F358 musings

Final Thoughts

2006-12-14T13:05:00.000-08:00

Hey folks. I wanted to say how much I appreciated reading all of your opinions and ideas over the semester, and that I really learned a lot from all of you. By exploring Judaisms intersections with other identities, how Jews differentiate themselves amongst themselves, Jewish cultural productions, and how Jews are conceptualized by others, I think we have problematized some of our own understanding of what Jews are and what Judaism is (or can be). I know my exploration of Jewish identity has helped me become more critical of what we think our givens about Judaism, and to locate how different aspects of identity have been constructed. Using these skills from analyzing Jewish identity can be used when exploring other identities and social relations, I hink my understanding of all identity studies has benefited. So to everyone, thanks for the opportunity to learn and hope everyone has a great break!

IU Jews go to the Washington

2006-12-14T12:03:00.000-08:00

The blogging on Jews and Christmas got me thinking more about the IU Jewish acappela group performing at the whitehouse for its Channukah celebration and how Jews are configured in public culture and within the Christian US.

Jews being only 3% of the US population, of all non-Christian holidays to be celebrated at the whitehouse, why does the Jewish holiday of Chanukah become one to be celebrated inone of the seat's of our nation's goverment? Amongst the Jewish holidays to pick, why Chanukkah, and why amongst all other American religious minorities, why Judaism?

Using the idea of "going to Washington" as a move done by marginalized groups who seek full recognition and citizenship in the American public, IU Jews going to washington to be acknowledged by the White House does show how Jews are accepted and integrated into American public life. This act shows that Jews hold a rather central social position in relation to other religious groups.

I think this is often taken for granted by many Jews, that though there is legitamate anti-semitism in the US, in comparison to other non-Christians and especially due to the relatively small number of Jews in the US, Jews are held in rather high esteem.

Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas debate

2006-12-14T10:12:00.000-08:00

Reading others' blogs, I am noticing that the Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas debate I think gets a bit overblown. If I take it that many Jews feel that Chanukkah isn't a horribly important holiday on the Jewish calander, do we want people to wish Jews "happy chanukah" or "happy holidays?" I feel that overblows Chanukkah to uncomfortable importance. Though I don't celebrate Christmas religiously, Christmas time in the US is huge and because of its links to public life, it's hard for all Americans to avoid Christmas. This can be seen as offensive because not everyone is Christian, but the public/economic face of Christmas also makes it less religious for everybody as well.

Though in Israel I had to explain to a evangelical friend of mine why people raise objections to only saying Merry Christmas, and her beliefs that because the US was a Christian nation founded by Christians were more the cause of contention than anything else. Even in Israel though, the people who had a problem with Merry Christmas had no problem labeling spring break "Pesach Break," though there are more non-Jews in Israel than there are non-Christians in the US. Though assuming that everyone is Christian or celebrates Christmas or should is problematic, is this a battle that's worth fighting? Are there bigger issues that subsume this one?

But I don't feel offended when somebody tells me "Merry Christmas" because hey, they are being nice, and Christmas is the season. Telling me Happy Holidays or Happy Chanukah to me because I am Jewish sounds trite and unfulfillingly politiically correct. There aren't sales around this time of year because it is the "holidays," people don't travel home becuase it is just the "holidays," it's because it's CHristmas. Jews in the Western world follow the Christian holiday calender, because the vast majority of people celebrate christian holidays.

Judy Gold and Understanding Jewish Humor

2006-12-12T21:51:00.000-08:00

As I was running late getting to the Judy Gold stand-up comedy performance, I made myself feel better by telling myself I already knew the first joke and that its ok that I missed it. I imagined, that Judy Gold, billed as "lesbian Jewish mother," would come on stage late and say something about how becuase she is both on jewish time AND gay time, she can never get anywhere on time. I had myself a giggle, also realizing I could blame my lateness on my jewish and gay clocks. Fortunately for me, after arriving 20 minutes after the show was supposed to start, Judy Gold was still back stage and I had reserved seating for being part of a sponsoring organization. Also fortunately for everybody, the Jewish/gay time joke was not part of her act.

But as a comic who was brought to IU by Jewish and GLBTQ related organizations, Judy seemed quite aware that she had to engage an audience that could not be counted on to be completely Jewish or completely queer. As a gay Jew, few things slipped by me, but as I looked around to at my non-Jewish or non-queer friends, I could tell that they were struggling with some of the humor. Judy herself realized this and had to make some quips about having to expalin things later to particular audience members.

What I found interesting was the fact that Judy used "Jewish" coded or "gay" coded jokes, and I don't really remember any that layered them together. Even the jokes about her mother's relation to Judy's sexuality were, I believe, framed as Jewish jokes. During the show, I thought of how hard this act she had to do was playing to two audiences. After, I began thinking about how hard it is to come up with material that could be considered funny to either jewish or gay audiences. Because humor depends on an understanding of certain stereotypes, culture histories, in-group languages, etc, creating jokes that appeal to a certain audience can say a lot about the kinds of people those audiences are expected to be. I was fortunate to be able to have access to several folk groups that understand humor directed towards them, but I would have preferred to hear jokes about blurred some boundaries and more deeply layered.

Genetics and Jews

2006-12-04T10:32:00.000-08:00

Hey Folks,
Found this article on haaretz about a proposed bill in Israel about changing how one is determined a Jew to include having a Jewish a father, and I think that ties to our discussion on Jews and genetics.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/795395.html

Though we have discussed the construction of "Jewish genes" in relation to identifying Jews based on risk of developing certain genetic diseases, Jewish genes have also been important to Jews for determining Jewish legitamacy. That it is considered by many that to be Jewish, one has to have a Jewish mother, would make genetic material key for Jewish identity.

Though there have been interesting studies on a special marker found on Y-chromosomes that is unique to male kohanim, the idea of a Jewish X-chromosome has proved more difficult. This is because chromosomal females have X-chromomsomes from both of their parents. Even if their was a X-linked "Jewish" genetic marker, because information from only one of those chromosomes is passed on, a child of a Jewish mother may receive genetic material from the "non-Jewish" X-chromosome.

So claiming "Jewishness" because of having a Jewish mother may be an iffy claim if based on genetics alone. Patrilineal "inheritance of Judaism" has become accepted amongst many Jews in the United States, but Israel has maintained more traditional Jewish notions of how one can be considered Jewish at birth.

The bill involves that those with Jewish fathers and not Jewish mothers can offically become part of the "Jewish people by means of activities in the Jewish community and maintaining a Jewish lifestyle." So the bill would allows those with jewish fathers to be recognized Jewish if they somehow maintain a Jewish lifestyle with connections to Jewish culture and people.

This raises a familiar problem from this course about what exatly jewish lifestyle, culture, and people really mean and who gets to decide. According to Yossi Beilin, the sponsor of the bill, " elementary knowledge of Hebrew and checking there are no extraneous interests." is part of the process in determining Jewish lifestyle.

What do we think about this? When posessing Jewishness may have legal weight, is defining by birth or by lifestyle "more accurate?" How can either way be defined? Should hebrew be involved, and if so what does that mean?

Racializing Jewishness

2006-11-13T14:45:00.000-08:00

I took note in class today when we briefly discussed the intersections of “whiteness” and “Jewishness.” This also may be of relevance to our discussion of Black Jews last week.

For a long time, like many young Jews are taught, I avoided conceptualizing Judaism as a racial category. Last year I tried an identity experiment on myself in which I wanted to see what would happen what if I racialized my Judaism. I thought, “How would my sense of self change? What would I accomplish? What would it be like to experience white privilege without identifying as white?” Here’s some of the thought process I went through in this identity subversion.

Racializing my Jewishness would first distance me from whiteness. Though I am not an expert, light-skinned Jews in America were not always considered white by white Christians, and light-skinned Jews were not afforded access to the normative privileges of whiteness. I like to keep this mind, remembering that sometime in the 20th century, society was reconfigured so that Judaism became to most a distinct religious category separate from race, and European Jewish “whiteness” is not a given.

If I don’t identify as white, but as Jewish, maybe I can be more aware and critical of institutional racial discrimination and white privilege that I encounter. As white, overt and tacit discrimination alike are more likely to below my radar screen in detecting when it occurs and is also difficult to challenge, because of the exposing of the usual “whiteness” of the situation and the rejection of the corresponding privilege. I may also be able to be more cognizant of when I am the beneficiary of white privilege. Because Jewishness allows me an intelligible racial identity to take on when I reject whiteness, though my skin color may configure me in society in way that it unnecessarily benefits me, I can then better understand the situations in which my being read as white changes the social interaction. I may also be better at disengaging from participating in maintaining white privilege in general.

My little identity experiment helped me figure out not only how permeating a factor race is in my life, but also how divisive it could be within the Jewish community. Seeing how race factored into Israeli society angered me when I was there. Though I’d hate to moralize much here, I want to wonder what the Jewish world would like if status as Jewish was the strongest factor in organizing their identity before race.

HIV

2006-11-06T15:30:00.000-08:00

Just want to address some issues that came up in class today.

“Can a white person become a black Hebrew?”
As a back to Africa movement that had its beginnings in Chicago and I believe Detroit, they claim that the Suez Canal is an artificial geographic boundary and that the land of Israel is part of Africa.A friend of mine in Israel was assisting some scholar in doing research on the Black Hebrew Israelites in Dimona. My friend was an evangelical Christian, and spiritually found many aspects of Black Hebrew Israelite belief familiar but also very challenging. Though white, many in the community referred to her in familial terms, but that

I actually wrote a paper on transnational movement and HIV risks in Israel that discussed HIV risks and prevalence amongst marginalized immigrant groups in Israel. Unlike North America and Western Europe where the highest risk groups for HIV infection are men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) and injecting drug users (IDU), the highest rate of HIV seroconversion and the largest majority of people who are HIV positive are non-native of Israel.

There is a lot of problems between the Israeli healthcare system and Ethiopian Jews, with a lot of cultural and linguistic misunderstandings and frustrations. Coupled with other socioeconomic problems that Ethiopian Jews face in Israel, they receive poor public health education about HIV/AIDS and limited treatment.

Though Israel claims they don’t circulate Ethiopian donated blood because they are a high risk group (in a similar way that the American Red Cross doesn’t accept blood from MSM), many Ethiopian Jews experienced the news that Israel just throws away their blood after being taken as another and very profound instance of discrimination that reflects their low status in Israeli society .

World Pride Jerusalem

2006-11-06T11:22:00.000-08:00

A few things I want to say about the Jerusalem Pride Parade. Though I left Israel before it happened, I did some research on it for a term paper as well has been trying to follow the news about it closely.

First off, the parade in question was originally attached to the World Pride event that occurred this August in Jerusalem. World Pride is an international Pride event that happens every 5 years, and World Pride Jerusalem (this year sponsored by umbrella Jerusalem GLBT organization the Jerusalem Open House) was actually delayed a year because of the already heated situation in Israel due to the Israeli pullout of the Gaza strip. Tel Aviv, the only city in the Middle East that has consistently held Pride Parades (for nearly a decade) cancelled its own Pride festival and parade to join Jerusalem in making a more grand and unified World Pride.

(Three little things to add: the theme of World Pride Jerusalem was “Love without Borders,” which can be read as really quite contentious in context of Israeli and Palestinian nationalisms. Also the same week as World Pride Tel Aviv was host to another international queer event called QUEERuption, which is a biannual queer/leftist event that gathers “non-mainstream GLBT” folk and queer queers for a week of strategizing and organizing. The First World Pride in 2000 was held in Rome, and though there was some anger by the Catholic Church, the event happened smoothly and as planned.)

This summer, police cancelled the parade part of World Pride because they couldn’t guarantee safety of such a large event. The date of the parade was then rescheduled for the day before Yom Kippur, which as it approached, caused some rumblings that then led to the rescheduling of the parade again. After a few more delays and threats to go to court, the parade is scheduled for this upcoming Friday.

For three nights last week, ultra-orthodox Jews in Jerusalem staged riots that led to the mild injury of policemen and a journalist. In Tel Aviv, someone scribbled “If we don’t march in Jerusalem, you don’t walk in Tel Aviv” on a synagogue. Traditional religious leaders of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have banded together in opposition to the parade.

As of the past few days, the route has been changed and participants were asked to “tone-down” the spectacle usually associated with gay pride parades. The parade is still scheduled to happen even though ultra-orthodox leaders could not promise that they could control the violence of their community.

So there is a lot going on here. Should the parade be cancelled amid growing threat of violence? What does that say about who wields power in Israel? What does it say about using threat of violence as a tactic to oppose state-sanctioned events or institutions? What does this all say about the place of Jerusalem in Jewish identity? What does the unfolding drama say about Israeli queer identities?

Here are some useful websites for more info.

http://www.worldpride.net/ World Pride’s official website. If you have sound, listen to all of the languages represented. The Jerusalem Open House website is accessible through
here.

http://www.queeruption.org/q2006/index.html
QUEERuption Tel Aviv’s website. Explains the issues of having QUEERuption in Israel and the plans for the week.

I wish I kept better records articles, but
www.jpost.com English daily newspaper based in Jerusalem
www.haaretz.com Tel Aviv based I think English daily newspaper
www.365gay.com online gay-related news source owned by mainstream GLBT media conglomerate

have been having daily coverage, so check them out.

Jewish Halloween?

2006-10-31T10:39:00.000-08:00

Because today is Halloween, I just wanted to ask people what they think of holiday in terms of Jewish identity. How much of Halloween is saturated with Christian imagery? How much is Halloween Christian? Secular? Roman? Irish? Celtic? How similar is it to Purim? Should they be compared? (I didn't see much difference between Halloween on State street in Madison and Purim on Ben Yehuda in Jerusalem.) What about traditional Halloween figures: vampires, witches, werewolves, frankenstein, ghosts, demons... do any of these monster types appear in Jewish lore, and if they do, how are they percieved? (ie, how does the golem compare to Frankenstein, and what kind of issues would a Jewish vampire face instead of the typically Christian one?)

Happy Halloween!

Barak Lecture

2006-10-31T10:24:00.000-08:00

I didn’t think that Ehud Barak said anything all that new last night, but the great thing about when any key player in Israel/Palestine speaks at a public event, the best part is the show the audience puts on.

Just looking around at who claps or sits still after an emphasized point, or who joins the standing ovation and when really show the divisions in the room. Barak I think did a great job in creating space of intellectual freedom and encouraged people with all sorts of views to voice their opinions. That one moment of clapping for the “anti-Israeli govermnemt/military” question, the booing response, and then the quieter “Psh… are people really starting that?” noise was my favorite moment of the night.

To the people who clapped at comments about anti-Israeli military force and trusting the Israeli government before the former Prime Minister has a chance to respond shows that nothing he could say really mattered to you. To the people who booed the clappers, do you really think that a Prime Minister of Israel (also the most decorated military officer in Israel’s history) can’t defend himself against incendiary questions of university students? Let the man speak!

To throw out there. We haven’t really talked about the people handing out anti-occupation flyers outside, and the fact that the event was heavily sponsored by jewish-related organizations.

Israel and me

2006-10-30T15:30:00.000-08:00

When I was asking for recommendations for my study abroad to Israel application last year, one of the folklore professors I asked told me that she had read this book about how Jewish youth who go to Israel come back with really big shifts in their identities. I told her that that is what I most feared about my trip. I didn’t want Israel to change me in the ways many youth trip organizers do in their attempts to bind young American Jews to Israel without a whole lot of contextual examination. I also didn’t want to be so conscious and wary of how my identity was changing when I was there that I missed out or refused to participate in possibly really meaningful experiences. So I went to Israel with that dilemma. Now that I have returned, after having an experience that I was rather free to define myself, I find myself feeling more distrustful of trips like Birthright because of its limited and with agenda tours of Israel.

Though I am now technically disqualified from going on a Birthright trip (is anyone else uncomfortable with that name?,) I may have an opportunity this summer to be one of two American staff members that staff’s my camp’s first summer in Israel trip. Designed for entering high school juniors, the trip consists of a week in Poland and a month in Israel, following along the script of the struggles of Eastern European Jewish life to celebrating contemporary Israeli life. I would love to experience Israel again with my campers, but having little say in the planning of the trip, I don’t know if I would feel comfortable participating in it in a leadership capacity if I don’t agree with how the trip is organized.
So what do you think, is it worth returning to Israel with people and an organization I care about (and get paid for it) or abstain

Hebrew Hammer

2006-10-30T14:51:00.000-08:00

I wanted to catch up a little here on some entries I've been wanting to write. I also know that I've been kind of on a "queer" analysis of everything recently but I am a sexuality studies major so bear with me.

I wanted to point out a few things I noticed about about how gender and sexuality were deployed in the Hebrew Hammer. First off, the stereotype of religious/orthodox Jewish men of being studious, meek, shrewd aka non-masculine is countered in the movie by the character of Hammer taking on tough guy and in your face characteristics the that are atypical for media representations of Jewish men. This furthers the idea that to be a “superhero” or heroic in general, men have to be exhibit macho, gender-normative characteristics. Furthermore, the casting of Andy Dick as antagonist plays into the script of a macho-hetero hero who is being challenged by a physically weak, effeminate, queer-coded villain. Even in his first scene, Damien’s character maniacally and queerly undermines family structure by organizing the murder of his own father to pursue his own plan, and the fact that he doesn’t even do it himself adds to the weak, femme code of his character.

Though I think The Hebrew Hammer really is funny and subversive in many ways, it makes me nervous that the way to produce a Jewish male hero is to ascribe him traditionally gendered and sexualized characteristics I would say they are taken from a mainstream, non-Jewish image of masculinity and heroism. Even more, in order to remove the non-masculine, weak, femme, “queer” labels usually prescribed to religious Jewish men, they are displaced onto the villain character played by Andy Dick.

Hebrew Hammer follows in the way of the new Jewish men of some Zionist philosophies by claiming mainstream European gender roles and shedding queer ones. How empowered is Hebrew Hammer then if his new found power is at the cost of making queer identities more deviant?

Shulamit from Hineini

2006-10-29T17:11:00.000-08:00

I have been working with Shula for a few summers now, and I am always amazed by how modest she is about her accomplishments expanding the boundaries of queerness and jewishness in a way that work well for her. I love that she is getting so famous! Though her identity and life has taken her different places than where she was as a high school student, she has been active and creative in finding links between Jewish and Queer identities.

Camp JRF, a reconstructionist affiliated overnight camp, has become home for many GLBTQ Jews as a place for queers to be fully involved in the participation in and leadership of a Jewish community. This past summer, at least 1/5th (so like 15/70ish) of the staff was openly queer as well were many of the visiting faculty and rabbis. It was a neat experience to be able to see a wide range of GLBTQ Jews negotiate their queerness in a Jewish setting as well as see how queerness permeates into the normative institution of the American Jewish camp.

It is in this setting Shula and I had a lot of conversations about the intersections and contradictions of Jewish and queer identities and how the lessons learned from such examination could be brought into the Jewish learning at the camp. Shula and I both agree that it is important to find links between our Jewish and queer identities. In doing so, they both are enriched and allow for more critical view of beliefs and practices taken for granted in separate Jewish and queer communities. However, we differ in that at the end of the day, Shula centers her identity around her “Jewishness” (Jewish community, institutions, holidays etc) while my identity is more weighted around my “queerness” (queer community, politics, etc.) So as Shula may be better described as Queer Jew, I would prefer Jewish Queer. These are semantics to a great extent, but important nonetheless.

There has been a real big push by many liberal Jewish movements to be open GLBTQ Jews, but I fear that it has been part of a wider “progressiveness” label of claiming “look at liberal we are.” I would say ordaining gay rabbis and performing same-gender marriages are done as much to be inclusive of GLBTQ Jews as to maintain a sense of mainstream Judaism that avoids queer critiques of Jewish life, community, ritual, and organization. They are ways to keep queers Jewish without significantly questioning what it means to be a queer Jew, instead of allowing for ways to queer Judaism. At camp, in celebrating an anniversary of the wedding of two female staff members in analogous ways of other-gender couples and the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, we avoided discussion of the histories of resistances of Jewish queers from engaging in traditional Jewish lifecycle events and made it seem that GLBTQ Jews have “made it” in contemporary Jewish society.

I don’t know, I just want discussion of gay Jews and Jewish gays to go beyond just, wow, how can gays live a jewish life.

Check out this great biography of Shula and this amazing essay she wrote!

Women Who Dared
http://www.jwa.org/exhibits/wwd/jsp/bio.jsp?personID=psizen

Daniel Pearl “I am Jewish” contest
http://www.cjp.org/content_display.html?ArticleID=137711

and a as a tidbit, hineini was shown at the World Pride festival this summer in Jurusalem.

Jews and the Internet

2006-10-11T14:35:00.000-07:00

I have done some research on Internet facilited (mostly but not only sexual) identity/community formation, and all this talk of how Judaism interacts with the Internet got me thinking about if there has ever been any research on Jews and a major interest of mine, MMORPGs. MMORPGS are Massively-Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games that are stable, everpresent worlds where thousands of people can interact and play in large virtual setting.

"MMORPGs destroyed my Jewish marriage!"
http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2006/09/its_been_a_whil.html

I found this little article, that's validity I don't really buy, about how playing the MMORPG World of WarCraft caused a Jewish man to abandon his duties as an appropriate Jewish husband and father. I think it ties into our examination of how Orthodox communities view the Internet as dangerous, this article I believe being like an urban legend of the seductive power of MMORPGs.

As many subscribers to World of Warcraft as there are Israelis!
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming//world-of-warcraft-is-bigger-than-denmark-157876.php
I'm having trouble getting this to link to open again, hopefully the site isn't down. But it had some data about how there as many subscribers to World of Warcraft now as there are Israeli citizens. Can virtual nations rival material ones? Can a Jewish homeland ever be established online?

Evangelical World of Warcraft guild out to convert
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/IanDB1/830

This is a parody article I found about how Evangelical Christians could use MMORPGs as a new way to reach people they might want to convert.

Queers and Klezmer

2006-10-09T13:04:00.000-07:00

Much of Diaspora Jewish energy has shifted to supporting Israel and making Israeli/Zionist cultures at the center of Jewish life. Didn’t the Reform and Conservative movement’s websites include support of Israel as part of what they consider being Jewish? The founding of the State of Israel and the creation of a new Jewish culture framed in Zionist ideals led American/European Jews to caste aside remnants of European Diaspora culture, such as klezmer (as well as Yiddish theatre and Jewish European languages like Yiddish and Ladino.) Zionism asserted new images of tan, horseback riding, physically strong Jews that countered the culturally dominant and often negative portrayal of Eastern European Jews as meek, studios, and financially shrewd. The new image of Jews as “muskeljuden,” left little room for the weak, exiled Jewish image of Eastern Europe.

If Israel, Israeli culture, and the rational for speaking Hebrew were dominated by a masculinist, macho nation building principles, then Klezmer, Yiddish culture, and Yiddish were “queer” in relation to them. Many queer Jews then who find themselves marginalized by Zionist ideals and increasing adherence to them by powerful American Jewish institutions and movements have embraced Klezmer revival.

As a Jewish queer, I strongly identify with Diaspora and exile cultures and experiences. Personally, I find that there is something fluid, unregulated, joyous, but longing about Klezmer that just seems so queer. Though Israel may be a homeland of the Jews, as a queer, I know that no nation-states as they exist today can be a “homeland” (not heteronormative) for queers. Just as Jews found a way Judaism was “queered” (de-centered, fringed) in the Diaspora, queer Jews can latch onto to Klezmer as a way to do to Judaism queerly.

Finding ways to make meaningful connections between my Jewish and queer identities is important, and I think that many queer Jews / Jewish queers find something that resonates with them in Diaspora cultures. (However, I have tried to focus more on Ladino and Sephardic folklore and history than Yiddish and the Ashkenazim.)

After listening to the Klezmatics this weekend (who with I was previously familiar) I found myself with my keyboard (which I rarely play nowadays) trying to figure out klezmer scales and progressions and downloading loads of new Klezmer music.

Just one quick note.

Today in class, we discussed whether or not Gwen Stefanie’s “Rich Girl” could be considered Jewish and if the song itself was offensive. I thought about it a little, and I want to ask whether or not reggae fans and artists would consider Matisyahu’s music reggae and if they are offended by his participation in reggae music. I think as a class we were pretty ok that Jews could make Jewish music from traditionally non-Jewish genres, but why weren’t we as ok with non-Jews using traditionally Jewish themes/music for their music?

Guilt and Pleasure

2006-10-04T06:17:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of time each week at the Barnes and Noble magazine rack catching up on the week's publications. I keep up with the Jewish centered Heeb, Tikkun, and Zeek, but I never really got into Guilt and Pleasure. I found the the first issue to be too disjointed and a pretentious.

This week's assignment changed my feelings about Guilt and Pleasure First off, learning that Guilt and Pleasure was published by Reboot altered the way I read the magazine. Instead of just being bored with it, I always felt I should be looking for triggers that might push me to be more active in Jewish life. Being conscious I think actually made me become more interested in what I was reading, for it added an element of "what is someone trying to make me think here." We started talking about Guilt and Pleasure briefly in class, and some people said things that I agree with, about not really knowing why any of the articles were written and how to connect to them. But every piece in the magazine had its own spin on some Jewish-related topic or a Jewish spin on a seemingly non-Jewish topic that really causes people to say "wow, I don' t think I've ever thought of that," and to talk about it. The pieces in Guilt in Pleasure can really promt discussion, which is magazine's aim. Perhaps, reading Guilt and Pleasure alone without anyone to talk about it with feels unfulfilling because the material within is meant more to be a jumping point than complete within itself.

Also, I noticed from this issue and the one before it, (I don't remember much of the first issue) that articles relating to Israel and Israelis are mixed into the Magazine. Both the stories about the illusionist Israeli soldier and the Na Nach Ultra-orthodox street dancers speak to American Jewish youth who have spent significant time in Israel (myself and some friends I should the articles to testify.) They highlight a nuanced depiction of Israeli life not often found in American Jewish media of and an Israel with super-tough soldiers and the most observant Jews praying at the Western Wall.

Reconstructionism

2006-09-12T14:34:00.000-07:00

I became a Reconstructionist Jew after high school when I began working at the newly established Reconstructionist summer camp, Camp JRF. There I met many Reconstructionist rabbis and children who were being raised in Reconstructionist synagogues, and really fell for their process of creating senses of Jewishness that were meaningful, enlivening, socially responsible, and joyful.

I really like conceptualizing Judaism as the “evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people.” This concept allows everything that Jews have created, wrote believed, practiced, spoke, cooked, etc. to be considered part of Jewish tradition and can be used to help develop a functional and meaningful and contemporary Jewish identity. Though much of contemporary American Judaisms consider themselves rationalist and of Ashkenazi heritage, Reconstructionism makes room to explore and traditions from all places and all times. Because Judaism is seen as a civilization of a certain people, a collection of culture, religion, politics, language, etc., Reconstructionism doesn’t adhere to the concept of “choseness,” Jews may have a way of believing and behaving, but it is not necessarily the best, only, or expected way for everybody.

Another important value and commonly used phrase is “tradition has a vote, not a veto.” Because Reconstructionist Jews default setting is complete halakhic observance, traditional practices are negotiated individually and communally with seriousness and study, where values (ex. egalitarianism) and meanings inform how and if traditional practices are going to be utilized. Sometimes people find traditional practices fulfilling if they attach new meaning to them, and sometimes practices just don’t make sense for a person or community. Sometimes traditional practices are extended, there has been some discussion in Reconstructionist communities have found Jewish rationale and to include in Kashrut certain preservatives, insecticides, and growth hormones.

I think it is important to point out that I think few Reconstructionists share the exact beliefs as Mordechai Kaplan, and that Reconstructionists have varied beliefs about G!d, from no belief in godliness, a supernatural/personal G!d, an impersonal divinity, transnatural G!d, G!d as process, etc. But the belief in G!d as “the taking for granted that the human capacity for goodness” and in belief in G!d that is not omnipotent or static, is one of Reconstructionist theology’s addition to Jewish understandings of G!d.

I do often find Reconstructionism to often be Euro- or Israel-centric, as seen in the Goldsmith’s identification Hebrew and Yiddish as Jewish languages and the centrality of Israel in Jewish life. Especially after studying Ladino and Sephardic folklore as well as work closely with Ethiopian Jewry when I lived in Be’er Sheva, there is still many parts of Jewish civilization underrepresented in Reconstructionist practices.

Conservative Judaism

2006-09-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

Speaking as someone who grew up a congregant at a Conservative synagogue, the letters to the new Chancellor of JTS really hit home about some concerns for the movement in the 21st century. As one young women said at her graduation from "Hebrew high" at my synagogue on how difficult it was to explain what Conservative Jewish beliefs and practices are, "My Reform friends don't understand why I keep kosher, and my Orthodox friends disapprove that I drive to shul on Shabbat." If Reform and Modern Orthodox Judaism are becoming increasingly creative and diverse in their approaches to Judaism, can Conservative Judaism, as Jacob Ukeles says, "an organizational culture so committed to maintaining the status quo...rise to the challenge of reinventing itself"?

I remember that when my synagogue finally hired a cantor, he quit in less than a year because he could not with conscious work at a synagogue that refused to hire female clergy because his wife, being a gifted cantor herself, would never be considered for the same position. Internal Issues in the movement like egalitarianism in all levels of Conservative Jewish life, interfaith dating and intermarriage, and the ordainment of openly queer rabbis are still raging, showing that Conservative Judaism is having trouble presenting a unified platform. I know women who have left Conservative movement because of their limited roles in congregational life, Jews with partners who are non-Jewish or not Jewish by Jewish Law have felt demeaned by their Conservative communities (my brother included,) and have Conservative Jewish friends who are begrudgingly seeking enrollment in Reform, Reconstructionist, and non-denomitional rabbinical schools because they don’t feel safe or welcomed at JTS as queers.

I have such fond memories of my Conservative religious school and remember feeling that my synagogue felt really “Jewish” and I liked that. But the Conservative movement has some soul searching to do about what it stands for before it will see its numbers rise again.

Reformed Judaism and Israel

2006-09-03T14:57:00.000-07:00

After reading through some of the Platforms of Reform Judaism through its history, I find the changes in Reform Judaism’s relationship to Israel and their conception of Jewish peoplehood to be the most interesting and the most drastic. In the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885, it is decided that Reform Judaism does not view Jews as a nation or support a Jewish nationalism, but as a religious community. Reform Jews of this time see Judaism as a way of believing and relating to the divine that can occur in any place or needed relationship to the land that Jewish texts identify as the origin of Jewish people. In the Columbus Platform of 1937, Judaism is defined as “The historical religious experience of the Jewish people,” emphasizing the belief that Judaism is a religious identity, not an ethnic/national identity. This framing of Judaism as religion and not connecting Judaism to Israel allowed early Reform Jews strong affiliation with the countries in which they lived and allowed them to participate more equally in civic and social functions while still attuning their spiritual/religious beliefs to Judaism.

As time passed, the land of Israel and eventually the State of Israel became more and more of focus in the platforms of Reform Judaism, believing that that a Jewish state was connected and important to Jewish people and to Judaism, even encouraging Reform Jews to move to and become citizens of Israel and establishing a Reform Jewish presence in the state. As support and connection to Israel shifted into prominence in Reform Jewish consciousness, so did the definition of Jewish peoplehood change from a religious community to include cultural, ethnic, and national ties.

Test Entry

2006-08-31T11:17:00.000-07:00

just seeing if this turned out ok