Taking on Chabad
The latest issue of New Voices, the Jewish student magazine, is devoted entirely to Chabad, whose rabbis are rising in prominence on college campuses and often challenging the hegemony of the local Hillel chapters. As one JTA staffer noted, it's pretty "ballsy" of NV to take on Lubavitch, though takedown is probably a more accurate description.
The articles – about a Chabad renegade and Iraq war vet, about the subordinate role of the typical Chabad rabbi's wife, about the controversy surrounding Princeton's Chabad rabbi, about the movement's latent messianism, about its role in the settler movement (a topic virtually ignored by the media) – paint a picture of the movement that is almost uniformly negative. There are even two articles about the scandal at Agriprocessors, a company whose owners are Chabad affiliated but otherwise have little apparent connection to Jewish campus life.
As David Samuels contends in the latest issue of New York, Chabad's success has much to do with filling a spiritual gap left by the existing Jewish communal infrastructure. On campuses, that indictment would extend to Hillel and, yes, the Jewish Student Press Service, which publishes New Voices. If Samuels is right, then the pushback from New Voices can be seen as an attempt to reclaim some of its lost territory – or to de-legitimize the competition.
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On Campus,
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Blowing in the new year
Nearly every newspaper in America seems to have a Rosh Hashanah story of one kind or another. Here's a sampling:
- Alisa Israel Goldberg has some special guests to thank for the sweetness of her Rosh Hashanah table: 60,000 bees, reports the San Jose Mercury News.
- A project at the University of Washington Hillel called PostRegret asks local Jews to anonymously submit their most sincere regrets, which then will be posted at the school's Hillel shortly before Yom Kippur.
- In Jerusalem's Old City, the coincidence this year of the Jewish penitential month of Elul and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is a reminder of the perpetual tension in this prayer-filled city, the New York Times' Ethan Bronner observes.
- For observant Jews, the month ahead is tough: Employees must take no less than seven days off from work over the next four weeks to take off for the Jewish holidays, some of which your employers probably never heard of, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.
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Holidays,
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Take that, New York Jew!
Here's an article you're unlikely to find in the JTA. New York magazine's 40th anniversary edition has published an elegy for the New York Jew that should provide more than enough fodder for some lively Rosh Hashanah dinner table conversations.
Writer David Samuels is both proud and chagrined by the rise and fall of the NYJ from the pinnacle of New York society.
First, the heights:
Future historians will record that the Jews replaced the old Protestant elite, who had run the city off and on since the eighteenth century until their power was finally shattered by the cultural metamorphosis of 1968, followed by the financial collapse of 1974. John Lindsay, New York's last Wasp mayor, presided over a city falling into bankruptcy and seemingly irreconcilable racial and class tensions. Academics and residents agreed that New York City was dead—a mid-century idea on which the clock had finally run out. Lindsay's successor, Abe Beame, was the first Jewish mayor of a city where Jews would assume the leading positions of political, economic, and cultural power.
But lest we get too proud, Samuels warns that the era of Jewish supremacy in New York is ending. In a turn that could be regarded as either flagrantly anti-Semitic or as caution against the perils of assimilation, Sameuls makes this observation:
New York may now be a center of global finance, but it is difficult to locate any equivalent, specifically Jewish, genius in the arts today. The collision of Jewish specificity and postmodernity will continue to give off sparks, no doubt, but the story of Jewish cultural life in New York City over the last 40 years is a story of triumph, then decline. If the rest of the world liked Jews better as victims and outsiders, it is possible—if great art, music, and literature is what you care about—that they may have had a point. As the barriers to Jewish acceptance fell away, so did our connection to shared communal values and the traditions of intellectual work that formed the common cultural inheritance of our grandparents.New York Jews circa 2008 are wealthy white people whose protestations of outsiderness inspire blank stares or impatient eye rolling.
And this:
There is something ineffably sad and utterly American about the communal progression from tribal Judaism to a vague and watered-down idea of "Jewishness." It's like watching a family sell the old farmhouse to buy a drywall palace in the suburbs with twice the square footage and shiny new appliances.
And finally, this takedown of the entirety of the Jewish communal apparatus:
But the success of Lubavitch may equally be understood as a mark of a larger collapse: The Lubavitchers have succeeded by filling the spiritual and institutional void left by the disintegration of the traditional infrastructure of Jewish life in New York City. The modern Orthodox community, with its arid pseudo-intellectualism and high-priced schools, is an unlikely wellspring of Jewish revival. Reform and Conservative Judaism look increasingly like relics of the nineteenth and twentieth centures, respectively. It's an open secret in the Jewish community that the galaxy of Manhattan-based Jewish organizations with impressive-sounding names like the World Jewish Congress exist for the most part only on paper.
Shana tova, indeed.
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Culture |
More Mahmoud, Part 2
The saga continues ... Iran's president, meeting last night with an inter-religious group that included a rabbi, was met with protests outside the Manhattan hotel where the encounter took place.
Earlier in the day, Ahmadinejad met with some media bigwigs for breakfast, as recounted by Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post. The Chicago Tribune has a slightly fuller account. The New York Times also has a lengthy interview with the Iranian leader.
And in case you missed the anti-Semitic rant he delivered Tuesday at the United Nations, Eye on the UN has produced this nice little highlight reel of the speech's greatest hits, including an embrace by the General Assembly president, who is also a Catholic priest. Apparently, Israel's new U.N. ambassador is none too happy.
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Iran,
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High Holy Dazed
The Jewish Channel is producing a VH1-style series about the High Holidays. You know the drill – a bunch of media types whose names you sort of recognize talk smack about something. Yeah, I don't watch them either.
Anyway, there are a coupla clips on their site. I've watched them all (yes, my job rules) and hereby declare this one the best:
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Culture,
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On the Web,
Pop Culture |
Sexism in Israel?
Kevin Peraino writes in Newsweek: If Tzipi Livni manages to assemble a coalition, all three branches of Israel's government will be led by women: Dalia Itzik became Israel's first female speaker of Knesset in 2006 and Dorit Beinisch heads the Supreme Court.
So you might think all the fuss in America about lipstick and pigs is a little passé in Israel. Golda Meir, after all, cracked Israel's glass ceiling some 35 years ago.
Not so, Peraino's piece suggests.
Some Israeli pundits have argued Livni is the manliest woman in Israeli politics. JTA's Dina Kraft explored that theme a bit in her Livni profile earlier this month.
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Israel,
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Where’s the outrage?
It's easy to be incensed by Iranian President Ahmadinejad's loathsome remarks at the United Nations and in media appearances, but several commentators are wondering why there hasn't been more public outrage by the world community? I'm wondering why all the outcry over the lack of outcry is only coming from the right?
Eve Epstein, who as a U.N. insider serves as an important Jewish voice at the world body, writes in National Review Online:
To their shame, U.N. member states' pledges of "Never Again" were betrayed by a singular lack of moral outcry. Have they learned nothing from the multitude of Holocaust education and genocide prevention programs they sponsored?
She also sees through his use of the word "Zionist" instead of Jew when he seeks blame for the world's ills.
If he had used the word "Jew" instead of "Zionist," such sentiments would likely be barred from the Internet in many countries, as a form of hateful invective.But Ahmadinejad is clever, and summons the spirit of European and Muslim antisemitism by casting this as an issue of the Jewish state.
Elsewhere, a British commentator, in The New York Sun, takes the Europeans in particular to task for their silence.
And, in The Spectator, Melanie Phillips notes the irony that on the same day that Ahmadinejad took the stage in New York, Paul McCartney was talking peace in Israel.
Salon, on the other hand, buys Ahmadinejad's distinction between Jews and Zionists, and criticizes Obama for conflating the two.
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Anti-Semitism,
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Sarkozy charms the world
Rabbi Arthur Schneier (right), presents the Appeal of Conscience World Statesman Award to French President Nicolas Sarkozy. French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, and GE chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt look on along with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
In his brief visit to New York this week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed continued pressure on Iran, reiterated his condemnation of anti-Semitism and extolled France's close relationship with America. No wonder he is being feted by the Jews and Jewish-sponsored human rights groups.
He was honored by both the Elie Wiesel Foundation and the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, and gave passionate speeches at both events extolling human rights and slamming anti-Semitism and racism.
Lauded by Rabbi Arthur Schneier, president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, as a "man of courage," Sarkozy quipped Tuesday night that it was a dubious honor to receive the group's "World Statesman" award at a time "when everything is going wrong" in the world.
Earlier in the day, the French leader made a forceful speech at the United Nations, vowing to pursue further sanctions against Iran and urging that those responsible for the world financial crisis be held accountable.
Sarkozy, elected president of France just last year, has catapulted onto the world stage rapidly, playing a key role in resolving political tensions in Lebanon, working out a cease-fire agreement between Russia and Georgia and hosting an international gathering of Mediterranean country leaders, including Israel, Syria and other Arab nations.
Not all pro-Israel advocates – or Jews in France – support his outreach to Syria and they wonder whether as the current president of the European Union, he will do much to ease tensions with Israel. The E.U. Parliament, for example, earlier this month passed a resolution conditioning improved relations with Israel on Israel improving its treatment of Palestinian prisoners.
As incidents of anti-Semitism in France continue to dominate headlines, it's not clear how much Sarkozy will be able to do to quell it, despite his forceful condemnation.
Still, Sarkozy and his current stature is garnering a great deal of attention, even though he appears more popular abroad than at home. Sadly, much of the media are more enamored by his wife, Carla Bruni Sarkozy, than by him. At the press opportunity with Sarkozy at the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, there were as many paparazzi crowding around the couple as political reporters and photographers. You can bet "Inside Edition" wasn't there to hear his views on the political and financial crises of the day.
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France,
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More Mahmoud
Iran's president had his big day at the United Nations yesterday, giving a speech slamming Zionists and replete with classic anti-Semitic motifs: The Zionists are murderers, deceitful and dominate global finance despite their "minuscule" number, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.
Then he went on CNN to talk with Larry King about how the Zionists start wars, have no religion, and are "uninvited guests" (he starts talking about Israel at minute 13:40).
As with many other American media personalities who have sat down with Ahmadinejad over the years, King was outmaneuvered by Iran's president (and his shrill translator) when it came to Israel's right to exist and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Where King, and others, have failed to challenge Ahmadinejad is on his assertion that, if the Holocaust is true, Jews should get a state in Germany, not Palestine (for more on that, Israeli artist Ronen Eidelman has a project proposing the establishment of a Jewish state in Weimar, Germany). King should have pointed out that, as a devout Muslim, Ahmadinejad ought to know from the Bible (considered a holy book by Islam) that the Jews are indigenous to the holy land, and not a European people – to say nothing of the fact that half of Israel's Jews are immigrants or children of immigrants from the Middle East, that Jews continually lived in Palestine/Israel since the last Jewish state there 2,000 years ago and that Israel is a democratic nation of all its citizens and not just its Jews (Israeli Arabs have the vote, too).
And when Ahmadinejad was talking about Palestinian suffering, King could have pressed him about the Arab attacks against Israelis that perpetuate the conflict – and Palestinian suffering. The point is not to get into a pissing contest about whose suffering is worse – the Israelis' or the Palestinians' – but to understand the context for the suffering of the Palestinian side and its root causes: the refusal of powerful Palestinians to give up their war against Israel.
JTA's Ron Kampeas notes that CNN's Christiane Amanpour made her own bungle of an analysis of Ahmadinejad's speech, which she characterized as Ahmadinejad "trying to actually pull back from some of that very fiery rhetoric that he's directed towards Israel."
For Ahmadinejad's interviews with NPR and the L.A. Times, read yesterday's post.
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Anti-Zionism,
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Shomrim vs. Shmira (and the NYPD)
The NYPD is trying to bring two rival Jewish security patrols in Brooklyn, the Shomrim and Shmira, under one roof, the New York Post reports:
The NYPD is trying to settle a long-running dispute between two rival Orthodox Jewish patrol groups - and keep them from taking the law into their own hands - by uniting them into one police-supervised unit, The Post has learned.The challenge is getting them to cooperate.
Shmira and Shomrim, private crime-patrol organizations in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, have been rivals since the late '90s, when they split.
Shmira has agreed to the merger, which was proposed in June. Shomrim has refused.
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Community,
Crime,
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