just goes to show, I may be older, but not necessarily wiser! You'd think I would have learned to do things NOT at the last minute!

Lynne Foster Shifriss
F358/Jewish Identity
8 December 2006

Developing a Jewish Identity: the process of becoming a “real” Jew

For wherever you go, I will go; Wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.(Tanakh, Ruth 1:16, p. 1420)

A young man studying for conversion turned to his teacher and said, “But, Rabbi Kushner, Fitzpatrick isn’t a Jewish name.”

To which Kushner replied, “It will be.” (Diamant, unnumbered page)

Introduction

I converted to Judaism in 1981. At that time, the rituals of Judaism were not a major part of my life or that of my husband, Jordan. While Jordan had always continued to observe major holidays and enjoy Jewish cultural connections, he had found a more authentic spiritual connection in a meditation group. We both belonged to the meditation group for several years after we met. At the same time, I had a tremendous attraction to Judaism. I was drawn to the rituals and the beliefs.

My parents considered themselves to be Lutherans, but did not attend church from the year when I was in first grade to my adulthood. I was not impressed with what I heard about local churches in my area of Indianapolis – my good friend, also a spiritual seeker, attended a church while we were in high school and told me of the church’s dilemma about admitting a black family. (The church’s solution to this “problem” was to allow the black family to attend, but not to offer full membership.)

During college, I actively searched for a religion. I took many Religious Studies classes. I attended Friends’ Meeting for a while, but the silent worship and lack of ritual did not quite fit me. I attended the Episcopalian Church, which in Bloomington was very casual with an emphasis on social action. As I continued my studies after college graduation, eventually becoming confirmed at a church in Indianapolis, I was quietly uncomfortable. The atmosphere of the Indianapolis church was much more formal, much less social action. I remember questioning and questioning my teacher, an Episcopalian priest: Why should people connect with God through Jesus? Why don’t they connect directly to God? Doesn’t assuming that Jesus’ sacrifice atones for human sins – doesn’t that absolve people of personal responsibility? And on and on. Clearly I was not meant to be an Episcopalian.

When I became connected with the meditation group, the feel of community, the emphasis on personal growth, growing spiritually by doing service in the world – all of that appealed to me very much. What didn’t appeal to me was the overlay of Indian culture and customs.

Through my own inner feeling and after a couple of talks with my future in-laws, I decided that a family needs to have one religion, and that I would formally convert to Judaism.

I studied through the Hillel Center rabbi and then, because I found his class somewhat unsatisfying, substituted an IU class on Jewish feminism, taught by Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell. Though that was stimulating and fun, I probably missed some basic training in Judaism that I should have gotten.

We had two weddings on the same day. In the morning, a small wedding performed by our meditation teacher. In the afternoon, we had a large Jewish ceremony to which we invited friends, family, our meditation group, and all of Harmony School (where my husband taught, and which was much smaller then).

We eventually moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where we lived with our meditation group and my husband attended graduate school.

I eventually stopped attending classes with our meditation group and felt really rootless, spiritually. I felt that I did not have a connection with any Jewish group (and the money to belong to a synagogue would have been a real issue at that time in our lives).

When we observed Jewish holidays, it was often with my in-laws, and so my mother-in-law was the facilitator and I was a guest. When we did things at our house, I often referred to us as “loosey-goosey Jews, we just do what we want.” But that did not feel satisfying, either.

After we returned to Bloomington, I worked at Hillel for Rabbi Sue Shifron for two years. Her open-mindedness and teaching really affected me. She used to say “Just do one Jewish thing. If you don’t light the Shabbat candles, start with just doing that.”

Later, after we joined the synagogue (because I felt so rootless, religion-wise, I wanted to make sure that our children felt at home in a synagogue, no matter what spiritual paths they might take as adults) – I began to be pulled into Jewish life. I began to participate.

All along, we had Jewish friends who invited us to joyful celebrations. We had a Jewish wedding. We did all the holidays, one way or another.

But I did not feel that I could let go of the “fake Jew” sign on my forehead (Diamant, 208) until I started to volunteer for various things in our Jewish community, until I began to be seen as someone who could be called on. Being called to help with a real-life situation, whether bringing a dish, attending a shiva minyan, putting together a bulk mailing, peeling hard-boiled eggs in the Beth Shalom kitchen, or becoming a member of the Chevra Kadisha and helping with the ritual of washing and dressing a deceased person – I finally felt as if I had earned my place.

That’s what, for me, finally made me feel like a real Jew.

As I did some interviews and reading in preparation for writing this paper, I found a mixture of answers, a mixture of paths taken. But following through and learning about others’ reflections on their journeys made me feel much more clear when thinking about my own.

And now, some exploring on “Just what path did you follow, and what was it that finally made you feel like a ‘real’ Jew?”

“It felt like home”

What is it that makes a person feel that he/she must give up their previous religious life and study to become a Jew?

Rabbi Sue Shifron described what she’s seen over years of teaching a conversion class:

I have also been amazed throughout the years the number of people who have come to study for conversion that have some family connection to Judaism and have somehow felt dawn to Judaism because of it. So many people have also said to me that they just felt at home once they began learning about Judaism.

Shane Caudill echoed that in his comments to me:

Starting after graduating high school I began a very long journey of exploring various religions both western and eastern. In 93 I approached a rabbi on the possibility of conversion but was turned away, I did not realize the it was common for a rabbi to turn someone away at least three times. After studying and practicing Zen Buddhism for the next four years I found myself in a position feeling unsatisfied with my experience so I started studying Judaism on my own and finding what I felt was missing. This is when I approached a new rabbi and began my process for conversion, and I might add it was a really wise choice for myself. Afterwards I found out that my family from my mother's side has German Jew ancestry, so I like to think I'm bringing the Jew back into the family.

Joy Kingsolver was drawn to read and study Jewish history and folklore, and to study Hebrew after she talked to her Jewish friend, who told her about some of the traditions of Pesach. She finally knew that converting might become a reality for her after reading a book about converting by Norman Lamm.

For Dan Price, it began with his contact with Judaism after his wife converted. Her conversion didn’t necessarily make him want to convert, but it did make him want to see if it would be possible that he could worship with Jews:

The discovery that I could worship with Jews led to the obvious conclusion that Jewish worship was perfectly valid worship; something that my Christian background said was impossible. Ultimately, the resolution of this contradiction was my conversion to Judaism. The bottom line here is that it’s easier for me to be a Jew who accepts Christians, than to be a Christian who accepts Jews. As a Jew, I need only overcome Christianity’s somewhat colored history with Jews; as a Christian, I needed to overcome my own theology.

An interviewee who preferred to remain anonymous said that for her, she just began to attend services and found Rabbi Wasserman a charismatic and helpful teacher. (Anonymous #2)

Another interviewee who preferred to remain anonymous said that she “always had a Jewish boyfriend.” She felt that her (now) husband saying to her that he didn’t care if she was Jewish or not freed her to explore Judaism. (Anonymous #1)

John Applegate said that he came to the realization that “with everyone else in my immediate family being actively involved in the Jewish community, I was in fact living a Jewish life.”

I found it interesting that one of my interviewees said she always had a Jewish boyfriend. In fact, my husband was not the first Jewish man I dated. I was always very attracted to Jewish men. For me, though, a set of books I read as a child were very influential: Reading All-of-a-Kind Family and its sequels made me – a little Protestant girl in the 1960s Midwest – long to be part of the very Jewish world of the Lower East Side.

From the beginning

At the same time that I think service and living one’s ideals is vitally important, I recognize that there are other integral parts of learning to feel like a Jew.

In the beginning, there is the studying, and that is essential. The framework of Jewish life has to be an understanding of what it means, the history, the philosophy, the stories.

As Joy Kingsolver said in her e-mail interview with me (explaining how she would give advice to someone who was converting about developing their own Jewish identity):

Study everything – language, history, literature – it all works together. Study with others if possible. Read everything. It will help you find your own place in Judaism.

And Dan Price points out:

It’s not so much that knowing stuff builds my Jewish identity; it’s rather that ignorance deflates it. When I have to admit that I don’t know something about some holiday or point of kashrut, I suddenly feel like an imposter. This is not a matter of condescension from other ‘real’ Jews, it’s an internally generated embarrassment. I find myself thinking: ‘I ought to know that, why haven’t I bothered to learn it?’

That comment really resonated with me, especially because I don’t speak or read Hebrew and often feel a little left out, even now. I felt that John Applegate also touched on that concern:

I think that converts often feel that they need to be – to mix metaphors – more Catholic than the Pope. I really struggle against that, to be observant to the extent that it is meaningful to me, and not to try too hard.

In thinking back, if I had had a more organized and demanding conversion process, it may have contributed to me feeling more at home within Judaism. As it was, I take comfort from John’s words and try to relax with the Jew that I am, and not what I wish I were.

Culture, schmulture!

One could study from books for a long, long, time, and that would still not teach a person to feel comfortable with Jewish customs and values. And though it can be said that it’s a gross generalization (and I just know that Dr. Cohen will say that!) the fact is that Jewish behavior – or, at least, the Eastern European/Israeli/New Jersey behavior of my future in-laws --was a profound shock to this Midwestern girl! I kept saying to Jordan, “Why are they arguing?” and he would say, “They’re not arguing, they’re just talking!”

Anita Diamant discussed that in Choosing a Jewish Life:

… getting used to Jews’ ethnic style can present a challenge, too. Although there are plenty of cool, distant Jewish families, Jewish households tend to be demonstrative, overinvolved, and ‘hot.’

If I had read a book like What to Do When You’re Dating a Jew when I was first introduced to the Jewish community, it would have made it easier for me to connect, or at least to understand. The book is aimed at non-Jews who want to know all about interacting and fitting into Jewish families with as little friction as possible. It has lots of down-to-earth information. For example:

SHABBAT

What: The day of rest

When: Every Friday starting at sundown

Lasts: One day, starts and ends at sundown

Where: Temple or home

Why: After creating the universe, God rested

AKA: The Sabbath, Shabbes (Yiddish)

Importance: ***** (most important holiday)

Food: Challah

What to bring: Kosher wine, dessert, flowers

What to say: Shabbat Shalom (pronounced ‘shah-baht shah-lome’, meaning ‘peaceful Sabbath,’ or ‘Good Shabbes’ (‘shah-biss’), meaning ‘good Sabbath.’

(Weiss and Block, p. 56)

What to Do When You’re Dating a Jew also discusses things like Jews talking with their mouths and their hands, Yiddish and Hebrew phrases to throw around, great Jewish recipes, Jewish beliefs on heaven and reincarnation, Jewish law on sex, etc. At the very beginning, a new Jew or a potential Jew just doesn’t know this practical and fun stuff. How helpful it would have been to have a heads-up!

Outside the home

In his book Being Jewish, Ari Goldman tells a story about his daughter, Emma, who always made sure he gave money to beggars on the street. She was uncomfortable with not being able to give on Shabbat, so she found a solution:

Before leaving for synagogue Saturday morning, she butters some bagels or takes a bag of potato chips or a box of raisins with her. When we encounter the homeless, Emma offers them food.

I like to think that Emma’s undaunted charitable impulse grows out of the Jewish rituals that she’s learned at school and at home. To be a Jew in the world means translating Jewish ritual into action. (Goldman, p. 249) (Emphasis is mine.)

Several people whom I interviewed mentioned this idea as well – that being asked to do something or knowing that one had to do something was an affirmation of Jewish identity.

For John Applegate, being asked to do an aliyah was important:

The son of a friend of ours was becoming bar mitzvah at an Orthodox schul in Manhattan. I was asked to do an aliyah (which in the view of the schul was probably not totally kosher, but they didn’t ask and they knew that I was ‘ben Avraham v’ Sarah’). ... having an aliyah under those circumstances made me feel like a ‘real Jew’ for the first time. Needless to say, being president of the congregation here was a daily confirmation of that feeling.

Joy Kingsolver said that working at a Jewish institution is important to her, that she finds it “very satisfying to be able to give something back to the Jewish community.”

She also mentioned participating in a service:

One thing that really makes me feel Jewish is wearing a tallit and being called for an aliyah or being asked to do some small thing during the service. This is really important to me.

Shane Caudill also said that participating in a service was integral to his feeling like a Jew: “When I attended a minyan and was counted as one of ten required to complete the minyan.“

When asked what makes him feel like a Jew, Dan Price replied:

Beit Midrash, Hebrew classes, Jewish Studies lectures and other learning activities are important, but involvement in more practical issues is also important. I have served on the Beth Shalom Board and two committees, as well as participating in various social justice issues. All of this is community involvement which naturally builds a sense of belonging to the community, but it is more than that. One could be involved in a community by attending pitch-in dinners and picnics. Community involvement that serves Divine purpose, however, enables one to become closer to not just the community, but to G-d.

And, indeed, the advice one interviewee (Anon. #2) had for converts on developing their own Jewish identity spoke to involvement in the community: “Read. Attend services. Keep the Sabbath. Join the mitzvah committee or the social action committee.”

One interviewee (Anon. #1) said that her Jewish wedding was the first time she felt like a real Jew. She, as was discussed earlier, is more active as a convert than many born Jews – not only in doing things like lighting yahrzeit candles, “constantly learning more about practice and custom of my new faith,” and giving to the community through volunteer work.

Doing something to give back is key, I think, to feeling a sense of entitlement, a sense of being at home within Judaism.

Although Jewish parents frequently joke with their children “Do it because it’s a mitzvah!” – it’s true that the opportunity to do service crops up everywhere in life. Anita Diamant tells of Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, who uses an interesting image to describe the process of embracing mitzvot.

He described them as ‘jewels’ embedded in the Jewish path; as you walk along, you reach down to pick up these gems and discover that some come up rather easily: ‘Don’t murder’ isn’t much of a problem for most people. ‘Don’t eat shellfish’ and ‘Honor your mother and father’ are a bit more challenging.

… As a Jew, you are obliged to grapple with the mitzvot and to discover which ones evoke in you a sense of being commanded …. You are free to experiment with the mitzvot and to discover how to make them your own. But you are also obliged to act upon what you learn.

When one Jewish friend says to another “So-and-so’s family is coming for Passover, too. They needed a place.” you can bet that the friend understands that there is really no choice when presented with the opportunity for a mitzvah like that – and that is expressing a profound Jewish value.

I believe that learning about history and philosophy is important as a basis, and picking up cultural traditions and mores will make a person more comfortable with Judaism. But it is in action, in participation, that one can really stop being a visitor and become one of the family.

As with any relationship, being asked to help implies intimacy and trust. Being asked to participate, whether going up for an aliyah or peeling hard-boiled eggs in the kitchen, means that one belongs.

I believe that each small thing that a person does to contribute becomes part of a rich, complicated weaving of memories and feelings, a weaving that one can wrap around like a tallit.

The rituals of conversion will formally mark your acceptance into the Jewish community and your commitment to Judaism. But the work of creating Jewish memories for yourself, of shaping the Jewish human being that you will become, is a much more subtle and long-term process. Most of us, even those who were born Jewish, take a lifetime with this task. Try not to be impatient with yourself or with the process. (Cukierkorn)

Works Cited

Anonymous person #1. E-mail interview. November 2006.

Anonymous person #2. E-mail interview. November 2006.

Applegate, John Strait. E-mail interview. November, 2006.

Caudill, Shane. E-mail interview. November 2006.

Cukierkorn, Rabbi Celso. Conversion to Judaism. December 3, 2006. www.convertingtojudaism.com

Diamant, Anita. Choosing a Jewish Life. Schocken Books, Inc., New York, New York.1997.

Goldman, Ari L. Being Jewish. Simon & Schuster, New York, New York. 2000.

Kingsolver, Joy. E-mail interview. November 2006.

Price, Dan. E-mail interview. November 2006.

Shifron, Rabbi Susan. E-mail interview. November 2006.

Tanakh. Jewish Publication Society. Philadelphia and Jerusalem. 1985.

Weiss, Vikki, and Jennifer A. Block. What to Do When You’re Dating a Jew. Three Rivers Press, New York, New York. 2000.

Appendix

Questions asked in my e-mail interviews:

Is there a particular experience which led you to be
interested in conversion?

What kind of study did you undertake in order to
convert?

Did you feel that your course of study contributed
toward your beginning to actually feel like a Jew?

What exactly was it that first made you feel like a
"real Jew?" When did that happen?

If you were going to give advice to someone who was
converting about developing their own Jewish identity,
what would it be?

What is it in your life now that makes you feel like a
Jew?

Chanukah column

2006-12-04T19:57:00.000-05:00

I wrote this as a column for the H-T, but to run at this length, it would have to go on an editorial op-ed page, and Bob Z probably won't let me. I will probably have to cut it to 400 words (it's about 700) for it to run on a religion page on the 9th or the 16th. Also, I'm waiting to hear back from the record company about permission to post some of the music from the CD on the HT website. But at least I can post my column here! (Within the column, I followed Associated Press style -- I think -- on how to spell the name of the holiday. But of course I prefer another way!) Chanukah sameach!

From “Celebrate Hannukah":

Don't let the light go out: it's lasted for so many years.
Don't let the light go out: let it shine through our love and our tears.
"Light One Candle," Peter Yarrow

Not by might and not by power
But by spirit alone shall we all live in peace
“Not by Might, Not by Power” Debbie Friedman (adapted from Zechariah 4:6)

You are the Rock of our life, the Power that shields
us in every age
God, where can I flee from your presence?
Wherever I go, you are there.
If I climb up to the highest mountain,
Wherever I go, you are there.
"Tzur Chayeinu," Joe Black

Candles shining through the window into the cold winter night. Family and friends gathered around the table: delicious food, laughter, games, presents -- tradition.

This is not a Christmas scene.

It is Hanukkah. A minor Jewish holiday celebrating recapture of the ancient Jewish temple in Jerusalem, it's not nearly as big a deal in Israel as here. But Jews are nothing if not adaptive, and American Hanukkah has become what it is because of the
overwhelming-ness of the American Christmas season.

In the first years after I became Jewish, it was difficult to give up cherished traditions. Walking home at dusk through Harvard Square, a very small evergreen strapped to the top of our daughter's stroller, I smiled – feeling I was carrying on the magic of my childhood. Our housemates weren’t Jewish, so we all decorated the tree with angels and snowflakes – our "non-Christian" holiday tree.

Within a couple of years, I realized that what my husband Jordan and I taught our children would be the memories and traditions they would carry on -- and I was very uncomfortable trying to keep customs from one religion while my heart and mind were with another. Although American culture can make it very awkward and even lonely for non-Christians during the holiday season, I was determined to find some "magic" for our children within our own beliefs.

Slowly, we began to develop our own traditions. We read Hanukkah stories aloud after lighting the candles. We bought the Hanukkah version of an Advent calendar from the Jewish Museum and our small children delighted in opening a tiny window each night.

We joined the synagogue and our children made friends who celebrated the same holidays -- and who didn't need explanations about them.

Each year, Jordan makes a new menorah (candleholder used only during Hanukkah). We have many menorahs -- made from clay, from stone, from a wooden branch -- as well as beautiful ones passed down in our family and given to us as presents.

Some years we get it together to bake gifts for neighbors and friends -- a carryover tradition from my mom Pat's generous holiday giving during my childhood.

We make extra contributions to charity -- in fact, there is no way I could visit Kroger's during the holiday season without buying a bag of food for the food bank donation box. And I could never walk past a Salvation Army kettle without giving.

Not only would I be overwhelmed with guilt for having so much and giving too little, but I’ve come to feel that the huge emphasis on extravagant present-giving at this time of year -- fighting to get the newest toy, spending more than one can afford – is the exact opposite of how we want to live.

Years ago, we stopped the American custom of giving a present each night of Hanukkah. Now, we pick one night when our family can be at home together and exchange presents. And the nights when there are no presents are just as golden in my memory, and I think also in the memories of our children.

Often, in the car and at home, we listen to Hanukkah CDs. A favorite is “Celebrate Hanukkah,” compiled by Craig Taubman:

One song, "Ocho Kandelikas" ("Eight Candles") is hauntingly lovely -- even more so to me after I learned the Sephardic Jewish musical tradition of author Flory Jagoda was passed down through her family for hundreds of years after the Jews were forced out of Spain in 1492 and her family ended up in Sarajevo.

Immersed in the Hanukkah music from different cultures, I feel so much a part of generations of Jewish families coming together to re-tell the Hanukkah story – a story of fighting for the right to worship one God – and it is plenty magic enough for me.

I sit dreaming, watching the candles, remembering: Jordan often asks visiting friends and family to say a blessing as each candle in our many menorahs is lit. Sometimes people are a little embarrassed to speak up at first. But slowly, as each one takes a turn, people get inspired to talk about things which are from a deep part of themselves. We share thoughts of those no longer with us, wishes for a better world and for healing, our gratitude – and become part of each other's Hanukkah traditions and memories.

Lynne Foster Shifriss is assistant to the editor at The Herald-Times and is vice-president of the board at Congregation Beth Shalom.

Hanukkah begins at sunset Friday. Listen to selections from "Celebrate Hanukkah" on HeraldTimesOnline.

OK, I'll say it...

2006-11-29T20:37:00.000-05:00

Actually, I HAVE to say it. Those Left Behind books are for ignorant people. They are crap. It is offensive to me that anyone with any sense at all can think that a God who is greater than the entire universe would care what club or organization or religion we would belong to on this one planet. And to think that anyone is going to suffer because they don't profess to believe in one philosophy -- even worse, to be AFRAID that bad things will happen because of that -- is just incredibly offensive.

And, having said that, here am I, committed to Judaism, going with my mom and some friends to see Chimes of Christmas at the IU Auditorium next week! And I even bought the tickets! My mom is Christian and my dad died several years ago. So, I don't want her to feel lonely around the holidays. And I will enjoy the music.

A creature of conflicts, that's me, I guess! But while I may enjoy the music and the memories of my childhood, I have no conflict about what I think. I think that any group which uses fear to make people belong to it is bad.

Article on Jewish Identity

2006-11-28T12:16:00.000-05:00

Reading this article, I can understand why my mother-in-law told me, when I converted, that I never had to TELL anybody that I was a convert. I laughed at the time, but now I see what she meant...

from beliefnet.com

Monday, November 27, 2006
Jewish Genes vs. Jewish Identity
There have always been two sides to the "Who is a Jew?" question. There are those who identify Jews primarily through blood and genetics, and those who see being a Jew as being more about choosing to identify with the Jewish people and adopt a certain lifestyle.

With an intermarriage rate hovering around 50 percent, Diaspora Jewry has for the most part adopted choice and lifestyle as their determining criteria for who is a Jew. On the other hand, the Israeli chief rabbinate continues to privilege blood and genetics, rejecting Reform, Conservative, and even many Orthodox conversions.

This past week, the chief rabbinate's blood-and-genetics position was put on display.
After years of political negotiations, historical research, and genetic testing, Israel welcomed the Bnei Menashe. The Indian group, which claims to be descended from one of the 10 lost tribes, was allowed entry into the country under the Law of Return. At the same time, however, that the chief rabbinate was opening it arms, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar proposed denying the Law of Return to anyone not born of a Jewish mother. Only Jews born Jewish would be eligible for automatic citizenship; all others would have to apply through the regular channels.

Many in Israel laughed at the whole Bnei Menashe episode. One commentator in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz described the story of these long-lost Jews as comparable to fables such as "Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, or...Snow White's Seven Dwarfs."

But these commentators' criticisms are misplaced. Their issue should not be the absurdity of the Bnei Menashe story, but rather with a system that continues to privilege a form of identity that Jews worldwide are increasing moving away from. While the chief rabbinate continues to stress blood, Diaspora Jews are increasingly seeing Judaism as being about a way of life (and not about one's DNA).

posted by Rabbi Eliyahu Stern

Jewish identity at OUR house!

2006-11-26T20:24:00.000-05:00

I just had an experience in the past couple of days which made me think. My mom, who is not Jewish, went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and bought us a set of three small artificial evergreen trees, already threaded with white lights. She thought we would love to put them in our front yard. She said they were just trees, not Christmas trees. I said "They are Christmas trees." She said "No, they are not Christmas trees. The box does not say 'Christmas' on it." I told her that I would talk to my family but was pretty sure they would agree with me.

I told my family at home.

Our 14-year-old agreed that they look like Christmas trees.

Our 20-year-old said "If someone sees those in the front yard, they will absolutely assume that this household celebrates Christmas."

My husband Jordan said "Can you imagine what my parents would think?" (His mother grew up in Poland and associated Christmas trees with the Cossacks getting drunk at Christmas-time and going out to kill some Jews.)

I told my mom that our family is in agreement that we do not want to put Christmas trees in our front yard.

She said "Oh, Jordan doesn't like them?"

I said "No, I am Jewish and I don't like them!"

This exchange made me feel crazy.

I think this is a sad, sad story

2006-10-22T21:23:00.000-04:00

OK, I know this is so corny, but the time during Abby's bat mitzvah when we stood on the bima and passed the Torah down through our family to Abby...wonderful moment in my life. And I guess that's why I think this story from today's NY Times is such a sad one -- the loss of Jewish identity for the mom and for the child...

October 22, 2006
Modern Love
When a Relationship Carries the Weight of History
By LAUREN FOX

I USED to have an imaginary Jewish boyfriend. I dreamed him up several years ago. He was a nice guy named Jeff who was a lawyer for the A.C.L.U., played classical guitar and wanted to have three kids. One year this imaginary Jewish boyfriend even accompanied me to Yom Kippur services, while my actual, Protestant-raised but nonbelieving Irish boyfriend stayed home and ate — this is true — a ham sandwich.

“What are you doing?” I asked my actual boyfriend over the phone, after I had returned home from temple.

“Eating a ham sandwich,” he said. “And watching soccer. Want to come over?”

It was the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. I was supposed to be fasting and asking God for forgiveness. Instead I drove over to my boyfriend’s apartment, where I swallowed my guilt with the potato chips he shared with me.

I was raised Jewish, but in some fundamental way, it didn’t take. I wanted it to. I tried. When I lived in Minneapolis during my 20’s, I attended High Holy Day services at practically every synagogue in the area, hoping to find one that would speak to my heart, but I always left feeling empty, more confused than before I had gone.

All the talk of God bothered me. I was not sure if I believed, but even in the most liberal of synagogues, even on the weirdest left-wing fringe of Judaism, where you met in a basement and sang songs about ending world hunger, it seemed as if you couldn’t get around God if you wanted to be Jewish. God is everywhere! So I tried to uncover a latent faith in a higher power, but all I have ever found, deep down, at my spiritual core, is a well-developed sense of guilt and a craving for Ho Hos.

I suppose this is, in some part, how I ended up with an irreverent Irish atheist for a boyfriend. Andrew and I met when we were graduate teaching assistants at the University of Minnesota. He marched into my office one day, sat down at my desk and started chatting to me in a fake New Jersey accent — a ridiculously bad accent, attempted through the filter of his real (and much sexier) Dublin accent. I impressed him with my ability to write backward and forward at the same time.

For our first date, he took me to a reading at a St. Paul bookstore. In the middle of the hushed proceedings, he suddenly panicked that he had lost his wallet (he had not), and, in his frenzy to search his pockets, he tipped over backward in his chair.

We both started laughing so hard we were practically hyperventilating and had to leave the reading. We hurried out, hooting, as people shot disapproving glares our way. It was clearly the start of something special.

Around this time, I discovered a shoebox full of old letters in my parents’ basement. Dated from 1938 to 1941, they were letters that my great-grandmother, in Germany, had sent to my grandmother in America, who had fled with her husband and young daughter. I knew that my mother’s family had come from Germany — she speaks German as fluently as English — but I was never told much about our past. Like many Jewish immigrants whose families were decimated by the Holocaust, my relatives didn’t talk about it.

As I ran my fingers over the fragile onionskin paper and peered at the incomprehensible script, I knew right away that the letters I had found were the key to an important piece of my history. I set about having them translated, and I began writing about and researching my family: it became my master’s thesis and my fascination.

At first, I didn’t connect the things I was learning about my German Jewish family with the life I was living, a life whose emotional center was fast becoming my Irish boyfriend, a man from a country that claims all of 1,800 Jews, a man who once exclaimed happily, upon finding a box of matzos in my cupboard, “Oh, great, you bought crackers!”

But gradually, as the content of the letters emerged, I began to feel like I was being hit over the head by something heavy, sharp and unwieldy. It was History with a capital H.

August 11, 1938

I can’t put into words how much I miss you and the dear child. I have always imagined how she looked with her curly hair. I miss you all so much ... but in spite of everything I would not wish that you were here. ...

For today let me give you a thousand greetings and a thousand kisses from your oma who loves you more than anything in the world. Perhaps we will one day have the pleasure of being together again.

THEY wouldn’t have the pleasure. They died in Germany — my great-grandmother slowly, at age 61, of what I imagine was a broken heart; her husband a few months later, on a train to Auschwitz.

The letters permeated my life. The translation process was intimate and intense: my great-grandmother wrote in an archaic script that very few people could still read, but I found a professor at the university who could help. Every Friday I would go to his office with a few letters and a tape recorder, and he would translate, reading out loud. Later, I would transcribe the tapes.

My great-grandmother’s words echoed in my thoughts, nudging at the corners of my daily life. Sometimes I would come home and almost expect to see a letter from her in my mailbox. I was given the weight of this history, the fact of it, the burden. This was my family tree, cut off at the roots. It seemed like the only conclusion I could draw was the obvious one: I would need to find a Jewish husband, raise a Jewish family, to defy genocide in this small but significant way.

Andrew would never become Jewish — possibly because he grew up in Ireland in the 1970’s and 80’s, where the only sane response to religion was to disdain it altogether, or perhaps because of the specific contours of his kind but skeptical heart. It was a point of understanding between us that I would never ask him to convert. So he would have to be my sacrifice. My loss would be a small hole in my heart compared with the crater that took up space in the center of my family.

On one of our first dates, Andrew told me a story about cat-sitting for a professor while she was away, and of accidentally taking care of the wrong cats. He had been caring for the neighbor’s cats who had wandered in; the professor’s pets, he told me with a sheepish smile, actually had been trapped in the linen closet for two days.

From another man, on another occasion, this particular story might have been my reason for refusing a third date. From Andrew, it seemed like a brave and funny confession, his admission that he wasn’t perfect, but that he was willing to learn how to tend to things more carefully. I wanted to hear more.

My mother used to tell me, jokingly but also, I suspected, kind of seriously: “It’s as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one.” But it’s not easy to fall in love at all. And now that I had, I didn’t want to give it up, even to the hungry mouth of History.

November 29, 1939

I live constantly in my thoughts with you, my dear ones. If only I could embrace all of you and hold you close to my heart. When will this happen?

ONE night, after the last of the letters had been translated and I was near the end of my project, I sat outside with some friends at an informal Sabbath gathering. Andrew was somewhere else that night, and again I wondered what my life would be like at such a ceremony with a Jewish boyfriend sitting next to me, echoing the blessing over the challah.

My friends and I were talking about love, about looking for it, finding it. Elana, who was single (and Jewish), announced with utter conviction that she would never be able to live with someone who wanted a Christmas tree in his house. Others nodded in agreement. I thought about how Andrew bought a tree every year, how he said that it reminded him of home, of the happy Christmases of his childhood in Dublin. Who was I to argue with a homesick immigrant’s private, complicated sorrows? But my friend had a point: a Christmas tree is the last lost battleground of the secular Jew.

I slipped into one of my familiar uncomfortable reveries: Andrew and I are sitting in the living room of a house, maybe ours, on some Christmas morning in the future, and I am watching our little girl tearing through presents, our little girl who may not even know what loss she inherits or what slips through her fingers as she tosses crumpled wrapping paper across the floor. I looked at Elana, envious of her certainty.

March 6, 1941

When yesterday morning the letter arrived with a sweet photo, I was no longer able to hold myself. I cried all day because of joy and also of sorrow.

Someone lighted the Sabbath candles and began the blessing: Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu melech haolam. The candles flickered in the warm wind. The words of the blessing were as intimate and as foreign to me as German, the language of my childhood that I never fully understood.

My life feels inextricable from this history. Yet letting go of Andrew couldn’t have defied genocide or undone sorrow. It would have only defied our love and undone the possibility of the happy life he and I now share with our little girl, in whom I try to instill both my history and my hope.

Lauren Fox lives in Milwaukee. Her first novel, “Still Life With Husband,” will be published by Knopf in February.

First paper for class!

2006-10-18T12:30:00.000-04:00

Lynne Foster Shifriss
F 358 – Prof. Judah Cohen
18 October 2006

Loss of memories, loss of redemption

Recent news stories about the massacre of the Amish schoolgirls in Pennsylvania shocked me. Unfortunately, the murders themselves did not shock me; we have grown too familiar with random, unexplainable violence in this country. Instead, the reaction of the Amish shocked me. Forgive the killer? Attend his funeral? Plow down the schoolhouse where the massacre took place; make that field into a pasture. The quick forgiveness and the physical erasure of the murder site seem too glib to me. How can healing take place without mourning first? How can forgiveness take place without apology, without asking for forgiveness? And, at the heart of the matter in my thoughts – how can understanding take place when the memory is erased?

Jews, I feel, are particularly good at memories: Stories are told and re-told. The whole Passover dinner is the communal re-telling of a story in which people are encouraged to engage, use their imaginations, ask questions. History is real to Jews. Why is he fasting? Why, it’s the anniversary of when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Why are you staying up late studying Torah? It’s the anniversary of the day that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments! And so on.

Thinking about how important memory is within the Jewish culture makes me wonder – what happens in a family when there is an attempt to erase painful memories? What happens when a family suddenly becomes something that it has not been in the past?

Many Jewish families, faced with the horror, the terror of the Nazi onslaught, chose to forget – to try to erase – their Judaism. What happens to their children when, one or two generations later, they find out that their assumptions about the past are a lie?

Following are two very different reactions to finding out about hidden Jewish ancestry.

Sen. George Allen, R-Va., faces a serious election challenge this fall after his poor handling of the revelation this summer that his mother is a member of a prominent Tunisian Jewish family. Allen was confronted with the facts after reporters started digging following a reported racial slur uttered by Allen.

Mr. Allen, who is Presbyterian, grew angry at a reporter's question about whether his mother had been born Jewish. Mr. Allen later said that after the question came up, his mother told him for the first time that her family was indeed Jewish. His subsequent statements about the matter -- attesting that he still ate ham sandwiches, for example -- appeared awkward, even to fellow Republicans.

(Kirkpatrick, David D. “THE 2006 CAMPAIGN; 2 Ex-Acquaintances of Senator Allen Say He Used Slurs,“ New York Times, Sept. 26, 2006)

I wondered, as I am sure many people did, why Sen. Allen referred to a question on his Jewish ancestry as “reprehensible?” He stated that in years gone by, when his mother was asked about her ancestry, she would say “Who cares about that?” (“Exclusive interview with Sen. George Allen on his Jewish ancestry,” WAVY TV, republished on MSNBC.com.) Obviously, Allen did care -- a man who had built his political reputation on conservative views (and who has even been accused by former college acquaintances of uttering racial slurs) (New York Times, Sept. 26, 2006) evidently felt he had a lot to lose with some constituents by the truth of his ancestry coming out.

In contrast, the reaction of Kati Marton, a writer, was to want to explore her Jewish ancestry in depth. Marton found out the truth about her family’s Jewish ancestry when, as she worked on a book about Raoul Wallenberg (a Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from Adolph Eichmann’s scourage in 1944) (Pogrebin, Abigail. Chapter on Kati Marton, “Stars of David,” Random House, 2005) – her interviewee remarked that Wallenberg “arrived too late for your grandparents.” (Her grandparents died at Auschwitz.)

Marton met the shocking news of her parents’ deception about their past and about the death of her grandparents with honesty and courage. She shared what she knew with her family, including her children. She has addressed Jewish topics in some of her writing. In fact, Marton said that her past had become an obsession: “I wanted details; I wanted to fill in. I had, by then, given up my childhood Catholicism, and I loved the historic aspects of Judaism and the association with so many people I admired.” (“Stars of David”)

Marton said that her parents admitted they erred in withholding the truth: “My mother has. She said, ‘We were wrong. Our motives were good. But we were wrong.’”

In facing her past and trying to understand the forces which drove her parents to want to give up their Jewish identities, Marton traveled to Miskolc, Hungary, in 2002. She wanted to see for herself the place from which her grandparents had been deported – never to return from Auschwitz: “They were marched to the ghetto, then to the brickworks and on to the Auschwitz-bound wagons. Neighbors took their worldly goods. What personal property remained was transported to the synagogue, which was used as a warehouse for stolen Jewish property.” (Marton, Kati. “A Town’s Hidden Memory,” New York Times, July 21, 2002.)

But Marton had trouble even finding the synagogue.

The guidebooks did not mention its existence.

Local residents told her they never heard of any synagogue.

Finally, Marton found it – at the end of a “sorry, ugly paved square with a church well described and marked in all the guidebooks.” (NYT, July 21, 2002) The caretaker did not even want to open the gate for Marton. Hidden behind tall concrete barriers, inside a padlocked gate, the synagogue had memorial plaques to those killed inside, where nobody could see them.

I think that in visiting Miskolc, Marton was seeking to understand and to find peace. But what she found was that a town, like a person, which hides the past cannot be peaceful: “The town of Miskolc has buried its past and so cannot expect redemption.” (NYT, July 21, 2002)

There are stories which must be shared. Compassion, understanding, greater closeness can result. When the past is hidden, repressed, covered with shame and silence, healing cannot take place.

As Marton concluded after her time spent in Miskolc: “Those living in a dark place, ignorant of their own history, are the ones at risk.” (NYT, July 21, 2002)

Let's make a committee...

2006-09-24T22:04:00.000-04:00

I read this joke. A bunch of Hadassah women were in a bus crash and ended up, accidentally, in Hell. The gatekeeper up in Heaven called down there and said "Hey, you got some Hadassah ladies by mistake!" But the Devil replied "Don't take them! They've only been here two days and already they formed a committee and raised the money for air conditioning!"

And yes, I do recognize that we Jews do not actually believe in Hell, but the joke still makes a good point!

Jewish people really DO get how to work together; whatever has made the culture that productive is good, good good.

For a year, I was president of a Hadassah chapter here in Bloomington. During that year, our family went to Israel for three weeks and I took a bus, with my daughter Amalia, up to the Ein Karem campus of Hadassah Hospital. It's pretty impressive to see Jews and Arabs sharing the same hospital room, pretty impressive to see the kind of care and the kind of research that are happening there -- supported by money raised by Hadassah.

The feeling I get when visiting the websites for federation and uja is that they are very comprehensive; they include religious content but the main emphasis is on Jews working together to make the world a better place -- making committees to get stuff done. A huge emphasis on tzedakah -- again, working togehter, realizing that one has an obligation to help.

I've never lived in a town where I had a Jewish community center, but I wish I had.

Chabad

2006-09-19T23:17:00.000-04:00

After reading that article, I feel even more respect for Rabbi Yehoshua and Zlata than I did before. I've always thought they were wonderful people; part of my very good first impression of them was that the rabbi was so very different from the Chabad rabbi who preceded him. The other rabbi made a point to call a woman rabbi "Mrs." rather than "Rabbi."

I mean, live in the real world, already. I may not want Bush to be president but he IS whether I like it or not.

Well, Rabbi Yehoshua made it a point, at a Lag B'Omer picnic co-sponsored by Beth Shalom and Chabad House several years ago, to refer to Mira as "Rabbi." That made a lot of fans for him.

I would have gone to the Chabad ceremonies on Sunday if I hadn't been sick.

Even though I don't share many practices or beliefs with the Chabad movement, I have to say that I admire Yehoshua and Zlata -- they really live their beliefs.

And it's strange, but a few years ago, here's my very-loose-Jewishly husband asking Rabbi Yehoshua to pray for his dad when his dad had a quadruple bypass while on a business trip in Iowa. As if, somehow, those Orthodox prayers counted just a little bit more...

Reflections on Modern Orthodox Judaism

2006-09-10T18:08:00.000-04:00

Oh, gosh, here I was feeling all admiring of the Orthodox website. I mean, it's well-done, very comprehensive, broad in ways that surprise me (a job search site connected with the Orhtodox movement -- now that's networking!) but then I clicked on "Mourner's Kaddish" in the "Judaism 101" section and saw the instruction that this prayer must be said by a "quorum of ten adult male Jews." I forgot that I am not even eligible to be a member of a minyan in Orthodox Judaism!

I should have remembered that when I saw, reading an article on the website, the names of couples listed, for example, as "Mr. and Mrs. Jordan Shifriss." Ooooh, the HT, by policy, had stopped referring to married people like that even before I came there 11 years ago! (A policy that I am more than happy to enforce, of course!)

There is a lot of Yiddish or Hebrew on the OU website which assumes that one just understands it, I guess. Like, what does “Kol Yisrael Areivim Ze Ba Ze” mean? It's in the section where they are talking about "changing the face of North American Judaism."

We have really good friends of our family who are Modern Orthodox, and so reading this section was really interesting. I printed out the Berman article so I can talk to them about it when we (hopefully) go see them in Pittsburgh for a long weekend sometime soon.

At the same time while I respect ppeople who can immerse themselves so fully in their beliefs and live by very strict rules, I have to say that some Orthodox behavior I do find offensive. For example, a few months ago my husband was in Israel, where most of his family lives. One branch of the family became very strictly Orthodox a few years ago. He went to stay, in Jerusalem, with his cousin and his wife for an overnight. But the cousin had to leave early in the morning so Jordie had to get up really early and leave, because he could not have been alone in the apartment with his cousin's wife. That, to me, is insulting and demeaning. I don't mean that the cousin and his wife meant any offense -- only the rule which they are required to obey.

One of the most delightful things about my working life, I think, is the opportunity to develop good friendships with men. I see several of the men in the newsroom of the HT as brothers that I didn't have. I wouldn't think anything of going to lunch with one of them or telling them about a problem of mine, etc. To see every interaction between a man and a woman as potentially sexual is limiting and insulting.

Reflections on my own Jewish identity

2006-09-08T21:14:00.000-04:00

Wow, I really AM Reform, because I'm reading everybody's blogs and responding to them on Shabbat! Life is full of compromises. I took our daughter Abby and three of her friends to the North-South football game and dropped them off tonight, but not till we had lit the candles and said the blessings (we blessed pizza instead of challah tonight, but, hey, it's still bread!)

My Shabbat deal with myself is that I only do what I enjoy on Shabbat. I ran into a friend at Lowe's once on a Saturday morning and she said "I'm not shomer Shabbos!" and I agreed "Obviously I'm not either!"

I've been thinking a lot about what someone said in class the other day -- that a person who converts should have to learn Hebrew. I talked about this whole issue with one of my best friends, Rabbi Sue (from Hillel) when we took an exercise walk the other night. I thought that perhaps if I had had to learn Hebrew, and if my instruction in Judaism had been a lot more intensive, perhaps I would have felt at home in Judaism much sooner. Earning my place with knowledge might have made the first few years more comfortable. But then again, the Hebrew thing might have kept me from converting at all. In any case, Sue said "Conversion is the start of your journey in Judaism, not the end." I really appreciated that, and in my case, it is so true.

My own feeling of belonging, my own feeling of being a Jew, has come much more from engaging in service, not from knowledge of Torah or Hebrew. I think it is a cop-out to have a lot of book knowledge, but not feel obligated to do service.

In a way, I see this as people valuing the "male model" more than the female. In our synagogue, I'd bet that just about everybody who volunteers to take food to the sick is a female. Why don't males feel obligated to do this service? To me, it is just as holy as sitting around a table discussing Torah.

In our synagogue, knowledge is very valued (obviously, in a university town, Beth Shalom is full of professors and professional people). But people who don't have Hebrew can also feel comfortable. Everybody knows I'm a convert, and I don't have Hebrew. But I'm vice-president of the board there. Last year, just after Abby's bat mitzvah service ended, Alvin Rosenfeld (former head of Jewish Studies at IU) came up to me and said very kindly "You can't realize it (because I don't have Hebrew, he meant) but Abby read beautifully." I think that moment was one of the happiest moments of my life. (I wished my mother-in-law Shoshana, may her memory be for a blessing, were still alive to have heard that.)

Back when Amalia did her bat mitzvah, we didn't yet belong to the synagogue, and Amalia did not learn how to chant Torah. She memorized and used transliteration. But she did a huge amount of service -- she took the training at Middle Way House to be a volunteer and she went there every week that year. She also studied history and ethics with Jordan (her dad). But, later, at IU, she took Hebrew as her language and she felt great about that.

Adam did service work and he was able to do the Hebrew for his bar mitzvah by studying with Jordan. I hope he takes Hebrew as his language. To me, one of the neatest parts about his bar mitzvah was that, since Jordie's mom was very ill, Jordie and Adam flew to New Jersey a few weeks before the bar mitzvah and Adam did his Torah portion for his grandparents. Then we also had a speaker phone on the bima so they could listen during the actual service.

I'm glad that our children have knowledge that I do not have. What I wanted for them from their Jewish education was a sense of belonging. In earlier years, when we talked about being members of the synagogue or not, I used to say that I wanted them to own their Judaism; to be able to walk into a synagogue and never feel like a stranger, or feel stupid or disconnected. And I feel we have given them that.

Even more than the Hebrew and the knowledge of how to do a Torah reading, how to chant the blessings for an aliyah, etc. -- one thing the kids really get, I think, is that once you have passed your bar or bat mitzvah, you can't just think of yourself. Amalia is always taking care of other people and when she comes home to visit, she jumps right in with whatever there is to be done. Adam is the kind of man who would go to shovel snow for some old people (although, probably, not his own sidewalk!) He is tremendously kind to his friends. And Abby, too, really gets the service part. When I was chairing a welcome-back brunch at synagogue recently, she came early on Sunday morning to help. I was able to say to her "Just go out to the hall and greet people and have them do nametags." Later it occurred to me that not all 14-year-olds would do that.

I think that, in Judaism, one has to earn one's place to feel a sense of Jewish identity. Whether it's doing the learning and service connected with a bar mitzvah or whether it's standing in the synagogue kitchen peeling a hundred hard-boiled eggs for a community meal, or whether it's getting a call at work that there has been a death in the community: "Can you come tonight?" or whether it's manning a voter registration table or organizing an effort to call congress people about Darfur -- that kind of service is, to me, what it's all about in being a Jew. I'm glad for the other parts and I'm glad my children have them -- but the heart of it, to me, is the decisions a person makes in everyday life. That part of Judaism feels rich and fulfilling to me.

Conservative Judaism

2006-09-05T20:21:00.000-04:00

There is certainly a perception that being a Conservative Jew is, somehow, more Jewish than being a Reform Jew. For instance, when I converted 25 years ago, I did it in a Conservative mikvah in Chicago, instead of the Reform one in Indianapolis. This was because my husband's parents thought it would count more in Israel. (Of course, it really wouldn't.)

To me, what the Shma readings reflect is that there is a lot of uncertainty about what a Conservative Jew is. Does a Conservative Jew have to follow the law? Or can they really interpret for themselves? And there is confusion about whether a woman should be a rabbi, or whether gays have equal rights within the movement.

The one thing they agree is important is that Jews see belonging to a Jewish group as vital, interesting -- something that helps them live their everyday lives in a better way and engages their imaginations.

I like what one letter-writer said -- that the movement would have to create a more persuasive reason for Jews to be Conservative in coming generations -- because only the past generation found a reason in the "nostalgic baggage" they carried.

I think being a Conservative Jew might be a comfortable compromise for someone from an Orthodox background -- a way to feel really Jewish without having to actually be as strict as the Orthodox.

Rabbis blogging on "Jews for Jesus"

2006-08-31T12:07:00.000-04:00

Got this from Belief Net.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006
The Limits of Identity
My friend Jenny Moyers is not the most connected Jew ever to walk the earth. She doesn’t belong to a synagogue and does not celebrate any of the Jewish holidays in her home. She seems to regard my rabbinic career path with something bordering between amusement and disdain.

So it came as something of a shock to me when one day we were walking together in the Philadelphia subway and a yellow-shirted Jews for Jesus missionary approached us to offer some literature. Jenny went completely ballistic and started yelling at him at the top of her voice, screaming that he ought to be ashamed of himself for calling himself a Jew. “Jews do not believe in Jesus!” she yelled. “What you are doing is disgraceful!” Needless to say, Jenny’s outburst made quite an impression on me, and it got me thinking.

Jews for Jesus push a lot of people’s buttons–even people who would otherwise not really care about Jewish tradition or practice–because they reside at the messy little intersection of identity and belief. For the most part, you can believe (or not believe) and do (or not do) whatever you want and still be Jewish. That’s because being Jewish isn’t a function of a particular belief or set of actions so much as it is a cultural, historic, and spiritual identity into which you are born or choose to convert. You’re just Jewish and, like Jenny, you don’t really need to worry about the particulars.

Jews for Jesus messes that all up.

If you really can believe whatever you want as a Jew, couldn’t you be Jewish and believe in Jesus? The answer is no, and I think it has less to do with theological objections–although these certainly exist–than it does with identity issues. For 2,000 years, at least in the West, Christians are what Jews defined themselves against. Oppressed, victimized, expelled, and slaughtered simply for who they were, Jews had their identity and outsider status reinforced over and over again. They were Other, and the oppressors were Christians.

The symbol of Christianity par excellence, the defining element, is Jesus. So to hear the words “Jew” and “Jesus” strung together into the phrase “Jews for Jesus” hits a very raw nerve for many Jews today–I imagine something akin to what Jews for Allah(!) would do to Jews who were oppressed in Islamic societies.

It’s not out of hatred of Jesus, or of Christians, or of Christianity, but rather as a reaction to hundreds of years of oppression. And for the many Jews like Jenny who don’t participate in Jewish life in any way, rejecting Jews for Jesus affirms their own bona fide Jewish identity. But, perhaps just as revealingly, the forceful reaction also acknowledges an underlying insecurity and doubt about whether you really can do or believe whatever you want and still be Jewish. Because the truth is, you can’t–there are some lines that just can’t be crossed.

posted by Rabbi Joshua Waxman @ 9:41 PM
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Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Go Bother Someone Else
Ah… summer in New York City: Central Park concerts, café life, sweaty subways, and who can forget those smiley young boys and girls passing out Jews for Jesus pamphlets. Every year they come with more zeal and more ambition, peddling their product and hoping that someone with a kippah will say yes, now that I have read this beautiful media-savvy pamphlet, I see the light and have accepted Jesus into my life.

Most Jews would like to ban Jews for Jesus outright. Understandably so, they feel threatened by a group trying to make Jews believe something that they know is a social and theological impossibility (On the Jewish understanding of Jesus see Judaism's view of Jesus, and Irving Greenberg’s more welcoming ideas).

Irrespective of whether or not Jesus was a Jew, a failed messiah, or a prophet, the bottom line remains: it is both socially and theologically impossible to be a Jew and accept Jesus as the messiah.

When I was younger, I used to clench up every time I passed by a Jews for Jesus salesman/woman. But then I realized that they are no different than half of the things sold on Manhattan streets everyday: bad merchandise.

But one cannot, nor should they, try to ban bad merchandise just because its bad merchandise. Lots of things get sold everyday on the street. If there is one thing Jews know it’s that they don’t accept Jesus. The notion that New York Jews en masse are going to be duped by these 20-year-old bright-eyed kids from Middle America is simply preposterous.

Jews for Jesus salespeople are nothing more than used-car salesmen who truly believe the stories they heard from the previous owner. But that does not nor should it make it illegal for them to sell cars.

Personally, I don’t listen to used-car salespeople, and I would tell anyone I know not to give them the time of day. But if it gives a few young folks a chance to get a free trip to the Big City, then good for them. I hope you all are having a good time running around the city telling lies. Just do me a favor when I tell you I am not interested: Leave me alone.

posted by Rabbi Eliyahu Stern @ 6:46 AM

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Monday, August 28, 2006
Jews for Jesus: Who's Who & What's What
If you believe Jesus is the messiah, died for anyone else’s sins, is God’s chosen son, or any other dogma of Christian belief, you are not Jewish. You are Christian. Period.

We Jews may not like to admit it, since we prefer live and let live, but sharing the message of their faith is a basic tenet of belief for Christians. However, there are ethical and unethical ways of doing so. The self-proclaimed Jews for Jesus, Messianics, and other Christian groups that clothe their Christian beliefs in Jewish language and ritual are nothing better than wolves in sheep’s clothing, luring often-unsuspecting Jews with unscrupulous advertising and deceptive programming, like Passover Seders and Hanukkah parties. Their methods are unethical. They often prey on the emotionally vulnerable.

Unfortunately, their success is built upon the significant financial and in-kind support they receive from both evangelical churches like the Assemblies of God, dedicated to the mass conversion of Jews as part of their apocalyptic vision, and from the local mainstream churches in my area whose leadership doesn’t seem to understand why the Messianic or ‘Jew’ for Jesus form of Christianity should be as offensive to them as it is to us.

Unfortunately, the success of these groups is also built upon our own failures in the Jewish community: failures to sufficiently fund Jewish outreach to the unaffiliated; to take seriously the need to train outreach workers; our own reticence to push our enthusiasm for Jewish observance (unless you are Lubavitch) on other Jews and to go out of our way to care for those in emotional need in our community, whether from a divorce, a job loss, problems with parents, loneliness, or any number of other reasons.

Every Jew who converts to Christianity is a failure for the Jewish community. However, as much as I feel pain over Jews who convert to Christianity, it is even worse if the Jew has become a ‘Jew’ for Jesus, because such merging of beliefs is anathema to Judaism.

Since the Christianization of the Roman Empire, Jews have chosen to die rather than accept that Jesus is the messiah, the savior, or in any way different than any other child of God. They did so because we Jews believe in the unambiguous unity of God, that God hears everyone’s prayers (without the need for an intercessor), that there is no vicarious atonement, only the atonement each person seeks through asking forgiveness and doing good deeds, and that the messiah has not yet come, for the world is not yet perfect and at peace. That these groups imply that someone could be a Jew and believe otherwise (in Jesus as their personal savior) is simply a lie.

The best defense is a good offense. That is why we should give three cheers to Jackie Mason on deciding to sue Jews for Jesus and demanding truth in their advertising, let alone not using famous people in their deceptive advertising without permission.

That is also why we should be providing more support to such groups as Jews for Judaism, why each of us can and should learn more about what Judaism believes, and why each of us can and should do more to reach out to our Jewish neighbors and bring them home to an honest and true expression of their Judaism.

posted by Rabbi Susan Grossman @ 5:59 PM

JEWISH SMALL WORLD

2006-08-29T22:14:00.000-04:00

I remembered Prof. Cohen was talking about Jdub Records and thought "Where did I just read about that?"

It was on a CD in my bag.

At the HT, my job is asst. to the editor, so I deal with editing letters, guest columns, syndicated columns, I do the editorial page. Since I started back working full-time a couple of years ago, I haven't really written. (In past years, when I was part-time, I did some articles on Jewish holidays, on Miriam's Cup at Passover, etc.)

But at the HT, as Lotus Festival approaches, it's "all hands on deck."

(If you haven't been to Lotus Fest, I highly recommend it. A wristband for $30-something gets you in and out of an incredible variety of music all evening long...walking downtown among the crowd, watching a street parade, eating, drinking, dancing, drumming -- it's magical, and the bands from all over the world are fascinating. It's Oct. 5-8 this year, which doesn't conflict with High Holy Days, as it has sometimes in the past.)

Anyway, at the last staff meeting, they said "If you want to write a Lotus story, grab a CD from Andy's desk." So I grabbed a klezmer CD named GOLEM.

Anyway, turns out that GOLEM is also a Jdub Records CD. And, Lenny Kaye, who is a guest on the CD, is a guitarist in the Patti Smith Band.

We sold Jordie's dad's house (may his memory be for a blessing) in Highland Park, NJ (a very cute little Jewish town between Edison and New Brunswick) to Tony Shanahan and Gabrielle Wilders. Tony is also a guitarist in the Patti Smith Band. And after I emailed Gabrielle to tell her of this funny coincidence, she told me that Emory Dobbyns, who produced the GOLEM CD, is partners with Tony in a production studio they just opened in Hoboken.

So that really is a small world. I'm really looking forward to writing about this band now.

ONE JEWISH FAMILY

2006-08-29T21:46:00.000-04:00

Amalia flew from LA and met us at O'Hare. I took this picture with my cell phone! The three kids took the train and went to Lollopalooza and we took Amalia's suitcase and went north to the suburbs to stay with Jordie's cousin Ika (Judy) and her husband Shlomo. I discovered Ika last winter on jewishgen.org. (Jordie thought almost everyone on his mom's side died in the Holocaust and we were so, so happy to discover FAMILY in Chicago! It's as if we have known them for years.)

Lynne and Jordan during our 25th-anniversary vacation week with the kids!

I asked Adam to take good care of his little sis at Lollopalooza and he really did, protecting her from bodysurfers and getting her through the crowds.

Abby went out to LA to visit Amalia earlier in the summer, just hanging out with her book and sketchpad at Starbucks while Amalia worked. The girls have blondy-browny hair, and when she was younger, Amalia had freckles. When somebody says to Amalia "You don't look Jewish!" she says "This is what a Jew looks like!"