Men Can be Rabbis?

Crossposted at RJ.org and the NFTY blog

“Who’s that guy?” I asked my mom.

“He’s the rabbi,” she answered. I stared up at my mom, with a blank gaze on my face.

When I was eight years old, my family joined a synagogue for the first time.

Even before then, we always had a fairly strong sense of Jewish identify in our home – celebrating Shabbat every week at my grandparents’ house and observing Rosh Hashanah, Pesach and Chanukah together. From an early age, I was taught how to express the guttural ‘ch’ sound that permeates our people’s speech, and I have fond memories of helping my bubby place all of the items on the seder plate at Pesach, as I checked them off one-by-one in my own coloring book haggadah. The fact that my zaidy had given me The Big Book of Jewish Humor at a young age probably helped, too (or just made matters worse, according to my mother)

So I don’t recall struggling with any heavy questions about Judaism when my parents announced to my sister and I that we’d be joining a shul. They explained all about services, the rabbi, Hebrew school, and the like, and it all seemed fairly straightforward to me.

A few weeks later at the age of eight, I was shipped off to Hebrew school for the first time.

I was that rare breed of kid who actually enjoyed Hebrew school. Maybe it was partly because I was a dork, but I ascribe much of my thirst for Jewish knowledge to the inspirational education I received at the hands of my very first rabbi – Rabbi Nancy Wechsler (now Rabbi Wechsler-Azen of Congregation Beth Shalom in Carmichael, CA).

She was a product of our URJ camps, played guitar and sang with a beautiful voice, and led worship and classes with warmth and inspiration.

She had that rare ability to make eachof her young congregants truly feel that their connection with Judaism and with God was personally meaningful, important, and unique. She saw in each of us a holy spark to be nurtured as we travelled along on our Jewish journeys. On a weekly basis, she made us feel that being Jewish and coming to shul wasn’t a boring and burdensome task, but an exciting and meaningful part of our lives.

So when I looked up at my mom and asked her “Who’s that guy?” you can forgive me for not being even more confused.

I asked my mother that question at the age of nine while sitting in the pews of a synagogue that wasn’t our own. We were attending a friend’s Bar Mitzvah, and their congregation’s rabbi had just ascended the bimah.

He… was a ‘he.’

“Men can be rabbis?!” I exclaimed.

I don’t recall my mother’s response, but she assures me that it was a mixture of hilarity, amusement, mild embarrassment, and pride.

I had only known from Rabbi Wechsler, and assumed that all rabbis were women. I wouldn’t understand until years later that my then nine-year-old self had just wandered into one of the great issues of modern Judaism– women in the rabbinate and the role of women in Jewish life.

With the sudden realization that an entire new world was open to me as a male, I started pondering the possibility of a career as a professional Jew. At least that’s the version of events I tell myself today. I’m sure that nine-year-old Jesse just wanted the service to end as quickly as possible so we could get to the oneg.

But there is little doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t have stayed connected to my Judaism through high school, university and beyond, and wouldn’t today be a Jewish Professional if it wasn’t for the foundation Rabbi Wechlser-Azen laid two decades ago.

So while I learned that day that men can indeed be rabbis, I’m pretty thankful that women can be, too.

Steven Harper could learn a lot at Yeshiva

To my fellow Jewish residents of Thornhill, Ontario who will no doubt once again crawl back into bed with the Conservative Party through their votes on May 2:

It seems you are intent again to use a theo-political issue to trump your vote. Certainly, the Tories have done and are doing everything they can to convince you that this is a good idea.

Perhaps, then, it is time to study some Talmud. Some weighty, dense Talmud. If you’ll forgive me for dropping this tome on you, I think you’ll find some brilliant insight within it:

“Moses said: ‘I know that the Israelites are malcontents. Therefore, I will audit the entire construction of the Mishkan (Tabernacle)’. He began making an accounting: ‘These are the records of the Mishkan’ and he began reporting everything, the gold, silver and bronze, and the silver of the public census… He continued reckoning each item in the Mishkan in order, but forgot 1575 shekels from which the hooks on the pillars were fashioned, but which were not generally visible. He stood bewildered and said: ‘Now they will lay their hands on me, saying that I took it’, and he went back to recalculate. Immediately, God opened Moses’ eyes and showed him that the silver was used in the hooks on the pillars. He began to reply to them, saying: ‘and 1575 were fashioned into pillar hooks’ and the Israelites were immediately appeased. What enabled this? The fact that he sat and made an accounting…

…But why did he make an accounting?… It is only because he heard the cynics talking behind his back, as it says ‘And when Moshe left…they looked back at Moshe’. What did they say? R. Yitzhak said that people spoke positively. Then others would chime in: ‘Imbecile! He’s the one who controlled the entire enterprise of the Mishkan… gold and silver that were not counted, weighed, or numbered! Wouldn’t you expect that he be rich?’ When Moshe heard this, he said: ‘My word! When the Mishkan is completed, I will make an accounting’, as it says ‘These are the records of the Mishkan.’”

-Midrash Tanchuma, Pekudei 7

What’s going on here?

In short, the Midrash is teaching us that the fiscal cost of the Tabernacle – as a public project funded by the taxes of the Israelites – must be entirely accounted for in an open, transparent, and accessible way.

It’s also teaching us that Moses – as leader of the people – is answerable to the people. Even Moses, who speaks to God face-to-face in a way that no others do, must still face the people.

In a broader sense, it speaks about the virtue of transparency among leaders and the need to be open and answerable to the public.

Stephen Harper could learn a lot from Moses.

An egregious lack of transparency and accountability related to the purchase of military aircraft is exactly what led the Conservatives to be censured for Contempt of Parliament this past week. Of course, anyone with their finger on the pulse of Canadian politics knows that this specific issue is part and parcel of a greater patten of behaviour on part of the Tories; one that paved the way to the landmark ruling by (famed non-partisan) Speaker of the House Peter Milliken.

Certainly if we Jews acknowledge that Moses was expected to be held accountable to the people and to act transparently, we should bestow the same criteria upon Mr. Harper. Certainly if our vaunted Talmud teaches us the virtues of un-opaque leadership, we should value that in our national leader as well.

I challenge anyone to comment on how Harper and the Conservatives can be painted as an honest, transparent, accountable, and open government. Sure, there have been individual instances when they acted reasonable on these grounds. But the story of the Tories – as any learned political observer will tell you – is one of secrecy, opacity, avoidance of responsibility, centralized power, and tight-lipped relations with the Canadian people.

So to the Jews who will likely vote for the Conservatives on the grounds of their supposed dominance of the “support for Israel” (whatever that means) issue: if you value the Talmud’s instructions as much as you value the Conservative’s platform (which, remember, didn’t exist when you voted last time…), perhaps you should reconsider the value of your vote.

P.S.: Not convinced that the Tories have a national Jewish-vote buying strategy in place? It isn’t just happening in Thornhill, it’s also taking place down the 401 in Montreal’s Mount-Royal riding.

Hummus, Random Christian Dude, and the Israeli on his Cell Phone

I was killing some time in the Milwaukee airport today, and I broke a couple personal rules. Well not really rules, but general guidelines.

1. I enjoyed eating airport food.
There’s this little cafe there called Alterra Coffee, that has a phenomenal menu of decent food and great coffees. And the guy working there didn’t look like he wanted to kill himself. I would actually go back there even if it wasn’t in an airport. Highly recommended if you’re passing through MKE.

2. I answered “yes” when asked by a stranger, “Are you Jewish?”
When the big, burly, clearly Midwesterner sitting next to me on the concourse leaned over and asked me this – having seen my kippah – it wasn’t as though I could lie, so I answered “yes.” Not really frightened, but certainly hesitant for what was about to transpire, I engaged in a conversation with Random Christian Dude (RCD).

Random Christian Dude laid the heavy one on me right away, asking me “Are you devout?”

Now devout isn’t really a word most Jews would use to describe their observance or beliefs, but I kind of knew where he was going, so I answered “Sure.” When Jews see my kippah, they often ask “Are you really religious?” Now I know the Christian equivalent is “Are you devout?”

(As an aside – I’ve never been asked this question by an Orthodox Jew, though I imagine most would make their own assumptions about my beliefs and practices. But it’s such a loaded and specious question to begin with anyways).

RCD – who turned out to be a pretty nice, if not awkward, guy – said that he considered himself to be a devout Christian, and assured me that he had the utmost respect for Jews, Judaism, and Israel (three distinct things that, while clearly intimately related, are not one and the same), and that “of course, as you know, Jesus himself was Jewish.” Pretty standard fare for an encounter between a Midwestern Christian and a Canadian-cum-New Yorker Jew.

Then things got interesting.

Random Christian Dude asked me if I was familiar with Genesis 6. Not being able to quote chapter and verse, but being pretty familiar with the beginning of the Torah, I answered “sort of.” RCD then launched into a series of questions about my perception of the nephilim, the story of Noah, why people destroy the earth, and what God’s intentions are for humanity.

I honestly had no idea what to say. I stumbled through some words about humanity’s responsibility for one another, and that Judaism places a huge emphasis on interpersonal ethical living, but pretty much I had no idea where RCD wanted the conversation to go. Plus, I was trying to enjoy my really delicious hummus wrap from Alterra.

Sensing I was a little overwhelmed, RCD backed off as I ate and checked my email. And then he walked away. I sat on the relatively comfortable airport lounge chair for a few minutes, trying to digest what just happened. And also my hummus sandwich.

And that’s when I overheard Hebrew being spoken, and saw the Israeli businessman talking on his cell phone who had watched the entire interaction, a coy smile on his face.

Religious Illiteracy

As a PS to my post yesterday on an appreciation of religious diversity, here are some profound words on religious illiteracy from a great article at the Toronto Star by Patricia Pearson:

All of the religious traditions are filled with characters and stories worth knowing. My children are familiar with Christmas, of course, because we celebrate it in our home. But I would love for them to know about the other holidays and their celebrations of human spirit, including Diwali, Eid, Hanukkah and Ramadan.

Unfortunately, though, the trend is toward further ignorance. According to the American professor of religious studies, Stephen Prothero, author of the 2007 bestseller, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – And Doesn’t, 50 per cent of American high school students think Sodom and Gomorrah were married.

Sixty per cent of American students can name fewer than five of the 10 Commandments, says Prothero.

Is this a problem? Yes, it is. Children raised in such a pedagogical vacuum cannot make sense of a world in which religion governs public and international debate.

At a time of rising bigotry against Muslims, and ongoing prejudice against Jews, ignorance about religion is dangerous.

The Schizophrenic Jewish Hierarchy

I just read that at the JFNA General Assembly, Kadima MP Tzipi Livni addressed the crowd with a message of Jewish unity, calling for “dialog between the Jews of the Diaspora and of Israel to ensure that we would forever remain one people. That is how I see you when I stand here today… not as Reform Jews or Orthodox or Conservative.“

Setting aside the cookie-cutter content of her speech, am I the only one that thinks when someone mentions the three major Movements of North American Judaism in the same breath, there’s an inherent resistance that takes place, our of fear of establishing a hierarchy?

I can imagine Livni’s speech-writers spending hours formulating that one sentence:

- Who do we put first? Reform? If we say Reform first, then we have to say Orthodox second, otherwise it will look like we’re going bottom up along the religious scale.

- There’s a religious scale?

- Of course there is, everyone knows there’s an identity problem in North American Judaism.

- Nu? Maybe we shouldn’t put Reform first, it makes it look like we’re starting at the bottom.

- Ok, so let’s start with Orthodox.

- No, then it looks like we’re starting at the top and working our way down.

- What is wrong with North American Jews?! Why can’t they just be like us Israelis and have one, state-sponsored religious stream. Things would be so much easier that way…

- Yes. Yes, they would.

- Ok, so what about Conservative Judaism… why don’t we start with them?

- If we put Conservative first, then it will be too obvious that we’re trying to avoid establishing a hierarchy.

- Ok, so let’s start with Orthodox, but then go straight to Reform so it looks like we understand religious pluralism.

- Then we’re leaving Conservative for last; people will think we’re making a comment about the dying state of their movement.

And on, and on, and on, and on…

Canadian Judaism on Page One: Antisemitism, blood libels, fear & hatred

If you wanted to take the pulse of the Canadian Jewish community and all you had to rely on was the Jewish Tribune, the “largest Jewish weekly in Canada,” you might assume that Canadian Jewry was in a constant state of existential panic and anxiety.

A quick glance at the cover stories from the Tribune over the past few months reveals the following headlines:

“Antisemitism is no longer in the closet and Jewish students…don’t know how to deal with it”
“Growing anti-semitism has Jews fleeing Sweden”
“Jews flee Malmö as antisemitism grows”
“Antisemitic blood libel aimed at IDF in Haiti”
“Israel Olympic flag stickers vandalized”
“B’nai Brith audit to include national poll on antisemitism”
“Obama Antisemitism ‘czar’ slammed for criticizing Israel’s Oren”
“BLOOD LIBEL CIRCULATING IN CANADA” (All caps, bold, and unusually large font courtesy of original publication)
“Passenger shouts ‘Kill Jews’ on Miami plane”
“Leaders discuss ways to combat antisemitism”
“BLEAK FUTURE FOR DANISH JEWS?”
“Third Global Forum on Antisemitism set for next week”
“Antisemitic incidents in Australia hit record high”
“Digital hate: ‘No guarantees good guys are going to win’”
“Canada, UK ‘pioneers’ of campus antisemitism, expert says”

I’m sensing a trend here. To be sure, nearly every edition of the paper from the past three months leads with front page stories on Canadian or worldwide antisemitism. Blood libels. Czars. Death. Hate. Fleeing Jews. Vandalized stickers. How depressing. These headlines smack of Yellow Journalism, and are more fitting of rag tabloids than a supposedly substantial Jewish paper.

Out of 33 front-page stories from the past three months, 16 are related to antisemitism. That’s nearly 50%. And that doesn’t include the weekly “If you are the victim of antisemitism, call the anti-hate hotline…” banner appearing at the top of every edition. One also notices that most of these are stories taking place outside of Canada. Interesting.

Is this truly the story of Canadian Judaism week-to-week? When telling the story of what it means to be Jewish in Canada, is half of it about hatred and antisemitism? I don’t believe so.

Now obviously the newspaper includes more than just the headlines on page one. And obviously the story of Canadian Judaism reaches deep beyond what’s printed on the first page of one newspaper. But I’m judging the Jewish Tribune on the grounds that the most crucial, newsworthy, ground-breaking, pulse-feeling stories are those printed on the first page. Ask any journalist and they’ll tell you the same thing. Perhaps someone from the Tribune should google “How do newspapers decide which stories to put on the first page” and see what turns up.

Page one is what people see when they pass newspaper boxes on the street and it’s the first thing they see when they open the paper at breakfast. Page one sets the tone for the entire paper. Truly, it is where the pulse is taken. It seems to me that the writers and editors at the Tribune might be taking Canadian Jewry’s pulse on the wrong part of the body.

At best, this trend amounts to poor journalistic standards. Surely there are stories taking place around Canada that are more deserving of front page status. Surely there are innovative, exciting, and newsworthy events worthy of highlighting on the front page of the largest weekly Canadian Jewish newspaper. Surely a story about a single deranged American passenger on an American flight to Miami does not qualify for front-page status. According to the Tribune, it does.

At its worst, this trend amounts to dangerous fear-mongering. Focusing on antisemitism to this extent creates an atmosphere of fear and hatred. It grossly misrepresents what it means to be Jewish in Canada. As Canadian journalist and political analyst Gerald Caplan recently noted in a Globe and Mail article:

“By any conceivable standard, we Canadian Jews are surely among the most privileged, most secure, most successful, most influential minorities in Canada and indeed in the entire world. We don’t have a powerful Christian right-wing that is openly prejudiced, as in the United States, and the anti-Semitic incidents that do occasionally happen, while deplorable, are almost invariably caused by kids, crackpot white supremacists or marginalized thugs.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t be concerned with growing antisemitism. Of course we should. And should we not be concerned with events beyond our own borders? Most certainly we should. But how about a diversified portfolio? How about journalistic integrity? How about an expanded viewpoint? How about a balanced mix of interesting, local, Canadian Jewish news stories? Lately, that’s not what you’ll find in the Jewish Tribune.

One final, important point regarding the Tribune’s and B’nai Brith’s (the Tribune is a subsidiary of B’nai Brith) perception of antisemitism and its relationship to the actual state of Canadian Jewry. While cases of antisemitism are likely of concern to Canadian Jews, they are not indicative of and should not be conflated with an existential danger to Canadian Jews. As Caplan notes in his article:

The B’nai Brith annually publishes the number of anti-Semitic incidents that are reported to it, but these reports are never checked out or confirmed. And whatever those numbers, the vast majority of Canadians Jews know perfectly well that they now live their entire lives completely untouched by anti-Semitism.

In its journalistic choices, the Tribune is failing to accurately portray the state of Canadian Jewry today. As the self-proclaimed “largest Jewish weekly,” they should rise to the challenge of delving deep into stories that highlight the unique flavour of Canadian Judaism, and in doing so ask themselves what kind of newspaper they want to be. They should strive to place stories on the cover of their newspaper that are truly newsworthy, not only stories that are eye-catching in their alarmism. And when stories of antisemitism merit deep attention, they should report on them from the context of Canadian Jewry in 2010, not from the paradigm of 1930s Germany.

Perhaps the ultimate question to pose to the Tribune isn’t ‘who do you want to be?’ rather, ‘who do you think we Canadian Jews really are?’ Are we a vibrant and safe people, or are we cowering in the corner in fear of persecution at the hands of people waving “Der Sturmer-type propaganda”?

We Jews sure love to steal things

Ten points to anyone who knows what the origin of Yahrzeit is and where the tradition of lighting a candle comes from.

It surprised me!

Altruism or Astroturfing?

I’m always amazed and humbled by how quickly the international Jewish community responds to crises around the world. In the past few hours, I’ve been flooded with information on relief funds setup by various Jewish organizations, including my own, to respond to the disastrous earthquake in Haiti – a place with the tiniest of Jewish communities. This is a true demonstration of altruism.

And isn’t email is great? What we take for granted each day really is a technological marvel that allows unprecedented amounts of aid dollars flow to areas of need in a matter of minutes, courtesy of the organizations that are empowered to do so.

To ensure that these organizations’ aid initiatives are seen as being truly altruistic, and not just a way to keep up with the pack, careful attention needs to be paid to the press releases announcing them. Graphics can’t be too graphic, text can’t be over the top, and the message needs to be carefully crafted to encourage people to donate. There’s a fine line between creating a powerful message and sensationalism. Any good marketing professional knows this.

It appears, though, that B’nai Brith Canada still doesn’t quite understand the basic elements of word choice. Joe Bogoroch, President of B’nai Brith Canada, should have opened up a dictionary (or how about wikipedia?) before sending out their press release email today. In their call for people to send in funds, he used the following text:

“We call on members of the community to once again show their generosity and donate as much as they can afford to the victims of the quake. We hope that our grassroots (my emphasis added) effort will provide some measure of comfort, dignity and normalcy to the victims whose lives have been torn apart.”

This is not the first time B’nai Brith has abused the concept of grassroots efforts. See here for more on that. Yup, that was astroturfing again!

To be sure, their effort in getting out a message for people to donate is supremely important and commendable. But make no mistake, this is not a grassroots effort. This is a top-down organized initiative from a well entrenched member of the Jewish establishment in Canada. Why add a highly political element to an initiative that should be apolitical? Why call it grassroots at all?

My guess is that Bogoroch and B’nai Brith hope that this singular word will make their organization appear more attractive, more attuned to the lives of younger Jews, and more folksy. Perhaps for those that don’t understand the concept, it does. But for most, it’s clear that this a fallacy. In essence, by using this word, B’nai Brith subtly puts their organization’s image ahead of the aid efforts.

UJA Federation, on the other hand – the supreme example of the Jewish establishment, crafted a powerful and well worded press release. And they got it out forty minutes before B’nai Brith did. It includes about five quick sentences that succinctly let us know what’s up. An excerpt:

“As the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, Haiti is simply not prepared to handle such a catastrophe and the Caribbean nation is appealing for international aid.

United Jewish Appeal of Greater Toronto has established the Haiti Disaster Relief Fund to assist victims who, suddenly, find their lives turned upside down and in jeopardy.”

Their webpage also thanks people for their “ongoing commitment to tikun olam, ‘Repairing the World’.” Nicely done, UJA. In just three sentences, we know why this is important, what UJA wants us to do, and how it’s a Jewish concept. It doesn’t sound like they’re trying to get us to join up with them. They just want to donate some money.

Ok folks, let’s just get it out there: Jewish organizations like B’nai Brith and Federation, while becoming increasingly out of touch with the zeitgeist of this generation, are still uniquely positioned to do some real good when crises like the Haitian earthquake arise. They have a vast, connected membership, with the funds and mechanisms to reach out to them. Why not get it right? Why not take the (brief) time to craft your message properly to maximize its ability to connect to people? Sadly, this is an endemic problem in the Jewish community.

If the legacy organizations want to remain relevant over the next twenty years, perhaps a quick and easy step in that direction would be to step back and look at the framework from which they speak…

Happy Channukah to Ross and Monica…


Though somewhat hazy on the historical accuracy, this is just phenomenal:

Power, Money, & Privilege

A dangerous cocktail.

The Tories, in a shocking political move that can only be described as below the belt, riddled with fallacies, and bordering race-based politics, used their MP’s free-mail privileges to send flyers to households in communities with large Jewish populations in Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg. These flyers (see one here) were an attempt to convince voters (is there an election brewing?) that the Conservative Party is more committed to Israel – and thus, by extension, the Jewish population of Canada – than the other political parties. This is astonishing. On many levels:

1. This is an abuse of taxpayer funding. These flyers were sent for free, under postal rules allowing MPs to send mail to their constituents in the interest of public information. But this is not information being sent, it is narrow-casting propaganda that in fact misinforms (see my third point) the populous. These are essentially attack-ads being funded by public dollars. Would this be acceptable during an election?

2. This is also a fiscally unsound abuse of taxpayer funding. Could the Tories at least be economically frugal with their propaganda? A report issued this week by the Globe and Mail notes that, while MPs of every party make use of free mail privileges, the Conservatives spent $6.3-million on the mailers last year, while opposition MPs spent $3.8-million. What happened to the Tories’ self-professed “fiscal accountability”?

3. In a strange world, this might all be acceptable were the information included in the flyers in fact true. One might excuse Tory MPs for spending millions of dollars on informing the Canadian public that the Toronto Maple Leafs are having a terrible season and there should be an appropriate public response. But the accusations leveled here are just incredible. Quite literally, they are not credible. The ad argues that:

A) Canada’s presence at the Durban Conference in 2001, under the leadership of the Liberals, was an indicator that the Grits are complicit in foreign anti-semitism. In reality, the Israeli government at the time specifically asked the Canadian delegation to remain to “make its voice felt and bear witness to what was happening,” noted Liberal MP (and former Minister of Justice and current Jewish luminary) Irwin Cotler.

B) The Liberals are soft on fight terrorism, and they “opposed defunding Hamas,” and “asked that Hezbollah be delisted as a terrorist organization.” In reality, it was the Liberal party in 2002 that had Hamas and Hezbollah classified as terrorist organizations. Moreover, it was the personal musing of a Liberal MP who wondered if Hezbollah might be delisted. While reprehensible, that personal musing cannot be taken to be a party stance of the Liberals, as MP Joe Volpe argues.

C) The Liberals do not support Israel, as Michael Ignatieff accused Israel of committing war crimes in 2006. While Iggy did indeed did make this accusation once during the war against Hezbollah, he later publicly apologized. So accuse him of flip-flopping if you want, but don’t make this false corollary. Even if Israel committed war crimes, that doesn’t mean saying so lessens support of the country, it’s just an analysis of military strategy. This is just misleading and playing to people’s emotions.

At the end of the day, I’m floored that this abuse of power, money, and privilege took place. MP Cotler, eloquent in his shock, noted that “this goes beyond the pale of politics, this is an abuse of privilege and … I will call I what it is, it’s a lie … this stuff is scurrilous.”

The only conclusion I can draw is that the Conservatives should be kept as far away as possible from three things: power, money, and privilege.