From the Borsch Belt to Broadway, Mel Brooks has spent a career spotting ‘the insane in the commonplace.’
The printer and photographer’s masterful light captures a bygone New York.
Learn the "Top 18" Kosher white, red and Israeli Wines, Read about the American kosher wine scene, Israeli wines and much more
Tourism booming in the Negev, that first teen roots journey, driving in Israel (really!), and more.
The BBC should be held to the highest standard because they have some influence in the English language news in Muslim countries. Here is today's example: "...Israel, its ever-expanding national boundaries,..." from:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010%5C09%5C22%5Cstory_22-9-2010_pg3_5
The Jewish Meditation Center of Brooklyn is doing incredible work and has accessible, meaningful, and spiritually fulfilling programming. Everyone, not matter where you live, should check them out! www.jmcbrooklyn.org
Excellent article!!
Unfortunately, it's true. However, I would not take the small percentage of Jews in Iowa as a negative, in terms of impacting candidates and parties.
Because of the "retail" nature of presidential campaigning in Iowa (and New Hampshire), I can cite many instances where Iowa's "1st in the Nation" status has benefited the Jewish community, as well as other minorities. In the past, when candidates visit a synagogue (or black church or other minority gathering), the give and take is reported and spread throughout the nation by the Jewish news media (or other minority news media). So the low percentage of Jews and other minorities in Iowa is largely irrelevant. Most presidential candidates know this: that they are speaking to a larger audience and beyond just the Iowa caucus. We Iowa Jews are, in a sense, "delegates" for Jews across the country. The give and take: questioning, voicing of concerns, etc. that go on in a long campaign in Iowa is impossible in larger states where "retail politics" has to give way to a media campaign, with, at best, contrived town hall meetings.
However, unlike the candidates, the Iowa Republican and Democrat parties seem oblivious to their national role, as James Johnson point out in his article. They are parochial to hold caucuses on Saturday, and without a means of absentee or proxy voting. Besides religiously observant Jews, Seventh Day Adventists and others observing a Saturday Sabbath, other Iowans disenfranchised include our Iowa men and women serving in our military overseas or just out of state, Iowans who work or otherwise have to be out of state that day, handicapped or elderly who cannot go the the caucus location, or simply Iowans who work the shift during the time of the caucus.
As an "Iowa Booster," I think the nation a whole benefits from the positive points I cited first. However, the negative points I cited second leave Iowa subject to the criticism of other states, which would like to replace Iowa as "1st in the Nation." I think Iowa and the country would be poorer, if that happened.
Finding a way for all eligible voters in Iowa to participate -- or at least vote -- in the caucuses should be the first priority. It is time for the Iowa Republican and Democratic parties to wake up.
This article is an example of what is wrong with society and the media today.
We should not reward people who engage in bad/criminal behaviour by publishing such articles, especially when they are initiated by privately retained media publicists.
No matter how much media coverage Melvyn I. Weiss or his son Stephen purchase, how many times he attempts to distinguish his crime from that of Madoff or he attempts to portray his crime as "unique" or "victimless" - the reality is his former partners to whom he lied, for years, about his innocence, the judicial system and the bar (of which he is no longer a member) will always rightfully perceive him for what he is - a convicted felon.
That is and will always not be his legacy.
A crime is a crime no matter how he, his son or their publicist attempt to spin it.
Mr. Weiss can lie to his partners and his clients about his innocence, but he can't now rewrite history nor fool the American public.
A remorseful person would apologize to his former partners and amicably resolve all disputes stemming from the damage caused.
Until he has made amends with those he hurt most directly (his former partners) and resolved such unfinished business, it will be difficult for the public to truly grant a person redemption.
The fact that Melvyn I. Weiss "declined to say that he regretted his actions" demonstrates, beyond question, that he is now the same person prior to entering prison. And the fact that he refuses to settle matters pending against him only further confirms that its just business as usual for him.
I am a recent convert to Judaism. During my studies, this question came up quite often. I wondered about the different movements in Judaism, and what all of these distinctions really meant. It was all quite confusing. Even more frightening was the appearance of this legilation. I am COMPLETELY opposed to such an idea. The application of labels in this case is extremely dangerous. The intent may be good for some in Israel, but the perception of it is overwhelmingly negative. It creates divisions that are downright destructive.
Our Rabbi has a rather interesting "take" on the use of labels too. When I asked about them, I got a very interesting response. Making unnecesssary distinctinctions between different "Kinds" of Jews has ALWAYS had untold, sometimes very negative consequences -- for us. We all went to the ovens together. These labels made absolutely no difference.
Judaism is about equality, both in Divine terms and under the law. Labels tell other people to make certain assumptions. That day, he said, "Don't be lazy. When others try to attach that kind of a label on me, I say to them ... please don't assume that you know me."
I have tried, in so many ways, to take such good advice to heart.
So ... When I became Jewish, I DID NOT do so with the intennt of becoming a Reform, Conservative or an Orthodox Jew. These distinctions, worthwhile in some respects, did not even cross my mind. I wanted to become a member of the Jewih People. Period.
Don't be lazy, gentlemen. Perhaps David Rotem and his friends in the Knesset should give this legislation a LOT more thought.
Catherine Shapiro
These distinctions
It seems that Mr. Johnson is confounding anti-Israeli occupation rhetoric with anti-Jewish rhetoric. They ae not the same as there are thousands of Jews (myself included) who know that Israel's brutal occupation of Palestine is its biggest existential threat, not the Palestinians.
Enjoyable column as usual.
Of course, it raises for me the question what constitutes "non-Jewish".
[I hope it wasn't me who was "a bit indignant"!]
It is amusingly ironic that Susanne refers to the "Breuer's side eruv", as the Breuer community (officially congregation Kahal Adas Jeshurun) has traditionally opposed eruvin. (In the last few years the terms "Breuer's side" and "YU side" (Yeshiva University) have come to refer to the parts of the neighborhood west and east of Braodway.) They were not happy when the "Hudson Heights" eruv went up, but the level of civility has been remarkably superior to that in many places where eruvin have been opposed. With the recent extension of the "Hudson Heights" eruv to the border of the YU eruv, mobility has improved even more.
As an "old-timer" I miss folks like Susanne when they move away, but I am pleased to see the energy and participation of the younger crowd. I guess it's something like being a professor in a college town!
Great points, Jason -- thanks for articulating them. I'm sure many of us in the rabbinic and observant Jewish world have wanted folks to have some perspective on these issues. However, to be fair -- I wouldn't say that the NYU's presidential apology was political correctness gone too far; more likely, just ignorance about what really matters regarding Shabbat observance and what doesn't, as you so well explained. I would give NYU the benefit of the doubt and assume that they genuinely were concerned that they did something untoward. We understand quite well that there was no problem with what happened, but they might think there really was. I don't think that's political correctness, but merely a gap in understanding that they were trying to bridge with sensitivity but that really only required the explanation you offered.
On a similar note, I'm in a fantasy baseball league with several other rabbis who are traditionally Shabbat observant and we have a rule that no players can be added to your team on Shabbat. Certain player acquisitions -- waiver claims -- require a "waiting period" before they are granted, and then, if granted, they go into effect automatically. On a few occasions, after Shabbat, I've seen that "Rabbi so-and-so" added a player to his team at 5:54 AM on Saturday. After a moment of astonishment, I realized it was an automatic transaction that had been set in motion before Shabbat. Now, one might ask whether it is better to refrain from claiming a player off waivers if you know he will be added to your team on Shabbat. I would respond that since this is a closed community of individuals who understand the circumstances, the automatic addition on Shabbat doesn't pose a problem. In fact, the way it works when you get a new player is that he is automatically added to your bench and you would have to switch him to your active roster in order for his statistics from the day to count. So, if you're not going to use the computer on Shabbat, you will actually not gain any real benefit on Shabbat from the addition of that player to your team on Shabbat itself!
Another insightful and motivating piece by Deborah Riegel! I will definitely be spending time answering the questions posed and will most definitely be forwarding this article on to many (many, many, many) of my friends and relatives.
I think it is very important for the JCC to remain a place where Jews of all kinds can get together and do things. In our JCC, the Reconstructionist Havurah and the Secular Humanist congregations rent space an have services. For several years, the Reform community held religious school classes there as their shul did not have enough space. However the leadership of our JCC reaches out to and maintains ties with all the congregations in town. If a group of Jews wants to start something in the JCC, that is great. When the leadership of the JCC decides to run services, it gets to be a problem as then the rabbis of various congregations in town feel like the JCC is undercutting them. I also would not want to see the JCC led by a rabbi. If you pick an Orthodox one, you get rules the Reform don't want to follow. If you get a Reform one, the Orthodox sulk in the corner and say the Reform rabbi is not a real rabbi. The JCC is a great place precisely because all kinds of Jews come together on an equal footing Let's keep it that way.
As a musician and a devotee of the astounding artistic life of Terezin I am appalled by the expenditure of of Claims Conference funds in support of a performance of the Verdi Requiem at the expense of survivors whose suffering continues in old age. Claim Conference funds are derived from confiscated assets and slave labor derived benefit which belong to victims in need of support, not artistic memorials. Funding for performances commemorating music in Terezin must come from other sources.
It's not luck, silly. It's bashert! It only happens in the right time with the right person. The way it was meant to be.
I wish we have 1,000,000 like Pamela and the country be back on track!
We are in a war for our lives, for our country! Only the TRUTH will save us! We MUST NOT whitewash or sanitize the truth about Islam. Islam is in America to create an Islamic government under barbaric medieval shari'ah law. Nothing more , nothing less. What this will mean TO ALL Americans is the end of all freedom and security we have had since the United States was founded! This will mean the end of the life we still have today. ANYONE who is sabotaging the exposure of the truth about Islam, is jeopardizing one's own life, and the lives of one's children and grandchildren and possibly the end of the America our Founders gave us!
I am glad that The Jewish Week maintains a realistic blog like this one. To make you feel better or worse, I can tell you that things are just as bad for women in the United States. It's shocking that no matter how hard a woman tries and how fine she is herself, it is virtually impossible for her to meet a deserving man. There are no magic recipes for woman who were not born princesses or supermodels, so I came to the same conclusion as you did and left it to luck. Meanwhile, when I get angry, I practice yoga and whenever I feel lonely, I remember that there are so many women in the world who are much less fortunate than I am. Thank you again for telling the truth and best of luck to you (literally speaking)!
Rabbi, whereas I understand your approach to this, I do not support it. You are making the common mistake of apprehending the influence and hideous intentions of Islam and its mindset in liberal, Western terms. I am a proud ex-Muslim and I left Islam after the 7/7 infamies in London because Islam is not a religion of peace and I had had enough of its attitude to the people of the UK. I am married to a wonderful Christian woman and am about to convert to Christianity. I have been cut off by my family and have been threatened.
How much do you actually know about Islam and its da'wah? Do you honestly believe that a total belief system like Islam would not grind you as a Jew and the other peaceable citizens of America in its wheels if it had the chance to do so? The permission for this rabat, this mosque, is as wrongheaded as the Islam-privileging multiculturalism which has brought the UK almost to its knees. Be sure that Islam will not stop until it has you under servitude. You dare not treat with it as you might a more civilised, more honest opponent because it is not honest! It deliberately lies to you and because you tell the truth you cannot assume that it will I know it, I have used al-taqiyya (the Muslim form of lying to infidels) routinely when I was part of an Islamist network.
Read about rabat and the status of dhimmis under Islam. Read more about the lies told to naifs by "Imam" Rauf (who is no more an imam than I am)
Read more about how Islam treats apostates and non-Muslim minorities in all countries where it rules. Given that, trust me because I left because I hated what I had become when I was in slavery to Islam, you should realise that what you may call "Islamophobia" is not an insult! It is a sign of mental health to be "phobic" of Islam.
In peace,
Yusuf
Islam brings denial of Jews' human rights - just ask the Jews of France, where Judaism has no future because of Muslims (not because of the French).
Jews defending Islam are almost as foolish as would be Jews defending Hitler.
While I strongly disagree with many things R. Lookstein says in this sermon, there is one thing that I find particularly troubling and I believe that all Jews -- regardless of their feelings about the mosque, or Imam Rauf, or Muslims in general -- should find equally troubling, namely: the way he uses the term Amalek.
Throughout the sermon, R. Lookstein repeatedly invokes the laws concerning Amalek, that people whom Jews are obligated to "totally obliterate from this earth." The means for the obliteration of Amalek are neither rational argument nor military struggle in any ordinary sense. To fulfill the obligation of obliterating Amalek, Jews are obligated to "kill both man and woman, and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey" (1 Sam. 15:3). In a word, to fulfill the laws concerning Amalek means to commit genocide. By calling Imam Rauf and, by implication, all Muslims "Amalek," R. Lookstein is calling for a religiously-mandated genocidal war by Jews against Muslims. In doing so, he is not only an accessory to the violent hate crimes being committed against innocent Muslims with frightening regularity, but he also commits the gravest sin a Jew can commit: he makes a mockery of our people and of our Torah.
R. Lookstein's sermon should be condemned for what it is. It is a cowardly call for a religiously-mandated genocidal war by Jews against Muslims that is the moral equivalent of the calls for jihad against Jews, Americans, and the West by Islamist clerics. It is a defilement of our holy Torah that does not befit a leader of R. Lookstein's stature. In a word, it is wrong.
Mr. Schneider and his colleagues at the Claims Conference can not be trusted to do anything for Holocaust Survivors. They are enemies of Holocaust Survivors.
They are interested in their own institutional survival. He is full of hot air and double talk just like the other officers of the CC.
They need to be held accountable for the exploitation and subjugation of Holocaust Survivors.
zay Gazunt
Actually, and I think Ella was misquoted, there are many different kinds of families on the Lower East Side participating in our gatherings-- many with two Jewish parents, many interfaith, and many single Jewish parents. We are all hoping to gather and celebrate, understand, and experience together, inclusively. Personally, one of my main reasons to gather a new group is to help form how we are teaching the children-- in a way that is informative and open for questioning, a way that is compatible with our world and the underlying premise of Judaism, and a way that doesn't reward with empty teaching phrases but instead inspires immediate community thoughtfulness and responsibility.
'More on Obama's (liberal) Jewish problem, and a brighter future for Jewish Republicans'
You betcha:
Her recent attendance at a Shabbaton in Pennsylvania:
http://jewsforsarah.com/?p=3530
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=427601298434
She supports Israel not for religious reasons, but because she knows the difference between our allies and our enemies, unlike Obama.
When are you liberal Jews going to figure out that it is the left-wing of the Democrat party that is anti-Israel? Obama's friends – Reverend Wright, Rashid Khalidi, and backer self-hating Jew and Nazi collaborator (as a teenager) George Soros. Also may I add Jimmy Carter. By the way Soros–backed J Street is really anti-Israel not pro-Israel (that moniker belongs to AIPAC).
Numerous volunteer Survivors are serving on Advisory Committees of Social Agencies that help destitute Survivors. The necessary funds are allocated by the Claims Conference to the agencies and the advisory committee members are not permitted to grant any Survivor more than $2,500 PER YEAR, no matter how severe the degree of poverty. Hence my remark that 20 or more Survivors could have been helped with the $50,000.
On the other hand, the institutional allocations - like these $50,000 - are allocated by the members of the Board of Directors of the Claims Conference which consists of a majority of 22 NON-Survivors' organizations (out of 24). The Survivors from the Advisory Committees are not authorized to vote on these institutional allocations (hundreds of millions have been allocated, over the years, including to pet projects of directors, projects which very often have barely any nexus to the Holocaust or none at all).
The chairman of the Claims Conference, Mr. Julius Berman, is also the chairman of ALL THREE allocation committees; i.e.: America, Israel & others.
It is an autocratic, undemocratic structure that ought to be overhauled. A majority of ACTUAL Holocaust Survivors (or their heirs) ought to have the authority of determining how ALL THE FUNDS obtained for RESTITUTIONS or COMPENSATIONS ought to be spent.
Leo Rechter, (elected) president of 'The National Association of Jewish Child Holocaust Survivors, Inc., P.O.Box 670125, Station C, Main Street, Flushing, N.Y. 11367
When I saw Rabbi Shmulie's article "A Jewish Apology to the World" I was overjoyed. I thought for a moment that he had taken some time for introspection and reflected on his actions. However, after I had finished reading the article I was disappointed that he had not taken the time to think about how he had judged a Jew and presumed his guilt before he was convicted.
While I agree that it is important to treat our workers ethically no matter where they come from be it Boro Park or Guatemala, it is very easy to judge others but when it comes to this time of year it is even more important to look at oneself.
When looking at statistics, consider the proportions. Catholics in the US outnumber Muslims 15 to 1. According to your numbers, a Muslim is 15 times more likely to be attacked than a Catholic. And by the way, why should we tolerate any bias attacks? Iman Rauf did not insinuate (a loaded word), he predicted. It is a prediction that any reasonably intelligent person would make given the facts of what has been going on in the worlds for the past several decades.
Several years ago, someone I knew wanted to keep Orthodox Jews out of her neighborhood. She told me this. She and her neighbors got together and opposed the construction of an eruv by claiming that it violated a variety of regulations, particularly church-state separation since government approval was necessary. She and her neighbors didn't have any problem with the eruv per se, which is almost invisible and non-intrusive, they just wanted to keep the Orthodox Jews out. (Several eruvs currently exist in NYC. You've probably never noticed them.)
I see the same thing happening now. The protesters do not want a mosque, or any Muslim building, in Lower Manhattan, or Upper Manhattan, or anywhere in Manhattan. They do not want Muslims in New York City, New York State or the United States. It's just like the Protestants in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries wanting to keep the Papists and Jews out of the US. They came up with reasonable sounding excuses, but it was just anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism. Now it is just anti-Islamism. The Ground Zero issue is just a smoke screen for bigotry. The worst are those who post the evils carried out by some Muslims as if Judaism and Christianity do not have horror stories of their own.
How about moving it to Staten Island? Nope, the same protesters put the kibosh on that in July. How about moving it to Tennessee? I guess that's too close, too. It was firebombed in August. California must be too close, too, judging by what recently went on there.
Dave,
Bravo, you nailed it on the head. I, and many of my Jewish and non-Jewish friends, relatives and colleagues couldn't agree more.
Further, I am deeply disgusted by those who try to analyze away our views by laying the "bigot, racist or economically terrifed" label on us. It seems that the world is now divided into two groups: those who can think independently and can see through the political correctness and group-think, and those who can not.