March 16, 2010

‘Tov’ Gallops Onto Stage in Blend of Jewish History, Tradition, Dance

Leave a Comment / Entertainment / Jewish Journal

Dancers simulating the behavior of horses gallop across the stage, stepping, prancing, tossing their heads as though shaking their manes. Their performance is mixed with spoken text, music and vocals in “Tov,” a dramatic dance work by choreographer-director Rosanna Gamson linking her Jewish heritage with the attempted reviving of the extinct Tarpan horses by the Germans in the 1930s. The work has its world premiere at Walt Disney Concert Hall’s REDCAT through March 27.

Gamson was inspired to create this piece after seeing the CHOREA Theatre Association, a Polish company based in Lodz that was visiting Los Angeles, and being struck by each performer’s ability to sing, dance and act. She visited Poland last summer and spent three weeks training with CHOREA (the name is based on the Greek idea of “chorus”). Because
Gamson is half Polish, she asked her father about her relatives. He told her that family members had been horse traders for many generations.

“That surprised me, because horse traders didn’t seem very Jewish to me. But that was the family business, and Poland is a big horse culture,” Gamson said. “Then I came across the story of the Tarpan horses, and things started to stew around in my brain about the reconstruction of an Aryan race of horses. At the same time, I started looking at the underpinnings of eugenics and breeding and thinking about my own ancestors as a tribe, and then everything started stirring together, and it came out in this piece.”

From her research, Gamson learned that, leading up to World War II, German zoologists at the Munich Zoo believed they could re-create the Tarpan by selectively breeding for the most Tarpan-like characteristics in domestic horses, trying to bring this extinct strain back to life as an Aryan horse.

For Gamson, the crux of her work lies in the irony of the Nazis trying to resurrect a lost genetic line while trying to destroy the Jewish genetic line, but she doesn’t deal directly with the Holocaust. The title of the production, “Tov,” means “good” in Hebrew, and the director said she wants to focus on the good and to present images of beauty.

In that vein, the evening begins with the lighting of a candle and a depiction of the Shabbat blessing.

“I’m only trying to show tov, because the real tragedy is much stronger and more horrific than anything I could put on stage,” Gamson explained. “It’s going to be apparent, hopefully, because I’m making visual metaphors that you’re going to understand on some kind of gut level. You’re going to see the horses; you’re going to feel the menace in the air; and you’re going to have a response to things on a metaphoric level.”

The only actual reference to the Holocaust occurs when a graveyard is made on stage, where the performers lie down, their outlines drawn in salt.

“We’re basically koshering the stage. We’re trying to pull out the blood of violence,” Gamson said. She stressed that she’s alluding to genocide in general, through the example of what the Jews experienced.

“We make this graveyard, and then a horse comes and desecrates the graveyard. When you see a herd of horses charging around, they look so strong, and they make decisions as a herd. It’s a metaphor for a mob, or the idea that once you’re in a group of great power, you get carried away by that group.”

Emphasizing the universal meaning of her work is a multiracial, multiethnic cast, along with three performers brought over from CHOREA — two Polish, one Bulgarian — who will create music for the piece in the Slavic tradition. And, while most of the text is in English, the audience will also hear a little bit of Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian and Spanish, with a great
deal of singing in Polish and Bulgarian.

Tomasz Rodowicz, CHOREA’s artistic director, was drawn to Gamson’s vision largely because, although he was raised as a Catholic in Poland, he is actually Jewish on his mother’s side. Rodowicz, 60, said one reason his family never told him about his roots is that during his childhood it was not easy for people to identify themselves as Jewish.

Rodowicz added that his father, who was not Jewish, spent four years in Auschwitz for being in the underground.

“He told me stories from before he was in the camp about what he saw of the Warsaw Ghetto, and then he told me of some of the terrible experiences in Auschwitz. It was very emotional when I talked of these things to Rosanna, but, when I was finished, she said that the work she wanted to do was not about these terrible events, with their pain and suffering. She wanted to create something about beauty and the need to find hope.”

There is another aspect to the story, according to Gamson. She has an ancestor named Nachum ish Gamzu, who was a rabbi and lived during the days of the Roman Empire.

“He was famous for saying, ‘Gamzu l’tovah,’ meaning, ‘Even this is for the good.’ He meant that God makes everything, thus everything is good, even though we don’t understand why, and, given the horrific events that have come to pass, this position, philosophically, becomes incredibly suspect. I’m not saying that he’s wrong or right. I am presenting [these questions]: ‘Is there good? Is there evil? Is everything good?’ I think I’m illustrating it by telling the story of the Jews and the Tarpans.”

And did the Nazis succeed in bringing the Tarpans back to life?

“Well, you can’t bring anything back from the dead,” said Gamson. “They bred horses that looked like the Tarpans, but, scientifically, they were not the original breed. The experiment was a failure. They were trying to resurrect one animal species while exterminating a whole group of people, and both experiments failed.”

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UC Riverside Faculty Voice Support for Protesters Against Oren

Leave a Comment / Community / Jewish Journal

Faculty at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), joined voices at UC campuses statewide in support of 11 students arrested for heckling Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren during his Feb. 8 speech at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

Thirty-one professors and graduate students from several UCR departments signed a “Statement on Free Speech, Palestine and the ‘UC Irvine 11,’ ” drafted by Dylan Rodriguez, chair of the university’s Ethnic Studies department. The March 11 pronouncement calls on the UC administration and the Orange County district attorney’s office to drop disciplinary and punitive action against eight UCI and three UCR students, which it calls “discriminatory, cynical, and politically and intellectually repressive.”

The UCI students have been charged with violations of the student codes of conduct. Officials at UCR could not confirm whether action would be taken against their students.

“We believe that this is a cynical and opportunistic attempt at political repression that reflects the racial criminalization of young Arab, Middle Eastern and Muslim men and women as actual or potential ‘terrorists.’ By way of contrast, Ethnic Studies faculty have taught courses in Ethnic Studies in which classroom proceedings were disrupted by students with opposing views, and the university administration did not pursue any disciplinary or punitive measures against them. In fact, we have sometimes been told that such disruptions are an expression of academic free speech,” the statement said.

Rodriguez said the statement was intended to take issue with the tendency, since at least 2001, to affiliate Muslim men with terrorism within popular discourse, as well as to challenge what he sees as selective enforcement of codes of conduct by university administrators.

“People protesting is something to be expected,” he said, noting that UCR administrators did not take disciplinary action against what he called “conservative” student protesters following a similar incident last fall. “When people get selectively subjugated to enforcement of codes of conduct, it has a chilling affect on political discussion and freedom.”

Muslim students and their supporters say they were exercising their free speech rights when they interrupted and jeered Oren 10 times before leaving the hall to stage a demonstration outside, a claim that has been rejected by legal scholars, including Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UCI law school. Student governments at four UC campuses — Irvine, San Diego, Los Angeles and Berkeley — have issued statements opposing sanctions against the 11 students. In contrast, a March 2 statement by UCI’s Council on Faculty Welfare, Diversity and Academic Freedom expressed the council’s commitment “to creating an atmosphere in which the examination of competing ideas can occur without disruption or intimidation.”

Also on March 15, a group calling itself “Stand With the Eleven” issued a response to a March 8 letter to UCI students by Oren, in which he stated his willingness to return to campus for a respectful dialogue with students of opposing viewpoints on Middle East issues. The response, which claims to accept Oren’s offer, accuses Israel of being a modern-day colonialist state and implicitly equates Israeli policy with apartheid.

“We willingly take you up on that offer. But to clarify, our willingness does not stem from any delusional notion that your words can right the decades of wrong and injustice. As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Your military past with the Israeli ‘Defense’ Force and your current position as the official representative of a state before the U.N.
General Assembly on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity speak louder than any ‘remarks’ you can make.”

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On eve of AIPAC parley, pro-Israel groups want sides to make nice

Leave a Comment / Israel / Jewish Journal

By the time this year’s AIPAC policy conference starts, its organizers—indeed, pretty much the entire Washington village inside a village that calls itself “pro-Israel”—hopes the shouting will be over.

That’s because they want to get back to shouting—about Iran and its nuclear threat, and not last week’s contretemps between Israel and the United States over a building start in eastern Jerusalem announced during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.

The consensus of the pro-Israel center and right is that the argument is increasingly a distraction and should be set aside. That message was coming through Monday in statements from the unofficial Jewish caucus on Capitol Hill.

“Our countries have weathered temporary diplomatic storms and diversions of every nature and size for more than 60 years,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.). “I am confident that nothing has or will occur that will change that, especially given the stakes for both countries.”

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who is close to the Zionist Organization of America, was commensurately blunter.

“Israel is a sovereign nation and an ally, not a punching bag,” he said. “Enough already.”

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the Republican minority whip and the sole Jewish Republican in either chamber, said he raised the issue in a call to Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff.

“It’s in the interests of U.S. national security that this administration back off any suggestion there’s been a shift in the U.S.-Israel relationship and U.S. support for Israel,” Cantor told JTA. “Who’s been the ally here? There’s been one ally who’s stood fast with us in the war against terror, the fight against radical Islam, who’s sent aid to every humanitatian crisis.”

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), who controls the powerful foreign operations appropriations subcommittee, went straight to the Iran question.

“Having just returned from the region, where I urged Arab leaders to support sanctions on Iran and efforts to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians, I believe the stakes are too high and the threats are too urgent to allow the unfortunate recent exchange between Israel and the United States to derail ongoing diplomacy,” she said.

It’s no coincidence that Iran features in two of the four action items that the 7,000 activists attending next week’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference in Washington will take with them to the Hill on Tuesday, the conference’s last day and its lobbying day.

The activists will lobby for rapid final passage of a bill that would expand unilateral sanctions to target Iran’s energy sector. Both houses of Congress have passed the measure, which now must be reconciled. AIPAC wants the bill to keep its substantial bite; the Obama administration reportedly wants to carve out an exception for China as a means of drawing it into expanded multilateral sanctions.

The Iran piece of the lobbying also will include an appeal to lawmakers to sign on to letters to the Obama administration encouraging its efforts to expand multilateral sanctions through the U.N. Security Council.

Otherwise, the activists will lobby, as they always do, for passage of the foreign aid budget—it includes more than $2.7 billion in assistance for Israel, commensurate with Bush administration policies—and a letter to the administration promoting a close U.S.-Israel relationship and urging direct Israel-Palestinian talks.

That letter was planned before last week’s tough talk, but it couldn’t be more timely. The Netanyahu administration has made clear that it wants to get past its embarrassment, when a planning committee announced a project for 1,600 housing units in eastern Jerusalem just as Biden was in town to express unabating U.S. support for Israel.

“We cannot afford to unravel the delicate fabric of friendship with the United States,” Israeli President Shimon Peres said Tuesday at a memorial service for late prime ministers and presidents of Israel—the latest in a litany of “mea culpa and let’s move on” statements from Israeli leaders.

It’s not clear, however, whether the Obama administration is ready to move forward. On the one hand, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was back Tuesday to emphasizing the relationship’s deep roots.

“We have an absolute commitment to Israel’s security,” she said at a briefing with reporters, according to Reuters. “We have a close, unshakable bond between the United States and Israel.”

That set a considerably different tone from last Friday, when her spokesman, P.J. Crowley, appeared intent on sustaining the dispute after Biden had left Israel with a speech that underscored the closeness of the two nations.

Crowley said the United States was still upset with the substance of the announcement of the housing starts, not merely its timing—and Clinton told two major news outlets that the announcement was an “insult.” David Axelrod, Obama’s top political adviser and one of his unofffical liaisons, added “affront” to that vocabulary on Sunday.

Though Clinton’s tone Tuesday was more conciliatory, her reported three conditions for Israel to return to American good graces still stood: a substantive gesture to the Palestinians, a renunciation of the housing starts, and an agreement to include Jerusalem and refugees in the talks. The Palestinian Authority has refused direct talks and, apparently emboldened by the U.S.-Israel rift, now says it will not join indirect talks, as it had promised.

Israel would not likely take all three steps, but it needed to send a signal of its seriousness if it wanted the crisis to end, said David Makovsky, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who is among the speakers at the AIPAC conference. He suggested sacking Eli Yishai, the interior minister who is partly responsible for the planning committee that made the announcement.

“It’s important to improve the atmosphere in this crisis,” Makovsky said. “The U.S. step is that they’re not out to repudiate what the vice president said Thursday,” when Biden reaffirmed the U.S.-Israel partnership. “The Israeli step, they should fire Eli Yishai.”

Makovsky added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also should examine why, after promising last November to examine how such planning announcements are made after a similar embarrassment during his meeting in Washington with President Obama, he again was blindsided.

Whether that would happen before Monday, when Clinton and Netanyahu are set to address the AIPAC policy conference—Clinton in the morning, Netanyahu in the evening—is not yet clear. Organizers are hoping to avoid the embarrassment caused by a handul of boos at the 2008 conference when Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, criticized the Iraq war during her speech.

It was clear, however, that the organized Jewish community—while loudly pressing the United States to back down—also was sending signals to Netanyahu that he needed to step forward, too.

A statement late Tuesday from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations hit all the conventional notes of the previous week.

The thrust of the statement, from the Jewish community’s main pro-Israel umbrella organization, was that Palestinians must end their recalcitrance, tamp down incitement and recommit to talks was paramount.

However, buried in the lengthy statement was an appeal to “all parties”—unusual for an umbrella body that is at pains to avoid finding fault with Israel.

“The interests of all concerned would best be served by a prompt commencement of the proximity talks that had been previously agreed to by all parties, and all parties should act in a manner that does not undercut such talks,” the statement said. “We urge the United States and Israel to resolve the controversy with the use of language reflecting their historic friendship.”

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Quinoa Ingrains Itself in Passover Meals

Leave a Comment / Holidays / Julie Gruenbaum Fax

It’s been about a decade since quinoa first broke into the Passover market, and while the Andean nongrain grain still meets with some culinary and rabbinic skepticism, it is making inroads on both fronts, securing its spot both at the Passover table and in fine restaurants.

Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) is a South American staple — part of the Incan diet for millennia — that was first imported into the United States in the early 1980s. It’s a small, pearly grain with a fibrous tail, versatile taste and satisfying texture.

“Nutritionally, it’s a powerhouse,” said Rachel Beller, a registered dietitian and founder of the Beller Nutritional Institute. She rattles off a nutritional profile that includes manganese, iron, folate, calcium and a variety of vitamins. Quinoa’s biggest selling point is its high protein content — it is the only vegetable that is a complete protein, packing the right balance of amino acids.

It is also gluten-free and easy on the stomach, Beller notes, though it has only a moderate level of fiber — a half-cup serving has about two grams of fiber, 120 calories and four grams of protein.

The Bible lists five forbidden chametz grains — barley, rye, oats, wheat and spelt — which all rise when they touch water. Fifteenth-century Ashkenazi (European) rabbis appended kitniyot — legumes and other grains that were used to make flour or processed alongside and often mixed with chametz grains. The list includes beans, rice, corn and some seed-based spices, such as mustard.

Sephardic leaders of North Africa and Muslim countries generally allowed kitniyot, with customs varying from country to country.
Kitniyot remains a somewhat fluid category, with new issues arising from year to year — cumin seems to go on and off the list, for instance, and decades ago peanuts were deemed permitted by the preeminent rabbinic decider Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, but today peanuts are considered kitniyot by most Ashkenazi rabbis.

Where quinoa will land is not yet clear.

Quinoa is a member of the goosefoot (chenopodium) family, home to beets and spinach. Rabbis first opined on quinoa in 1997, when the Star-K certification determined that it was not a biblical chametz grain, and it doesn’t rise when it comes in contact with water — in fact, it decays. It grows in arid, high altitudes, where chametz grains can’t grow.

Organizations such as the highly respected Chicago Rabbinical Council, the O-K, the Star-K and Kosher Overseers Associates of America (the “half-moon K”) have allowed the use of quinoa processed by companies that don’t process any other grains, such as Ancient Harvest. O-K certifies Eden Foods for Passover, and Osem in Israel imports Sugat quinoa.

But the Orthodox Union (OU), the largest kashrut supervision agency in the country, isn’t taking any chances.

“Facilities that process and package quinoa often package grain or wheat, as well, and the concern is that there also might be mixtures of wheat that could get into the quinoa, or that the equipment is not cleaned between one grain and another,” said Rabbi Nachum Rabinowitz, senior rabbinic coordinator of the OU.

The OU won’t certify kitniyot but doesn’t go so far as forbidding it. Its Passover catalog advises kosher consumers to consult their own rabbis and to check any quinoa for other grains mixed in.

That sort of hemming and hawing about quinoa could lead to its demise, worries Adeena Sussman, a food writer and recipe developer based in New York City.

“I have a lurking fear that people will get overzealous and not be able to just enjoy this Passover revelation,” she said.

She says the nutty, earthy flavor of quinoa and its health profile has endeared it to many top chefs. She has seen it at fine restaurants mostly in timbale form, a side dish of molded grain. She enjoys it as a base for a pilaf or salad, with herbs, lemon zest, an acid and flavorful oil. She’s made a rich breakfast pudding out of it, used it for stuffed cabbage, as a stand-in for pasta in soups and has crafted a quinoa-potato fritter.

Still, quinoa hasn’t quite shed its stigma of being a hippie food, and some people just don’t like it, she said.

“A lot of people get a bad impression of quinoa if it’s not prepared properly,” she said.

The two biggest mistakes people make are overcooking it, so it gets soggy and tasteless, or not rinsing the grains three times to get rid of a natural soapy residue that can be bitter.

Beller advises keeping an eye on the serving size — a quarter-cup is about equivalent in calories to one slice of bread.

She is glad to see a wholesome, unprocessed food taking center stage during a holiday when people otherwise seem to forget healthy eating behaviors.

“We lose our judgment of what we’re actually buying on Passover,” said Beller. “A lot of families buy a lot more junk, because they think, ‘What is my kid going to eat?’ … But they don’t realize there are so many different options out there,” she said.

“Leading up to Passover, we clean our kitchens and our homes, we get rid of so many things,” she said. “Carry that message over into your diet. If you carry that mentality, you’ll do much better. But I find that most people do the opposite.”

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A Touch of France in Pico-Robertson

Leave a Comment / Holidays / Jewish Journal

Kosher food is wrongly stigmatized as being boring and bland because of the limitations the laws of kashrut impose on chefs. The prohibitions against eating certain animals and mixing milk and meat mean no cream sauce or butter for the meat dishes, no shellfish and — horror of horrors — no bacon. It all seems like a monumental challenge, kind of like

“Project Runway” for food, only instead of making a couture dress out of a flour sack, cooks have to create an interesting, appetizing meat menu without butter or cream. Julia Child would be horrified.

Then again, Julia Child never got to eat at Delice Bistro.

Located on Pico Boulevard just west of La Cienega Boulevard, Delice Bistro lures its patrons with the promise of “Fine French Organic Kosher Food.” This is particularly noteworthy at this moment, as Delice owner Julien Bohbot has decided to keep the restaurant open during Passover this year, with adaptations to accommodate the holiday. I did not experience the Passover menu, however.

Before I ate there, I wondered: Is it possible? Could a kosher restaurant really deliver gourmet flavor while being limited by the laws of kashrut? I was about to find out — along with my fiancé and his 11-year-old daughter, two of the toughest food critics I know.

Delice Bistro was built as an extension of Delice Bakery, a kosher dairy bakery. The atmosphere is immediately welcoming and somewhat reminiscent of a modern Paris bistro.

While I wasn’t a big fan of the massive Eiffel Tower in the middle of the restaurant, I did feel the place had warmth and charm. The service was friendly and helpful from the moment we arrived.

The meal started with bread and a complimentary plate of hummus, a tomato dip and bean salad. The hummus was tasty, but I could have done without the tomato dip, which tasted like unseasoned tomato paste. The waiter, knowing I was with The Jewish Journal, offered us a few of their signature appetizer dishes to share. The hearts of palm salad with avocado was particularly delicate and delicious.

While we waited for our main courses, Bohbot joined us at our table. He was born and raised in Morocco, moving to Paris at 17 to study the restaurant business. He has drifted in and out of the food service industry ever since; at one point, he was maitre d’ at the legendary L’Orangerie on La Cienega. He left the restaurant business to become a real estate broker but eventually found that he missed the excitement of running a restaurant.

“I couldn’t find a good kosher bakery in the area,” he said, “so I opened Delice Bakery. I’ve been open next door for eight years — successful, thank God. Then everybody says to me, ‘You have this good bakery, why don’t you open a nice restaurant?’ ”

So Bohbot opened Delice Bistro. “I did this only for the Jewish community, and I brought a lot of Jewish people back to kashrut,” he said, explaining that his goal was to create a delicious, no-compromises kosher option.

This proved a very successful business model until the economic downturn took hold.

“When I first opened, I was very, very busy,” he said. “You couldn’t get in without a reservation three days in advance. Then the market went down, and suddenly people weren’t coming. I had to cut down 50 percent of my employees. We’ve had a hard time these past nine months.”

Bohbot spoke openly about his troubles in the close-knit observant Jewish community, and customers returned. Because of this, Delice Bistro has remained open — for the time being, at least. “I talked to people. I told them, if I don’t have your support, you’re going to lose this restaurant. I’ll have to shut it down.”

Bohbot reiterated his hopes that the Jewish community will rally around Delice Bistro to keep it open.

“I think we have created something very, very nice here. … I spent a million dollars here to make something nice for the Jewish community, a kosher restaurant they can be proud of.”

Was he successful? Is Delice Bistro a restaurant that the Jewish community can indeed be proud of? After our meal, I have to answer that question with an enthusiastic yes.

The Kobe beef steak made a good impression all around, meaty and tender, with crisp, traditional pommes frites. The branzino was served as a whole grilled fish, deboned in advance — a classic bistro dish. My chicken piccata was good, if a bit on the salty side; maybe the kitchen was overcompensating for the lack of butter in the sauce. That minor detail aside, the chicken was full of flavor. The side vegetables were also nicely grilled, and the mashed potatoes fluffy and creamy; I didn’t miss the butter at all.

I noticed that not everything we ordered was designated organic; the waiter confirmed that the menu is not fully organic, though they try to use natural ingredients whenever possible.

For dessert, the chef brought out three of the restaurant’s most popular desserts: tiramisu, an “ice cream” sundae and a freshly baked apple tart. The tiramisu was surprisingly good, despite the lack of dairy ingredients. My fiancé’s daughter was enthralled with the sundae, especially because it came in an enormous glass dish rimmed with chocolate. I didn’t bother to remind her that it wasn’t real ice cream, and she didn’t seem to notice a difference at all. But the big winner of the evening was the apple tart à la mode. It was heavenly —
flaky and fresh-from-the-oven. The flavor lingered with me for days; I still get a smile on my face thinking about it.

Overall, the meal was very impressive. My family doesn’t keep strictly kosher; we buy kosher organic meats for our home cooking, but, when eating out, our standards are more lax.

That said, we wouldn’t hesitate to return and enjoy Delice again. The kosher, partially organic menu is an added bonus, one that allowed us to enjoy the meal even more.

During Passover, patrons will be able to enjoy a seder menu prepared under strict kehilla supervision. For the first- and second-night seders, a Sephardic cantor will be on hand to say the blessings, and haggadahs will be available. The restaurant will also offer a complete seder-to-go menu for those who wish to eat at home.

So, did Delice Bistro live up to the lofty challenge of making gourmet kosher French food? Let’s be honest — Delice is not L’Orangerie, and it never could be. To prepare French food without butter and cream is a major challenge. However, Delice Bistro navigates the challenge admirably, and, to its credit, has created a tasty menu full of appetizing choices. I
wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Delice to anybody, including, if she were still with us, Julia herself.

Tori Avey writes the Jewish cooking blog “The Shiksa in the Kitchen” and is currently working on her debut cookbook.

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Maker of Kosher Wine Takes His Covenant Seriously

Q&A With Gloria Steinem

Leave a Comment / Community / Danielle Berrin

Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms. Magazine, is a social and political activist and among the foremost leaders of the women’s rights movement in America. In town recently to honor the retirement of Rabbi Sheryl Lewart from Kehillat Israel, Steinem spoke about the feminist myth of Superwoman, why men should take on equal parenting responsibilities and why reproductive freedom should be a fundamental human right.

Jewish Journal: Besides being a forerunner of the feminist movement, are you aware Wikipedia has given you the distinction of being ‘one of American history’s most important women’?

Gloria Steinem: That’s very impressive. I looked up affirmative action once in Wikipedia, and it said, ‘a measure by which white men are discriminated against,’ and I got so mad.

JJ: You first made a name for yourself as a journalist by going undercover as a Playboy bunny. Does it bother you that your beauty has played a role in your success?

GS: First of all, the basic problem is that women are assessed by how we look, whether we look conventionally pretty or conventionally not pretty. The problem for all women is we’re identified by how we look instead of by our heads and our hearts.

JJ: Would you deny that physical beauty has qualities that have helped you?

GS: It has inherent qualities, but some of them are bad and some of them are good. And incidentally, I am now 75 years old, and yet I’m still being asked those questions.

JJ: I’d be flattered if I were 75 and being asked those questions.

GS: No, you wouldn’t. Trust me.

JJ: How has your perspective shifted as you’ve aged?

GS: Age brings a freedom. When you’re young, you’re much more subject to the idea of what feminine is or how you should look or how you should behave.

JJ: Early feminism wrestled with the fact that women were forced to choose between a career and marriage. Today, women have more choices, but they struggle to ‘do it all.’ Is this what feminism was supposed to be?

GS: If I had a dollar for every time we tried to kill off the myth of Superwoman in Ms. Magazine, I’d have a lot of money.

JJ: I know loads of women who are still under the impression that feminism encourages that myth.

GS: It’s not possible; you can’t be both full time outside the home and full time inside the home. That idea came from the resistance to feminism. What feminism has been saying consistently for 30 or 40 years is that job patterns need to change so that both parents of small children — men and women — can have a chance to lead a full life. And that men need to become as responsible for raising small children as women are. As long as women have two jobs and men have one, it will never work.

JJ: So it is misunderstanding feminism to assume it’s about women having more opportunities and choices. It’s really about transformational change.

GS: We’re the only modern democracy in the whole world without a national system of child care and health care; that’s ridiculous.

JJ: Does it disturb you that issues like abortion rights are still being debated in the 21st century?

GS: It’s not surprising at a deeper level, if you consider that the whole reason for patriarchal cultures is to control reproduction. I find it very encouraging to realize that only 5 percent of human history has been like this. The Native American cultures on this continent, most of them, were matrilineal, and some women were the chiefs. Societies were about balance.

JJ: How does Nicholas Kristof’s book ‘Half the Sky,’ which has some startling statistics about the number of women suffering from atrocities like genital mutilation and sex slavery, fit in with the feminist agenda?

GS: What Kristof and Sheryl [WuDunn], his wife, are reporting on is the women’s movement — the women’s movement has been multinational and international from day one, because we always understood that our problems were not that dissimilar. The goal in all those countries is reproductive freedom as a fundamental human right.

JJ: Maureen Dowd wrote a column last year about recent studies that suggest women have become unhappier since the birth of the feminist movement. More choices equals more stress.

GS: Why is Maureen Dowd an authority just because she’s a female? She’s a very smart person and a good writer, but her trademark is being against everything.

JJ: Even so, many women do feel burdened by a guilt that comes from their inability to devote themselves entirely to either their career or their family.

GS: Guilt is a way of getting a group to conform; you get them to oppress themselves by making them feel guilty. In the earlier stages of feminism, women were told they could not be whatever it was they wanted to be. After women became those things anyway, then society said, ‘All right, you’re now a lawyer or a mechanic or an astronaut — but that’s only OK if you continue to do the work you did before — if you take care of the children, cook three meals a day and are multiorgasmic until dawn.’

>: What have been the major costs of feminism, in your opinion?

GS: What’s the cost of freedom? What’s the cost of self-determination? The cost is growing up, but to remain a child when you are an adult is much more painful.

JJ: Without children of your own, has your credibility ever been challenged in the debate over balancing career and parenthood?

GS: The important point here is that men ask that question. Men have to ask, ‘How can I combine career and family?’

JJ: It seems unrealistic to move society toward that balance in a country that is career-centric and capitalist.

GS: I think people have started. Because it turns out that raising and socializing baby humans is a lot more interesting than most of what goes on in the workplace.

JJ: How have Jewish women contributed to the feminist fight, as compared to other women?

GS: For many years, the anti-feminist movement accused feminism of being a Jewish plot to destroy the Christian family.

JJ: Was your desire to pursue feminist justice at all inspired by your Jewish background?

GS: My mother, who was not Jewish, was always very clear about the importance of the Jewish tradition and respect for the Jewish tradition. She really tried to stress that, and she loved her mother-in-law, adored her mother-in-law [who was Jewish]. You know the passage [in the Torah], ‘Wherever I shall go, you shall go?’ That was always how I knew it was a woman speaking to a woman — because of my mother.

JJ: Do you feel you’ve failed at anything?

GS: I haven’t written nearly enough.

JJ: Any regrets about feminism?

GS: Yes, we’ve been much too nice.

Q&A With Gloria Steinem Read More »

What’s Wrong With Israel’s Proposed Conversion Bill

Leave a Comment / Opinion / Jewish Journal

Only in Israel. On the day that the U.S. vice president arrived in Israel, reportedly to thwart Israel’s bombing of Iran, and following two days of intensive talks
between Israel’s prime minister and President Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East, the Israeli government almost fell … because of a proposed bill about conversion to Judaism.

How could a conversion bill, which set out to marginally expand the list of rabbis who can perform conversions in Israel, set off a string of events that almost brought the government down? Though hard to imagine, the Israeli government coalition agreements include clauses that call for legislation to improve conversion in Israel. This week, such legislation was discussed in the Knesset law committee, and the proposed bill, which would be a first for the Jewish state, brought on a coalition crisis between the ultra-Orthodox and immigrant parties.

The chaos created by the proposed conversion bill highlights the fact that conversion has become the “threshold” issue for the Jewish world today. Demographics, religious extremism and the politics of power have all played a role in this basic shift in the Jewish agenda. In the past 18 months, the leadership of The Jewish Federations of North America has written letters to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking him to engage the conversion issue. During the past year, the leadership of American Orthodoxy has engaged in seemingly endless negotiations with the Israeli Chief Rabbinate to ensure that their conversions receive acceptance within the Israeli religious establishment. And when
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in Manhattan gave his annual assessment of the Jewish world and Modern Orthodoxy some weeks ago from his pulpit in Manhattan, he focused on conversion.

Just this week, the American Jewish Committee wrote a strong letter to the Knesset protesting the new conversion law (something once considerably outside its agenda), joining a number of political parties and religious groups in criticism of the proposed legislation, albeit for a variety of reasons.

Clearly the issue is burning.

In the version of the law brought to the Knesset law committee March 14, three reforms were proposed. First, rabbis of cities in Israel who are appointed by the Chief Rabbinate would be allowed to engage in conversion (rather than allowing conversion to be the exclusive province of rabbinical court judges). That would be an improvement.

Second, rabbinical courts that seek to annul conversions would be able to do so only with the approval of the chief rabbi. And thirdly — and here is the eye-opener — individuals who converted in Israel would be ineligible for aliyah.

That third provision seemed to come out of nowhere.

The bill met with opposition on several fronts. The ultra-Orthodox parties in Israel are generally xenophobic, and they see conversion as a stick with which they can impose their ideologies. Since almost all the rabbinical court judges are ultra-Orthodox and since some of the city rabbis are Modern Orthodox, the ultra-Orthodox parties opposed the bill vociferously, as it seeks to increase the power of the city rabbis and limit the power of rabbinical court judges. And in fact, a vote on the bill was delayed because of the clout and influence of the ultra-Orthodox in the Knesset.

The bill also met with opposition because it alters one of the legislative untouchables of the Jewish Israeli ethos: the Law of Return. Since any Jew can immigrate to Israel and receive automatic citizenship, the authors of the proposed bill are genuinely concerned that illegal aliens and even terrorists could attempt to exploit conversion in order to achieve citizenship. However, by putting in a blanket clause that precludes those who converted in Israel from making aliyah, the bill became preposterous. In principle, a convert to Judaism from overseas would be eligible for aliyah, while a convert who completed his conversion in Israel would be excluded from citizenship. Students, volunteers or non-Jewish boyfriends and girlfriends of Israelis who completed conversion in Israel would not be granted immediate citizenship, even if they were fully Orthodox.

For now, the bill is in limbo, but the issues raised in the debate place the genuine issues of conversion — identity and the role of the land of Israel as a center for Jewish life — front and center, and for this I am thankful. The Jewish world has ducked these issues interminably, pretending that hakol yehihe b’seder (everything will be OK). As someone who has received more than a thousand phone calls and e-mails from converts and potential converts in the past year asking for help in navigating the system, I assure you that everything is not OK.

Even if the conversion law passes with some modifications, there is a serious need for conversion reform in Israel and around the world. There needs to be more consensus, greater access, and less politics, money and influence regarding this issue. In Israel, expanding the number and type of rabbis who can convert is an important first step in changing a conversion process that has become characterized by chaos. But serious improvements need to be made in the registration process, the courses of study, the rabbinical courts and the issuance of certificates. Greater accountability and transparency should be put in place in our conversion courts, and there ought to be increased responsiveness to the “needs of the hour,” particularly reaching out to couples who may otherwise intermarry.

Only in Israel can conversion bring down a government. But only in Israel can these issues be resolved for now, for the future, for ourselves and for our children.

This essay originally appeared in The New York Jewish Week. Reprinted with permission.

Rabbi Seth Farber is the director of ITIM: The Jewish Life Information Center (www.itim.org.il) and rabbi of Kehilat Netivot in Raanana, Israel.

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A Tennis Lesson for the World

Leave a Comment / Opinion, Sports / Jewish Journal

The news out of Dubai has been rife with speculation about who assassinated Hamas terrorist commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a local hotel. Israeli
agents and al-Mabhouh’s Palestinian rivals are high on the guess list.

But amid the who-did-it debate, a happier Dubai event was taking place. A few weeks ago, Shahar Peer became the first Israeli woman to compete in a professional sporting event in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Peer, a superb tennis player, defeated several highly ranked competitors on her way to the semifinal round of the annual Dubai championships. The 22-year-old then lost to American star Venus Williams, who went on reclaim the title she had won the previous year. But no less significant was Peer’s stunning performance and how she got there in the first place.

Her appearance was a year overdue. Peer was part of the draw for the 2009 Dubai championships, and her name, like that of the other players, had been supplied to the Emirates authorities long in advance. Yet the day before the opening matches, Peer received word that the UAE had denied her a visa.

Tournament director Salah Tahlak said Peer’s presence “would have antagonized our fans” because of their opposition to Israeli policies.
In fact, 2009 was dotted with international insults to Israeli athletes. Weeks after the Dubai event, the Swedish Taekwondo Federation blocked Israeli participation in the annual championships at Trelleborg. On the eve of the tournament, 45 Israeli athletes had to cancel their flight plans.

In October, at the fencing world championships in Antalya, Turkey, the Iranian team dropped out without notice. The Iranian government forbade its fencers to compete after learning that they were in seeding brackets with Israeli athletes. Iran’s disruptive behavior drew barely a nod from the Turkish hosts.

Effrontery to Israeli delegations was not limited to athletic competitions. Two Israeli women, both research doctors, were abruptly disinvited to a conference in Egypt on breast cancer. The sponsoring organization, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, told the women that the Egyptian Health Ministry was barring them. The doctors were doubly shocked by subsequent Komen and Egyptian claims that the Israelis themselves had decided not to attend.

Neither the Swedish, Iranian, Turkish nor Egyptian authorities were seriously criticized for their misbegotten behavior. But sponsors of the Dubai tennis tournament reacted differently, and therein lies a huge lesson.

Peer responded indignantly when she was notified of her ban in 2009. Larry Scott, the chief executive of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tour, echoed Peer’s assertion that politics should be kept separate from sports. After consultations among the players, and with Peer’s concurrence, the tournament was not canceled, but the Dubai authorities were hit with an avalanche of penalties.

Scott warned that if Peer were prevented from playing in Dubai in the future, “they would run the risk of losing their tournament.” Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal’s European edition dropped advertising for the 2009 event and cable television’s Tennis Channel canceled its planned coverage.

Soon after, the WTA levied a fine of $300,000 on the Dubai tournament organizers. The WTA board also demanded that the organizers post a $2 million guarantee that henceforth all players who qualified would be allowed to compete. The UAE would have to show proof of entry permission for any Israeli player at least eight weeks prior to the tournament.

Further, Williams said she would not play again in Dubai unless Peer was admitted to the 2010 contest.

The threat of losing the tournament and its accompanying money, attention and prestige evidently impressed the Dubai organizers. Peer’s participation in 2010 made that point even though none of her matches was on the center court. All were relegated to an outside court with limited seating, presumably as a safety measure.

Still, Peer’s iron determination to play, and play well, drew plaudits from commentators around the world. Above all, her presence signified the ability to rectify a wrong when good people are insistent.

The Iranian fencers in 2009 were permitted to let politics trump their commitment to compete. Their Turkish hosts and fellow competitors remained stone silent rather than call for penalties for the Iranians’ blatant discrimination. Nor were the Swedish and Egyptian authorities who disinvited Israeli participants even censured, let alone penalized.

If ignored, such injustices will be repeated. Dubai 2010 demonstrated how concerted efforts can help change errant behavior.

Overseers of all these events would do well to heed Scott’s words after the UAE agreed to the WTA’s stipulations: “Thanks to the courage of Shahar and all those individuals and organizations, including her fellow players that supported her, the UAE has changed their policy, and another barrier of discrimination has fallen.”

Leonard A. Cole is the co-chair of the Task Force on Anti-Semitism for the Jewish Agency and former chair of the Jewish Council of Public Affairs.

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Obituaries March 19-25, 2010

Leave a Comment / Obituaries / Jewish Journal

George Altshuler died Dec. 8 at 98. He is survived by his children, Michael, Susan and Joel Satzburg; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Hillside

Ruben Berman died Dec. 14 at 88. He is survived by his wife, Rita; daughters, Cheryl and Beverly; son, Jeffrey (Sharon); and five grandchildren. Groman Eden

Sandra Lee Blemker died Dec. 4 at 60. She is survived by her husband, Doug; daughter, Cari (Chris) Eggleston; sons, Scott (Anne) and Ryan; and two grandchildren. Hillside

Albert Brinhendler died Dec. 6 at 100. He is survived by his daughters, Nadine and Phyllis (Leonard) Lerner; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Hillside

Nelly Cohen died Dec. 8 at 94. She is survived by her daughter, Joyce Marzouk; and son, Claude. Hillside

Elinore Cytron died Jan. 3 at 92. She is survived by her niece, Andrea Goldberg; and conservator, Joe Landon. Mount Sinai

Marilyn Deixler died Dec. 5 at 81. She is survived by her son, Bert (Leslie Swain); and two grandchildren. Hillside

Arnold George Felton died Dec. 12. He is survived by his wife Edith; daughters, Linda (Bruce) Steinberg and Judy; son, Richard (Lisa); and six grandchildren. Hillside

Sydney Finkle died Jan. 7 at 95. He is survived by his daughters, Sandra (Lessing) Gold and Fritzi Weiner; four grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren; and sister, Ina Solomon. Mount Sinai

Amalie M. Flegenheimer died Dec. 11 at 82. She is survived by her husband, Arnold; daughters, Eva Sheddy and Jill Abel; and four grandchildren. Hillside

Evelyn Fractor died Dec. 6 at 86. She is survived by her stepsons, Mark and David; and four grandchildren. Hillside

David Gerber died Jan. 2 at 86. He is survived by his wife, Laraine Stephens. Sholom Chapels

Simon Gershon died Jan. 6 at 95. He is survived by his sons, Joel (Ileene) and Lorry (Linda); five grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Florence Gish died Jan. 6 at 93. She is survived by her daughters, Joan and Judith; sons, Michael and Marty (Dana); six grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Harold Brian Leigh died Dec. 9 at 49. He is survived by his wife, Clara; father, Irving; sister, Andi Leigh; and niece, Jessie Morhaime. Hillside

Marilyn Leonard died Dec. 5 at 78. She is survived by her daughters, Lisa McCloskey and Judy (Jim) Kaplan; son, Rick Gleitsman; and six grandchildren. Hillside

Robert David Libenson died Dec. 28 at 46. He is survived by his wife, Stacy; daughter, Jessica; father, Leon; brother, Mark; and sister, Annie.

Ruth Liebman died Dec. 9 at 90. She is survived by her sons, Stuart and Robert; and two grandchildren. Hillside

Joseph Harry Patick died Dec. 8 at 92. He is survived by his daughter, Susan; son, Corey; and three grandchildren. Hillside

Faye Perelman died Dec. 9. She is survived by her daughter, Sharon; son, Bruce; one grandchild; and brother, Philip (Viola) Beilin. Hillside

Adam Marshall Perlmutter died Dec. 30 at 45. He is survived by his mother, Maureen; father, Sam; sister Amy (Peter) Rosenberg; brother, Ben; one niece; one nephew; many uncles, aunts, cousins; and his companion, Pookie Jamjuntr.

Alvin S. Rabinow died Dec. 5 at 91. He is survived by his daughters, Royce (Michael) Morales and Bonnie (William) Luttrell. Hillside

Dale Reff died Dec. 6 at 74. She is survived by her husband, Vernon; sons, Nicholas, Michael, Robert and Steven; stepchildren, John, Dawna and Lisa; seven grandchildren; five great grandchildren; and brothers, Richard and Alan. Hillside

Mildred Rudnick died Jan. 3 at 91. She is survived by her daughter, Deborah (Carl) Rheuban; sons, Joseph (Alice), Charles (Carmen), Michael (Helen) and Daniel (Janice); 17 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Mount Sinai

Ethel Sarnoff died Dec. 9 at 89. She is survived by her husband, Edward; daughter, Danleigh Spievak; son, Carey (Michele); four grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. Hillside

Esther Schlosberg died Jan. 6 at 88. She is survived by her husband, Irving; daughter, Susan (Bill) Brown; sons, Jeffrey (Karen) and Steve (Leslie); and four grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Ben Siegel died Jan. 7 at 84. He is survived by his daughter, Sharon (Brad) Ummel; son, Kenny; sister, Betty Liaf; and two nephews. Mount Sinai

Morris Silver died Jan. 2 at 93. He is survived by his daughter, Donna (Andrew) Kramer; sons, Bill and Ken (Robin); five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Mount Sinai

Eileen Slater died Jan. 3 at 78. She is survived by her husband, Bob; daughter, Robyn (Mark); son, Larry (Susan); four grandchildren; and brother, Ralph (Norma) Price. Mount Sinai

Rita Westil died Jan. 2 at 89. She is survived by her daughters, Barbara and Rosaline; and three grandchildren. Mount Sinai

The Jewish Journal publishes obituary notices free of charge. Please send an e-mail in the above format with the name, age and survivors of the deceased to {encode=”obits@jewishjournal.com” title=”obits@jewishjournal.com”}.

If you have any questions, e-mail or call (213) 368-1661, ext. 116.

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