JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Sarah Netanyahu, get thee to Scheinkin

By Ron Kampeas · July 2, 2009

Asma al-Assad, Syria's first lady, on Sky TV, not saying a whole lot, but nonetheless scoring major hasbara points.

0 Comments | Share This |

Assalamu Alaikum

By Ben Harris · July 2, 2009

Newsweek reports on the efforts of Turkish Jews to combat a rising tide of prejudice and reach out to their Muslim neighbors.

Turkish Jews are a tiny minority in their Muslim country and prejudice against them is rising. A 2008 Pew survey on European attitudes toward Jews and Muslims found that 76 percent of Turks surveyed had a negative view of Jews—an increase from 49 percent in 2004. In addition, a recently published study on radicalism by Yilmaz Esmer, a professor at Bahçesehir University, found that 64 percent of Turks in 34 different cities say they do not want Jewish neighbors. And then there's the tension between Israel and Ankara over the celebrated Davos stage-storming incident by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan after an argument with Israeli President Shimon Peres in January. But instead of hunkering down in a hostile environment, Turkey's Jews are reaching out.

Led by Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva, the 23,000-strong community is preparing to say shalom—and salaam (the Hebrew and Arabic words of greeting)—to its Muslim neighbors. In March they launched a project to introduce the community and its culture to non-Jewish neighbors. Using funds allocated by the European Union for human-rights projects, Jewish leaders are working to curb spreading anti-Jewish prejudice and to underscore that they're Turks as well as Jews. As one of their first steps, they've commissioned a company to conduct a public-opinion survey to get an accurate picture of what their fellow citizens really think of them. (Right now, they believe, study results are skewed because researchers tend to lump queries about religious discrimination in umbrella questions on views about homosexuality and drug addiction.) When that's completed in July, they will use it to draw a "road map" on how to proceed, says project coordinator Lina Filiba. "In the eyes of [our] society, Turkish Jews are the others of the other," she says. "We are crying out loud that we're Turks, but people keep seeing us as Israelis."

1 Comment | Share This |

Israeli hotels sign modesty code

By Ben Harris · July 2, 2009

You have to wonder what they'll come up with next. YNet is reporting that some 20 hotels catering to fervently Orthodox vacationers have signed a "modesty code" commiting them to unplug TVs and bloc views of the pool from rooms.

YNet reports:

The television will be closed in the closet, internet connections will be offered only to married couples, and there will be an option to separate the beds. These are some of the services some 20 hotels in Israel have taken upon themselves in order to accommodate ultra-Orthodox guests.

A little more than a month after senior haredi rabbis ordained the "Committee for the Character of the Jewish People" to establish a list of vacation spots appropriate for the haredi public, it seems as if their efforts are bearing fruit.

Five of the hotels that have taken upon themselves to uphold the stringent modesty standards of the haredi public are under religious ownership. These hotels have agreed to impose the standards all days of the year. The other 15 hotels have committed to institute the set modesty code during certain short time periods during which ultra-Orthodox guests increase.

The code operates such that even if a haredi guests wishes to act against the modesty code – and watch television, for instance – the guest will not be able to do so.

5 Comments | Share This |

Unhip Commentary

By Ben Harris · July 2, 2009

I grew up in a home of Commentary Magazine readers. Every month the magazine found its way to the ottoman where it would wait for my dad to finish his Friday night dinner and stumble the four steps to his easy chair, where he would pass out within minutes, the magazine laid spreadeagle over his chest. When I got old enough to care, I'd sometimes slip it from his grasp and have a look myself (he'd usually startle for a second and go right back to snoring). Its pages were sparse and uncolored, and the lack of illustrations and awful typography made it a laborious read. But also a refreshing one, if only for its unrelenting assault on virtually everything I thought I believed and its consistency in upholding positions I thought most civilized sophisticates had long since abandoned. When the world hated George Bush, Commentary reliably came to his defense. When the Iraq war looked beyond unwinnable, Commentary offered rosy predictions. When peace in the Middle East seemed all the rage, Commentary remained a sourpuss. But the arguments were normally cogent and well reasoned, and I ultimately came to enjoy its company.

Not so with D.G. Myers article in the current issue (“The Judaism Rebooters”), which assaults the notion of “Jewish hipsterism,” the “specter” of which is “haunting American Jewry.” For the unfamiliar, Myers offers a quick primer. Hipsterdom is about seeing Judaism as “cool.” It's about being at the leading edge of the cultural category known as “indie” and contemptuous of all things mainstream. It's about all-night parties -- “known as raves,” Myers helpfully informs us -- and the recreational use of prescription meds. It's about the pretense of revolution, but ultimately about conformity.

It's not a pretty picture and, “Reefer Madness”-style, it's coming soon to a community near you. It's not hard to conjure up pictures of older Jewish adults much like my father unsettled by the indigestion of their Shabbos meals brought on by Myers' vision of what the future of American Judaism portends.

More caricature than fact, Myers' depiction of the state of Jewish hipsterdom bears little resemblance to anyone or anything with which I'm familiar, both as a reporter on trends related to American Jewish life and as a participant in many of the cultural activities Myers loathes. No one I know thinks Arab Americans are cool because they are a persecuted minority. No one I know has ever used the term “reboot Judaism” -- “an expression that is popular with them,” Myers writes, sounding much like the field guide to a cultural Galapagos. Eco-consciousness isn't cool -- it's a moral necessity, and if it's presented as cool it's only as a marketing gimmick. Most folks I know get the difference.