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The Top Five Searches that brought ‘traffic’ to JewishJournal.com so far this month, and the articles these Web surfers read:
They’re made of people!
—Dennis Wilen
Top Five reasons people came to JewishJournal.com this month Read More »
“Why are those Iranian Jews dressed in black hats and black suits like Ashkenazi Hasidim straight from the Shtetl?” asked an American Jewish friend of mine this past weekend. We were taking a stroll in the Pico-Robertson area here in Los Angeles when he spotted a group of Iranian Jews, who from their garb looked like they were Eastern European Ashkenazi Hasidim fresh off the boat. He looked at me with a puzzled expression and I tried to explain the complex story of how Iranian Jews living in Southern California and New York have joined the ranks of American Jews by selecting from the different forms of Judaism available to them in the U.S. to practice.
Since their arrival to the U.S. in the late 1970âs and 1980âs, the Jews who fled Iranâs fundamentalist Islamic regime were suddenly taken from a fairly sheltered, slow and third world environment and overnight transferred to the most vibrant and advanced country in the world. For many Iranian Jews, this new environment offered them variety and different options to choose from for every aspect of their lives including religion. Since many did not have their own synagogues established when they first arrived in the U.S., Iranian Jews in the Los Angeles area chose to attend synagogues closest to them including Sinai Temple in West L.A. (Sinai even today has a substantial Iranian congregation). They were exposed to Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism through Ashkenazi synagogues. Each one of these movements appealed to different segments of the local Iranian Jewish community, who had previously never had a âcornucopia of Judaismâ to choose from in Iran.
For nearly 2,700 years, the Jews of Iran had practiced their own form of traditional observant Judaism which can best be described as a mix between Conservative and Orthodox. For example, in Iran even though men and women sat separately during services in synagogue, a microphone was still used by the rabbis and cantors when reciting prayers. The Jewish community in Iran was so tight-knit and everyone practiced this form of traditional Judaism and nothing else. There were no Reform Jews and no Hasidic Jews wearing black hats and suits in Iran. So with the communityâs arrival in the U.S., many Iranian Jews were now free to pick and choose from whatever form of Judaism they pleased. As a journalist who has covered this community extensively, I can tell you that there are those within the Iranian Jewish community who see this new found freedom to choose different forms of Judaism as a great tragedy. They believe this new found freedom will eventually lead to the loss of the old traditions and the beginning of assimilation for Iranian Jews living in America. On the other hand, I have spoken to others in the community who believe change is productive for Iranian Jews in order for them to be able to adapt and survive in the U.S.
“Alright already, so how come these Persian Jews are looking like old school Litvaks with the knee high white stockings, bushy fur caps and long beards?!” inquires my friend. “When did they turn into Chabadniks?” Well, I explainâ¦Iâm not a historian, but from my exposure to the community as a journalist, Iâve discovered that the origins of Iranian Jews adopting the religious lifestyle of ultra-orthodox Ashkenazi Jews can be traced back to the Iranian Revolution of 1979. In late 1978 and 1979, a number of American Jewish organizations including Chabad, helped airlift a substantial number of male Iranian Jews out of Iran. Their families were more than happy to leave their young sons in the hands of fellow Jews in America, away from the threat of Iranâs radical Islamic regime. Many of these young Iranians were in their formidable teens and taken in by orthodox Ashkenazi yeshivas and schools. They were given shelter, fed and trained as any other Jew attending these schools. Essentially their exposure and training in these schools motivated these young Iranian Jewish men to adopt the ultra-orthodox lifestyle of Judaism. Thereafter they returned to their community here in Los Angeles and parts of New York with a new Jewish identity and formed their own synagogues and schools. These “black hat wearing” Iranian Jews then began outreaching to the local community here and offered yet another option as far as Judaism for their fellow Iranian Jewish brethren to choose from.
(Iranian orthodox Rabbi Shimon Kashani of the Southern California Jewish Center in Westwood, photo by Karmel Melamed)
Critics of the new Orthodoxy say that it has broken up families, because the young adult proselytes frequently reject their parentsâ generation for not being religious enough. Those who are more religious insist they are addressing the communityâs true spiritual needs, which were suppressed in Iran but can achieve full expression given the religious freedom of the United States. Many local Iranian Jews caught in between the religious and non-religious movements have been seeking to return to their traditional roots of Judaism from Iran. These individuals have so far had little success. What direction the Iranian American Jewish community decides to take with regards to their level of religiosity as far as Judaism still remains to be seen.
Iranian Jews trying to choose from the cornucopia of Judaism in America Read More »
Remember Farfur, Hamas’ propagandist mouse that ranted against Israel and was then made a martyr by the Zionist government? What I found most troubling about that TV program was the pre-teen host of the show. McClatchy Newspapers today have an exclusive interview with young Saraa.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip â Saraa Barhoum picked at the buttons on her pink bellbottom jeans as she twisted on a chair inside the bustling new Hamas television headquarters. The afternoon light bounced off the sparkly outlines of butterflies on her frilly top, and a colorful hijab framed her 11-year-old face.
Saraa wants to be a doctor. If she can’t, the young star of Hamas television’s best-known children’s show said, she’d be proud to become a martyr. Saraa says little Jewish girls should be forced from their homes in Israel so that Palestinians can return to their land.
With the show’s producer helpfully offering written tips during an interview, Saraa didn’t get into how she hopes to die for her cause, be it suicide bombing, fighting the Israeli military or some other way. She carefully sidestepped any suggestion that she’s subtly calling for the destruction of Israel .
” Israel says that we are terrorists,” Saraa said minutes before an interview with her was interrupted by an errant Israeli airstrike that slammed into an apartment building on the adjacent block. “But they are the ones that must stop their attacks against us and our kids.”
Hamas youth ready for martyrdom Read More »
Whenever you see Peter J. Boyer‘s byline, make sure you read what follows. Boyer is my favorite reporter still writing for The New Yorker. (The lifetime distinction goes to Joseph Mitchell, who died in 1996 after 58 years of reporting to the office.)
With 13,606 words in this week’s magazine, Boyer waxes about what’s become one of my favorite subjects—the mistaken popularity and haphazard success of anti-moralist Rudy Giuliani.
Boyer opens with the scene from this spring of Giuliani approaching the capitol of staunchly conservative South Carolina, over which the Rebel flag stills flies and where this year the state house of reps passed laws banning gay civil unions and requiring women to see an ultrasound of their unborn child before receiving an abortion.
It was here that Rudolph Giuliani, New Yorkâs thrice-married, anti-gun, pro-gay, pro-choice former mayor, found himself one morning in April, in what appeared to be a critical moment in his young campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination. The previous day, during a campaign stop in Florida, he was asked by CNNâs Dana Bash if he supported the public funding of abortions. Giuliani seemed flustered by the question and finally answered, âIf thatâs the status of the law, I would, yes.â
Even before Giuliani began his run for the Presidency, the consensus, sounded in news columns, blogs, and political journals, was that he could not survive scrutiny of his political heterodoxy and his personal imperfections by the Republican Partyâs conservative base.
Why then does a man who was recently described by a Vanity Fair contributor as literally insane remain the Republican front-runner? Boyer writes that it is not just Rudy’s image as the hero of 9/11, but his standing as the caped crusader of Gotham.
The common refrain among New Yorkers is that although Giuliani showed leadership on the day of the terrorist attacks, in the preceding months he had been a spent and isolated lame duck, his viability sapped by churlishness and the spectacle of his unattractive personal dramas. But to many in the heartland Giuliani was heroic for what he did in New York before September 11th: his policy prescriptions and, mostly, his taming of the cityâs liberal political cultureâhis famous crackdown on squeegee-men panhandlers, his workfare program, his attacks on controversial museum exhibits (âThe idea of . . . so-called works of art in which people are throwing elephant dung at a picture of the Virgin Mary is sick!â), and the like. Speaking before the Alabama legislature this spring, he received a standing ovation, and Governor Bob Riley told him, âOne of these days, you have to tell me how you really cleaned up New York.â To conservatives, pre-Giuliani New York was a study in failed liberalism, a city that had surrendered to moral and physical decay, crime, racial hucksterism, and ruinous economic pathologies. Perhaps the most common words that Giuliani heard when he travelled around the country this spring were epithets aimed at his city (âa crime-infested cesspool,â one Southern politician declared), offered without fear of giving offense. Giuliani cheerfully agreed.
I still don’t understand how Giuliani can go the distance without the endorsement of evangelical leaders, which has been essential to Republican candidates going back to Reagan and which the Democrats are now clamoring for. But Romney doesn’t have it either.
We’ll see.
Why New Yorkers don’t like Rudy, but Red Staters do Read More »
Mitt Romney is having trouble assuring voters that his Mormon faith isn’t a bad thing. But a new documentary, “A Mormon for President,” wants you to know that Romney’s not the first to encounter such problems. From my press-release junk box:
The film is being helmed by producer/director Adam Christing, a member of the Mormon History Association. “Very few people realize that Romney is not the first Mormon to run for the White House,” says Christing, who studied theology at Biola University in Los Angeles. “The first Mormon to run for the Presidency was actually the first Mormon, the prophet, Joseph Smith. Those who want to understand Romney’s challenge today, must first understand Joseph Smith.”
Much has been written about Joseph Smith, whose 200th birthday was in 2005, and I’m not going to attempt to add to that. But here‘s a few links.
Joseph Smith for president Read More »
