Offended by Asarah B’Av Cover
I, and many other Jews, both Orthodox and non-Orthodox, found the cover of The Jewish Journal extremely offensive regarding “What Are You Doing for Asarah B’Av” (July 16) by Jonathan Zasloff. The wording, “The time has come for us to acknowledge the dirty little secret of Tisha B’Av: The destruction of the Temple was one of the best things ever to happen to the Jewish people …” [was] … extremely offensive to our beliefs on the saddest day in Jewish history.
I have really liked your covers in the past regarding Rosh Hashanah, Pesach, etc., [finding them] to be in good taste, and we like reading your paper. However, the Tisha B’Av statement on the cover is beyond controversial — it is just plain offensive.
In the future, it would be greatly appreciated and respectful to refrain from putting such statements on the cover of your newspaper.
Wendy Miller
Culver City
Jonathan Zasloff’s call for a Jewish hoedown on the 10th of Av reflects the well-worn beliefs of progressive Judaism and its outlook on the Torah, i.e. the idea that the Torah is a fraud that is not what it purports to be. If progressive Jews, following the academic view of the multiple authorship of the Torah, are correct, then the Torah is fictitious, unreliable and unworthy of the demands it makes of us. Contemporary American Jews owe it to themselves to investigate whether or not the Torah is a fraud, and to ask their religious leaders their answer to this question. Then they can decide whether they want to gyrate to the Kaddish d’Rabbanan with Jonathan Zasloff or take Judaism seriously.
Eyal Rav-Noy and Gil Weinreich
Rav-Noy and Weinrich, co-authors of the new book “Who Really Wrote the Bible? And Why It Should Be Taken Seriously Again,” can be reached at WhoReallyWroteTheBible.com.
Jonathan Zasloff responds:
If Mr. Rav-Noy believes that reading Talmud and Maimonides in the original somehow indicates a lack of respect for Torah, or honoring the towering spiritual achievement of the rabbis means that Torah is a fraud, then he is entitled to his opinion. Since he reads my call for festive prayer as the same as a “hoedown,” readers can judge for themselves as to his abilities to understand texts. In any event, they need never worry about seeing him at a Purim or Simchat Torah celebration.
Honoring Their Memories
As an Old Testament/Hebrew Bible scholar, I know well the names of both professors Greenberg and Milgrom and we all are saddened by their passing (“Remembering the Temple, Its Destruction and Its Scholars,” July 16).
I recently completed a commentary on Leviticus that targets a more Christian audience. I can without hesitation say that I relied on Milgrom’s writings more than on any other. I was always relieved when I found myself in agreement with his conclusions, and I would voice an opposing conclusion with a significant level of trepidation. Milgrom’s work on Leviticus invigorated inquiry into a part of the Hebrew Bible that has traditionally been neglected, showing it to be a vibrant work that provides important insights into the thought/world of the ancient Israelites. The quality of his research has set a standard that perhaps will never be matched.
Professor Milgrom’s writings reveal the great relevance of Leviticus for the life of believers, both Christian and Jewish. His work should help all of us have a more balanced understanding of the Bible, which in turn will enrich the faith of those who cherish its contents.
Timothy M. Willis
Blanche E. Seaver Professor of Religion
Pepperdine University
Watch Your Language
With all due respect to Marty Kaplan (“Springtime for Schmucks,” July 9), whose columns I read often with great delight, the origin of the word “schmuck” is its original meaning: jeweler. Its use to describe the male organ comes much later and probably referred to the family “jewels.” Anyone traveling through Europe will notice the sign Smok and indeed my colleague and friend in Prague is Martin Smok, a fine filmmaker and guide to that fabled city.
Michael Berenbaum
via e-mail
Perhaps you are right. Billboards prominently displaying the word “schmuck” do not mean the sky is falling (“Springtime for Schmucks,” July 9). It is, however, a continuation of degrading American culture and I do find it highly offensive. If your 5-year-old (or 10-year-old or 16-year-old) came home and said, “Dad, my teacher is a schmuck,” nearly all parents would find this unacceptable. So, on reaching maturity, such coarse and juvenile language should be left firmly behind.
Theatrical productions, we should demand, must be entertaining, enlightening, informative and, yes, even occasionally shocking. But to pointlessly shock for the sake of shock is tasteless and should be strongly discouraged.
I can only hope audiences will avoid the above film in droves so the producers, writers and actors will lose their shirts. A fitting punishment.
Joe Wagner
Los Angeles
Grateful for Life’s Work
In early 2001, I participated on a special solidarity mission to Israel with the Los Angeles Jewish Federation that was to change my life profoundly. When I returned, I had lunch with a group of mission participants and staff, and it was there that Lois Weinsaft encouraged me to apply to the HUC/USC double master’s program. The rest is history. I am now the Zone Director of Jewish National Fund for the Los Angeles area, and my life, thanks to the work it does, is dedicated every day to caring for the land of Israel, on behalf of its owners — Jewish people everywhere. Thank you, Lois.
JNF truly is the central address for Diaspora Jews to connect to Israel and if you don’t already know us and our work, I encourage you to learn more. Take a look at the organization that has been working for Israel since it was founded by Theodore Herzl in 1901. Your life may change as mine did.
Abby Fleishman Leviss
Los Angeles Zone Director
Jewish National Fund
Shul vs. School
I am confused at your choice to write a full spread two weeks ago about Young Israel of Beverly Hills (“Who Owns the Shul?” July 6), which affected a small subset of our community, compared to the minuscule five paragraphs on page 23 of the July 16 issue on the dismissal of three beloved and award-winning YULA teachers, which affects the entire Jewish community of Los Angeles. Your short contribution to this very large and very disturbing behavior by an institution as large, as well-respected and as influential as YULA speaks to the integrity of your paper. Why would what happens to a tiny, nondescript shul such as Young Israel be so tantalizing as to fill both the cover and many pages? And why is what one family does so much more important than what an entire institution such as YULA perpetrates? I know that this story was huge. You made mention of the Facebook page and strong support for the teachers. Where is your mention of the fact that these three teachers have educated over 10,000 of us in the past 31 years? Why wasn’t even one of their students interviewed? I think this should have at least warranted a cover and full spread. You gave 400 percent more coverage to Mel Gibson last week. Have you truly become the TMZ of the Jewish community? Frankly, we don’t really need it.
Tamar Andrews
Los Angeles
Editor’s note: As the story on Young Israel pointed out, what happened there has larger implications for all congregations and their boards. The YULA teachers’ situations deserved coverage, but their cases also involve personnel decisions by their employers, which remain confidential and which are specific to the individuals involved.
Correction
In a recent article, “The New Politics of Immigration” (July 9), an estimate of young people who would benefit from the DREAM act was noted as 66,000. After the article was printed, the Migration Policy Institute issued a statistical analysis with a much higher estimate of 825,000 young people nationwide who could obtain a conditional path to citizenship if the DREAM act passes. The MPI report can be viewed at: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/DREAM-Insight-July2010.pdf.
The Legacy of Lenny Bruce
So Lenny Bruce got in trouble for using the word “schmuck” (“Springtime for Schmucks,” July 9). So did I, for naming my rubber duck Ducky Schmuckenberg after I bought him in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania on July 9, 1950. I can’t believe it’s been 60 years since Ducky came into my life.
One day when I was sick in bed my father overheard me refer to my two rubber friends as Duck and Bunny Schmuckenberg. He asked me what it was that I said. I said they were like Martin and Lewis or Abbott and Costello – funnymen – and Schmuckenberg sounded like a funny name.
My father told me “schmuck” was a Yiddish word for penis, and no son of his was going to call his rubber animals Schmuckenberg. I had precisely seven days to come up with a new name.
Seven days later he asked me if I had found a replacement name, and I said yes. From now on they would be Duck and Bunny Fuckenberg. Without going into a long explanation my father said that new word was worse, but he wouldn’t tell me why. I now had one day to come up with a new name, and I chose Schmöenberg.
Two years later Bunny’s rubber had deteriorated to the point that he had to go to rabbit heaven. Ducky’s new friend was a rubber Porky Pig doll (as in Warner Bros.), but there was no more Schmöenberg. Instead there was Ducky Schmöenberg and Porchester Pig. My father got mad at me on March 10, 1955 and tore my Ducky in half. That left only Porky. My mother pointed at Porky and said, “That’s your only remaining animal, and one false move and you lose him too.” Porchester Pig remains with me to this very day. And he has an imaginary friend I call Ducky Schmöenberg, Jr.
Rick Rofman
Van Nuys
When I saw the billboard (“Springtime for Schmucks,” July 9) advertising the film, “Dinner for Schmucks,” I was immediately thrown back about 50 years to my parents’ bedroom in Yonkers, N.Y. I’d been complaining about another kid in my class that day and finished my story by calling him “a real schmuck.” My father—who was a very mild-mannered and gentle soul—suddenly turned on me and angrily told me NEVER to use that word again. “What?” I innocently replied, “Harvey’s a complete putz!” Whereupon my father slapped me across the face.
Who knew that “putz” and “schmuck” are not only synonymous but dirty words? To me and my friends, the schmucks and putzes were obnoxious jerks; it never occurred to us that they were pricks as well!
Suzanne Pulier Macht
Beverly Hills
Whose Fault Is the Conversion Bill?
This conversion bill (“Coalition Attempts to Stall Strict Israeli Conversion Bill,” July 16) is OUR fault—meaning us Jews in the Diaspora. I can’t prove it, but it is an educated guess that almost all public criticism of Israel from Diaspora Jews comes from nontraditional (meaning everyone but Orthodox) Jews.
It is an educated guess that you can count the number of rabbis on the JStreet 400 list who are Orthodox on one hand.
It is an educated guess that the significant majority of American Jews who make aliyah are traditional Jews. And the examples go on and on.
So, why should any leader in Israel really care about what the nontraditional community says. The nontraditional community does not have a voice or any real clout in Israel—and deservedly so.
So, those of you who are complaining about this bill (and, by the way, I agree—it is a horrible bill), please understand that for the most part, no one is going to listen to you.
Paul Jeser
via e-mail
Misplaced Sympathy
I was sad to read in Jonathan Kirsch’s article (”Elegant ‘Education’ From the Front Lines,” July 2) that Megan Stack reports in her book “Every Man in This Village Is a Liar” that the hardships endured by the Palestinians justify blasting pieces of 6-month-old babies and 90-year-old grandmothers onto the roadsides. It’s disgusting to suggest there is a moral equivalency here. They also did not report the identity of the perpetrator(s) in the tale about the tortured Palestinian women. It could have been a Jordanian or Syrian soldier rather than the ancestors of the suicide bomb victims.
Once again, ideology triumphs over truth and human decency.
Warren Scheinin
Redondo Beach
Imagine …
Dear Mr. Chertoff and Mr. Warner,
Let’s play the “imagine” game in order to get a response to your letter (“Open Discussions for Peace,” July 16).
Imagine if, after the Israelis defeated the PLO infrastructure in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese government had not let Hezbollah turn the area into an armed camp.
Imagine if, after Ariel Sharon had left the Palestinians in Gaza with a thriving agricultural industry, they hadn’t destroyed that industry and let Hamas turn the area into an armed camp.
Imagine if Arafat had taken the hundreds of millions of dollars given to him and created an infrastructure of schools and industry on the West Bank and not decided on a series of intifadas.
Imagine if either Arafat or Abbas were courageous enough to accept the deals put together with the help of Clinton and Bush.
Imagine if Israel had not built their defensive wall that has prevented the kinds of senseless suicide attacks which used to take place with regularity.
Imagine if Israel let unlimited and unchecked cargos into the Gaza strip under the control of Hamas.
There’s a whole lot of dreaming where we could indulge ourselves in what might have been. We live now in the present. The security of present- and future-day Israeli citizens is the primary responsibility of this government. With much of the world abandoning Israel, the United States has been a reliably though not a totally acquiescent ally. You would even take that away and dream of the Palestinians suddenly agreeing to peace. You are naive and, fortunately, not in control of the future of Israel.
Bill Bender
via e-mail
Too Much Coverage of Shul?
As a former congregant of YIBH, I take strong exception to your cover story regarding the shul (“Who Owns the Shul?” July 9). You have nothing better to do than talk about the problems within the Orthodox Jewish community? What about the separation news between Rabbi Wolpe and his wife and its effect at Sinai Temple? This was a “he said/she said” article. I have been witness to some of the problems at this shul. What temple or shul doesn’t have its politics? Every year, The Journal manages to air the dirty laundry of the Orthodox Jewish Community. The Rubashkin saga is another one.
By closing Agriprocessors, the amount of kosher meat available to the religious community has diminished, as well as the high cost going up. The non-Orthodox community is not the main consumer of kosher meat. Does it give the editor great satisfaction to air these articles? How about the lack of money out there to support our Jewish day schools, both Conservative and Orthodox? What a shame that political campaigns get lots of Jewish money and not enough goes to our Jewish schools; why don’t you write about that?
David Frank
Los Angeles
Unasked Questions
I thank Sinai Temple for hosting a very informative program July 15, examining two contrasting perspectives on the viability of a two-state solution in the Middle East.
The moderator welcomed audience questions submitted on cards. However, the collectors of the cards reviewed mine and held them, rather than passing them on to the moderator to review, as they did for most other cards. They claimed it resembled questions already submitted. I did not hear any similar questions at the program. So, here—for your readers to consider—are the questions I submitted.
1). Israel took land from Jordan and Egypt. Egypt received land back and settled. Jordan doesn’t want the West Bank back. Palestinian Arabs never had the land as their separate entity. What logic dictates that if I take something from you and you don’t want it back, somebody else who never owned it can come and claim I must “return” it to them?
2). If the Arabs had the military ability to destroy Israel, do you believe they would be talking about negotiations and peace? If one cannot answer “yes” to that question, how does one justify giving them anything that could enhance that ability?
I appreciate you printing these additional questions for your readers to ponder.
Kenny (Yitzchak) Kaufman
campus rabbi
Los Angeles
Lost Relative Found
I sent a note some weeks ago looking for a lost relative. Someone saw it, contacted her, she contacted me, and we are reunited. I am most grateful.
Sybil Kaplan
via e-mail
Observing Asarah B’Av
I like the story that Jonathan Zasloff (“What Are You Doing for Asarah B’Av?” July 16) opens his article with (the Talmud reports that God laughed and said, “My children have defeated me.”) followed by the denigration of the sacrificial system because it is icky. The Temple’s destruction “represents the Jewish people’s maturation into a closer, more adult relationship with the Holy One”. After all, “Torah constantly evolves and changes through the … piety of Israel.”
The entire point of the Torah is to reveal that Israel is set apart from all other nations to be a light unto the world. Moses warned Israel repeatedly not to mingle with other nations, especially regarding worship practices. Zasloff: “Syncretism is not to be feared but embraced.” Yes, let’s celebrate Asarah B’Av. If professor Zasloff can put his tongue in his cheek, so can I. Then I won’t have to puke.
Guinn Williams
Los Angeles
Conflict Resolution
L.A. Jews for Peace commented in a letter in the July 16 issue that they believe “the (Palestinian Israel) conflict would have already been resolved if the diplomatic, financial and military support of the U.S. government to Israel had not been unconditional.” They lament how different it might have been if only Jews eliminated the “Gaza blockade, and stop invading Lebanon” (whatever that means). And, oh yeah, they “study the Goldstone Report because it’s an authoritative way to break through the American media’s distorted take about what happened during Cast Lead.” I don’t even want to get into that, but I have a message for Warner and Chertoff and the rest of their group:
Jews don’t need convincing that a two-state negotiated settlement is necessary. We are already there. You want peace. Here’s how to get it. Stop blaming your own people and put the blame where it should rightfully go—on the Palestinians.
You think getting Israel to accept the above will create an atmosphere of negotiation. What about the Palestinians? Do they need to do anything? Are they required to make any sacrifices in your thinking?
The Palestinians since 1948 have always prevented and end to this conflict. They have rejected every reasonable offer to negotiate, have refused to come to the table because of flimsy excuses of everything from settlement building to Israel detaining dangerous terrorists. They have systematically enshrined into their culture a bloodlust for people inside Israel, which has caused the senseless deaths and catastrophic injury to many innocent people who did not deserve it.
The enemy continues to try to kill us and thinks with your help they will be successful. Put these sincere, however misguided efforts to work where they really do some good. Go to Gaza and the West Bank and convince them of the best way to end this.
Then you will get the settlement you seek. Good luck!
Larry Hart
L.A. Jewish Community Examiner
Making His Point
Your July 16 issue has a picture of David Rotem (page 14) with a raised index finger. A more appropriate picture would have him with a raised middle finger giving his clear message to the world’s non-Orthodox Jewry.
Martin J. Weisman
Westlake Village
Too Much on Muslims?
I am sick and tired of The Jewish Journal’s publishing glowing articles by Rabbi Firestone (“Death of a True Scholar — and a Muslim Mensch,” July 16) about Muslim scholars, Muslim customs, Muslim science, etc., when there is plenty of sad news of trouble, real trouble, caused by Muslim imams, Muslim spokesmen, Muslim customs and Muslim beliefs in their well known efforts to dominate the world. Are you throwing sand in the community’s eyes, deceiving us by not reporting on the bad and real world?
Robert Reyto
Los Angeles
Editors note: For the second in professor Firestone’s series on Moderating Islam, see page 10.
10 and 10 in L.A.
Thanks to David Suissa for the mention of the “10 and 10” minyan (“10 Men, 10 Women,” July 16). One factual correction: While Mr. Suissa said the minyan always meets in people’s homes, it actually meets at the Workmen’s Circle at Robertson and Horner on the second Friday night of each month. In this warm and welcoming minyan, which is modeled on Shira Chadasha in Jerusalem, men and women pray on different sides of the mechitzah and a woman leads some of the prayers (such as Kabbalat Shabbat) from the women’s side. Services are followed by a potluck dinner. While 10 and 10 is the only such Shira Chadasha-style prayer service in Los Angeles, shuls offering this type of davening can be found in New York, Boston and other U.S. cities. More information about the Los Angeles 10 and 10 minyan can be found at 10and10.org.
Joseph M. Lipner
Los Angeles
A Dream Fulfilled
As a Los Angeles native living in D.C., there are many things I miss. I am so appreciative that I can feel at home again reading The Jewish Journal online. It makes me feel very connected and, because of you, I was able to fulfill my 80-year-old mother’s dream — to hear Itzhak Perlman play the violin “before I die!” Without you, I never would have known that he would be giving a concert in Los Angeles, had I not read it in The Jewish Journal. I was also able to buy tickets within minutes and was able to get really good seats, all because I read it in The Jewish Journal. How seldom do we get the pleasure of fulfilling another’s dream. I also enjoy your articles and share them with friends here in D.C. and in Israel. So, a very heartfelt thanks.
Maryjo Juster
via e-mail
