fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

June 15, 2011

The forgotten population: Domestic workers in our homes

Leave a Comment / News, Opinion /

Ever stop to ask the salary of the woman washing dishes on Shabbat in your neighbor’s home, or the gentleman mowing your friend’s lawn about his vacation, or the nanny raising the children down the block whether she had time to sit down for lunch today? If you did, you most likely discovered an unpleasant situation of inadequate pay, few or no breaks, no paid sick or vacation days, and perhaps even bullying or verbal abuse. But how can it be? Those employers (neighbors) seem so nice, and their domestic workers always seem to be smiling and content.

In her 2004 article in The Atlantic, “How Serfdom Saved the Women’s Movement,” Caitlin Flanagan poignantly explained the dynamic between a mother and a nanny: “Standing bravely in the crossfire are nannies, who tend to be the first choice of professional-class mothers who work … and the guilty luxury of a good number of at-home mothers. And, as many of us have learned, the mother-nanny relationship has the potential for being the most morally, legally, and emotionally charged one that a middle-class woman will ever have.”

Domestic workers include housekeepers, nannies, care providers for the elderly, and others who are hired to maintain their employers’ homes and family needs. The nature of the job and the market stands in the way of organizing, and for too long, these workers have gone without the basic legal rights afforded those in other industries by the Wagner Act of 1935, such as decent wages, a safe and healthy workplace, and workers’ compensation. Since this unique work is done in backyards and kitchens, out of the public eye, those who carry it out remain among the most isolated and vulnerable work force in our society, and they must be protected from abuse and mistreatment.

One common problem here in the Los Angeles Jewish community is delayed payment. On this issue, the Ramban explains, “The Torah states, ‘Do not have your worker’s wages remain with you overnight till morning’ — the intent is that you should pay him that day. For if you do not pay him immediately when he leaves work, he will starve and die that night.” The Ramban’s concern for the life of the worker and his or her family is very alive today, as most domestic workers live in poverty at serious risk.

We know from a 2007 report, “Behind Closed Doors,” that most domestic workers earn wages — averaging an annual income of $22,000 to $24,000 — that trap them in a life of poverty, unable to afford basic living necessities and certainly unable to support a family. Only 5 percent receive health insurance coverage. Additionally, the wage theft results in 31 percent more work than necessary. Four out of five don’t receive even 10-minute breaks, and 78 percent don’t receive basic meal breaks. It gets worse: One in four reports feeling insulted or threatened at work, and 10 percent experience acts of violence and/or sexual harassment on the job. This is not only a worker’s rights issue, but also an immigrant and gender issue — 94 percent of these workers are women, and 99 percent are foreign-born. Having a good personal relationship with a home worker and giving a holiday gift do not justify poor work conditions.

Last year, New York was the first state to pass a Domestic Bill of Rights. On June 2, the California Assembly approved the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, which would expand set industry-wide labor protection standards for household workers and improve the quality of care for children, families and seniors, and it is headed to the State Senate for approval. We must express our Jewish values to the Senate and follow the momentum generated by these efforts to promote similar legislation elsewhere, and to go further, enact industry-specific protections for domestic workers (e.g., regarding the use of kitchen facilities to cook their own food and standards for sleep).

How can we give the keys to our homes — and entrust the welfare of our aging parents and young children — to our domestic workers, and yet not respect them enough to secure their basic rights and dignity?  Our homes serve as a pillar of our Jewish lives. They are what we welcome guests into for festive meals and hold witness to our holy conduct with children and loved ones. Herein lies a tremendous opportunity to engage in one of the defining problems of our time.

The Jewish community can help turn the tide and become public exemplars as just employers in the workplace and in the home. The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights is a good start, but in order to prove effective, its mandate must be carried out. Freedom is not won in mere letters on a piece of paper but in fulfillment of the meaning of those letters. Our obligation to fiscally and emotionally sustain the individuals we hire to help run our households extends beyond law and into the realm of moral imperative. Learning to honor human dignity must start in each of our homes. There need to be Jewish community-wide meetings discussing the work standards we must all commit to for the employees in our homes.

The British Commonwealth’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes in his Haggadah, “Collective freedom — a society that honors the equal dignity of all — depends on constant vigilance … if we forget where we came from, the battles our ancestors fought and the long journey they had to take, then in the end we lose it (freedom) again.”

This summer, let us use our loving embrace of our tradition and narrative as a springboard into the issues of domestic workers’ rights. Let us welcome freedom into our homes by looking domestic workers in the eyes and expressing our gratitude. Let us exemplify the proper treatment of domestic workers for our children. Consider acting on the courage to see the reality of most domestic workers’ situations. Consider utilizing the ability to see the possibility for change for the most poor right here in our homes. And let us collectively enact a vision that moves the reality of domestic workers to the possibility of better treatment.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the senior Jewish educator at the UCLA Hillel. He is also founder and president of Uri L’Tzedek and a fifth-year doctoral candidate in moral psychology and epistemology at Columbia University.

The forgotten population: Domestic workers in our homes Read More »

31 senators sign resolution against 1967 borders

Leave a Comment / Politics /

U.S. Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) introduced a resolution calling an Israeli return to 1967 lines “contrary to United States policy and national security.”

The resolution introduced June 9 is co-signed by 29 other senators, including at least two Democrats, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

It declares “that it is the policy of the United States to support and facilitate Israel in maintaining defensible borders and that it is contrary to United States policy and national security to have the borders of Israel return to the armistice lines that existed on June 4, 1967.”

In a major Middle East policy speech last month, President Barack Obama called for peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to be restarted on the basis of 1967 borders with “mutually agreed upon land swaps.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected these borders as a starting point, calling them “indefensible.” The Palestinians say they will not return to the negotiating table unless the 1967 borders are used as the basis for discussing borders in the negotiations.

31 senators sign resolution against 1967 borders Read More »

Jewish leaders meet with Homeland Security Chief Napolitano

Leave a Comment / News, United States /

Jewish leaders met with U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano about the community’s partnership in a new public awareness campaign.

The Jewish Federations of North America and the Security Community Network (SCN) have joined the Department of Homeland Security in the “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign, according to the department.

Napolitano, along with the director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, John Carson, met June 10 with the Jewish leaders.

The launch of the “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign partnership with Jewish Federations and SCN, a mechanism for sharing information with faith- and community-based organizations designed to improve overall security awareness in a crisis situation, will feature print and social media materials distributed to the thousands of centers and organizations reached by the organizations.

“The American Jewish community and the places we gather are, unfortunately, often targets for terrorists,” said Jerry Silverman, president and CEO of The Jewish Federations of North America. “This new partnership with the Department of Homeland Security will empower us to counter this threat as we become more actively involved in our own protection.”

Following the meeting, Napolitano said, “Homeland security begins with hometown security, and our nation’s faith-based organizations play a critical role in keeping our communities safe. Expanding the ‘If You See Something, Say Something’ campaign to national Jewish groups, the first faith-based partnership for the campaign, is an important step in the department’s ongoing effort to engage the American public in our nation’s security efforts.”

Jewish leaders meet with Homeland Security Chief Napolitano Read More »

Fixing broken hearts in Israel

Leave a Comment / Israel, News, United States /

Just two days earlier but a world away, 8-year-old Salha Farjalla Khamis said goodbye to her parents and four siblings in her village on the African island of Zanzibar.

Later, in a hospital in the Tel Aviv suburb of Holon, tears roll silently down her cheeks as she watches an Israeli nurse attach the wires of an EKG monitor to her small body.

“Mama!” she cries out as the Israeli nurse, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, tries to soothe her in a language the little girl does not understand.

“Don’t cry, no pain,” the nurse says in broken English.

Salha is on her second trip to Israel for an operation to remedy a heart defect that she has had since birth. Brought by the Israeli humanitarian organization Save a Child’s Heart, she is one of 2,600 children who have benefitted from the program launched by an American Jewish immigrant to Israel to provide cardiac surgery for children from the developing world.

The story of the effort begins in 1996, when a charismatic cardiac surgeon from Maryland named Amram Cohen started treating patients from outside Israel and using his home, and those of his patients and friends, to host them.

Since then, patients from 42 countries have been helped by the organization, nearly half of them Palestinian children from the West Bank and Gaza. Others have come from Iraq, Nigeria and Romania.

Save a Child’s Heart also trains medical staff from developing countries, and leads surgical and teaching missions abroad.

Dr. Lior Sasson, the organization’s lead surgeon and head of the cardiothoracic surgery department at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, operates on the children on his own time. He helped perform the organization’s first surgery 15 years ago with Cohen, who was then his mentor.

Just six years later, Cohen, who had operated on some 600 children through Save a Child’s Heart, died of high-altitude sickness while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, a country from which many of the treated children come.

This August, the organization will hold a fundraising climb in Cohen’s memory at Kilimanjaro that it hopes will bring in $1 million.

“These are children who would otherwise be doomed to die within a few years and suddenly are getting their lives back, and their parents again live with hope,” Sasson said.

“And when it comes to the Palestinian kids, you see how Palestinian families go from seeing Israelis as sworn enemies to seeing how we all join forces to save these kids together. It’s better than 1,000 diplomats. We are working with people. They get to know us, we get to know them.”

In May, the organization was recommended for special consultative status with the U.N. Economic and Social Council. If granted, Save a Child’s Heart will be able to participate in various U.N. forums, including the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

A child’s surgery and post-operative care typically costs $10,000, all of which is covered through donations to Save a Child’s Heart.

“My baby needs surgery. She loses weight all the time. She needs to get better so she can play with the other children,” says Mati Ali, 27, who had never been on an airplane and knew practically nothing about Israel before a doctor referred her to the program.

Fathma, her 3-year-old, is dressed in her best clothes — a maroon dress sprinkled with pink flowers.

Soon the children are bundled into taxis en route to Wolfson Medical Center, where they will meet up with fellow new arrivals from Angola.

Sara Mucznik, 28, who immigrated to Israel from Portugal last year and now does marketing for Save a Child’s Heart, helps translate for the Angolans.

“Their lives are about to be forever changed,” she says, speaking at the bedside of an 11-year-old from Angola who is having blood drawn.

Many of the volunteers at the hospital and the house are young Jews from abroad.

Upstairs from the African patients, Palestinian patients are attending a weekly clinic. The long corridor is filled with mothers wearing floor-length black dresses and headscarves and holding babies.

Akiva Tamir, the pediatric cardiologist who oversees the clinic, says the Palestinian patients are fortunate because their proximity to Israel means they will be treated at a younger age, before damage from either congenital or acquired heart disease has time to intensify.

Godwin Godfry, a 31-year-old general surgeon from Tanzania, is in the midst of a six-year stint training in Israel. When he finishes, Godfry will go back to the city of Mwanza on the shores of Lake Victoria in northern Tanzania. He will be one of the only pediatric cardiac surgeons in the country.

“In our hospital alone, we have a waiting list of 300 children to be treated for heart disease,” he says, but no doctor is available to treat them.

“Here you learn how things should be done,” Godfry says.

At Wolfson’s pediatric intensive care unit, most of the beds on a recent day are occupied by children recovering from surgery performed by Godfry’s mentor, Sasson.

Smiling from a bed in the far corner is Zeresenay Gebru, 15, from Ethiopia. Earlier in the day, he had surgery to replace the battery in a pacemaker he received from Save a Child’s Heart when he was 6.

“I would like to thank all the doctors and the volunteers,” the teenager says, adding that he wants to be a cardiologist. “They gave me my heart back.”

Fixing broken hearts in Israel Read More »

EATING OUT ON THE CHEAP

Leave a Comment / Singles /

I often picture myself as a guest on “Inside the Actor’s Studio,” and when James Lipton asks, “What is your favorite word?” my answer is “Restaurant!”  I would pay extra for a house without a kitchen. I love eating out. I love the whole ritual of studying the menu, hearing the specials, and sampling tastes of other people’s dishes. I particularly love the fact that I can enjoy all this deliciousness without having done any of the work. 

GO ETHNIC

Eating out doesn’t have to break the bank or expand your waistline.  My dream restaurant is a small family-run ethnic place where the chef is the owner’s grandmother.  The food is tasty, exotic, and inexpensive.  Every city has these treasures.  (If you live in an area where there is no immigrant population, I suggest you move.)  In Los Angeles alone, I’ve enjoyed fabulous Persian, Armenian, Polish, Greek, Cuban, and Thai feasts for under twenty-five bucks – with enough leftovers for dinner the next two nights.  That’s actually cheaper than cooking at home.  Many of these places don’t have liquor licenses and allow you to bring your own wine or beer – which is another saving.

UNCHAIN MY HEART

I rarely eat fast food, junk food, or chain restaurant food, where every item – be it fish, meat, or fowl – is smothered with a gluey three-cheese melt.  Sometimes I’m stuck in the boonies somewhere and TGIF is the only game in town.  If so, I keep it simple and order the club sandwich – rather than the “quick-fried crusty ravioli filled with pulled barbeque pork.” 

You won’t catch me at a Red Lobster or Olive Garden.  The ambiance is institutional, the prices aren’t that terrific, and the food is blandly heavy heavy heavy.  “Steak Gorgonzola-Alfredo” will put a lot of money in your cardiologist’s pocket.  As a matter of fact, I saw a paid ad on Olive Garden’s home page that read, “Gastric Bypass Diet. Learn About Proper Dieting Following Gastric Bypass Surgery.”  I rest my case. 

Discerning foodaholic that I am, I never thought I’d set foot in an IHOP until I spotted one of those discount coupons in the Sunday paper:  “Order one entrée and get the second for free.”  That’s an offer I couldn’t refuse.  My chicken fajita tostada salad was actually quite tasty – and large enough for a family of four.  So I started using coupons for other low-price chains: Souplantation, Sizzlers, Boston Market and Acapulco, which were also a lot better than expected.  I am not, however, a Starbucks aficionado: four bucks for self-service coffee in a paper buck is not my idea of a good deal.

EATING OUT ON THE CHEAP Read More »

People of the jargon

Leave a Comment / David Suissa, News, Opinion /

For those of you who live in the real world and not in professional Jewish circles, consider yourselves blessed that you don’t have to attend one of those all-day conferences on “The Future of Judaism.” I’ve attended my fair share, and what I remember most is constantly being on the hunt for another cup of coffee. It’s not that I don’t love the mission of these gatherings; it’s just that professional lingo has a way of putting me to sleep.

I was reminded of this weakness when I came across a report on a conference titled “Judaism 2030: A Working Conference for a Vibrant Jewish Future and the Steps Necessary to Get Us There” in ZEEK magazine. As soon as I read the term “New Jewish Culture activist,” I felt that familiar onset of drowsiness.

What on earth is a New Jewish Culture activist?

Apparently, it’s someone who likes to “talk with participants from a variety of institutional backgrounds about their visions of a ‘vibrant Jewish future.’ ” Sounds wonderful, I thought. So why does it put me to sleep? Consider this perfectly reasonable paragraph:

“We also wanted to ask the questions in order to bring the visions that are presented into reality. How do we first identify the needs of individuals, communities, organizations, etc.? How do we really step back and look at what we’re doing now and what we’ll be doing in the future to meet both the present needs and to be ready to meet future needs? What kinds of policy changes do we have to make, what kinds of cultural changes must we make in order, for example, to embrace the increasingly fluid nature of identity in the future? What kinds of programmatic shifts must we make, and how do our institutional agendas need to change? Our goal is really to bring people from all of these different kinds of institutions to have this conversation about the future. Because it’s really not taking place in this kind of context, and we want to really outline some of those steps so we can work to make these ideas and these visions — the viable ones — into reality.”

ZZZZZZ.

I think my problem may actually be deeper than mere boredom. Professional language can also be intimidating, as in: “What kinds of cultural changes must we make in order to embrace the increasingly fluid nature of identity in the future?” That’s scary stuff.

Sometimes, the lingo is just too hip: “Judaism can be employed as a tool in the world’s toolbox of wisdom traditions.” Other times, it just seems like you’ve heard it a million times, especially any sentence with the word “relevant” in it: “I think the vision for Judaism 2030 is: How do we, as synagogues and small communities around the country, manage to remain relevant to the lives of our constituents while they live in a global world?”

The Olympic champion of sleep-inducing jargon must be the word “paradigm.” It didn’t take long for the dreaded P word to make its appearance in the Judaism 2030 report: “My present concern is that Jewish community — and certainly Jewish education — has been in a totally isolationist paradigm for a long time.”

There’s nothing inherently wrong with jargon. For one thing, it makes the speaker feel important. Saying “paradigm” sounds a lot more sophisticated than saying “mode” or “position.” Also, there’s something comforting about having an inside lingo — it helps you bond with your fellow professionals.

The problem, of course, is that it doesn’t help you bond with the community you’re serving.

Our community’s problems are already pretty intimidating. As I see it, intimidating lingo just adds needless weight and complexity to those problems, and creates needless distance between the professionals and the people.

Think of the most successful Jewish organization in the world today — the group that arguably has done more for Jewish continuity than any other. You know, those devoted “culture activists” who serve Jews around the globe? That’s right, Chabad.

As I waded through the sophisticated verbiage in the Judaism 2030 report, it dawned on me that the beauty of the Chabad approach is in its intimacy — and simplicity. 

In my view, Chabad’s approach boils down to three words: Create. Invite. Serve. Whether in Uzbekistan or in Bakersfield, that’s what Chabadniks do all day long. They create Jewish activities, they invite Jews to participate, and they serve them with love. Organizations like Chabad don’t need fancy surveys to tell them that Jews need more Judaism; they’re too busy planning Shabbat dinners, Chanukah parties and study programs to worry about five-year plans.

They understand that ideas are worth more than paradigms, action speaks louder than surveys, and love conquers all. 

Not every Jewish organization is the same, but whether you’re promoting spirituality, tikkun olam, Torah study, Jewish culture, Israel or Jewish ethics, you could do worse than throw away your strategic plans and follow this simple model: Create an idea or an event that fits what you do, invite the people you want, and serve them with love. Keep coming up with new ideas, and repeat until the Messiah comes.

And if it makes you feel better, you can call it The CIS Paradigm for a More Vibrant Jewish Future.

Coffee, anyone?

David Suissa is a branding consultant and the founder of OLAM magazine. For speaking engagements and other inquiries, he can be reached at suissa@olam.org or davidsuissa.com.

People of the jargon Read More »

The forgotten people in the 2012 election

Leave a Comment / News, Opinion, Raphael Sonenshein /

Remember Osama bin Laden? Anyone who thought his death would determine the 2012 elections only had to wait a few weeks for the story to disappear and the bad new job numbers to remind us that the economy is still the main issue in American politics. The 2012 election is certainly looking more competitive.

Democrats are feeling upbeat for the first time since their shattering 2010 defeat, and it’s mainly because of Republican Congressman Paul Ryan’s plan to end Medicare as we know it.  Democrats have already picked up a Republican congressional seat in New York state and are running ads around the country against Republican House members who were foolish enough to vote for the Ryan plan.

But with a struggling economy, Democrats will have no choice but to do more. They will have to pick a side on the economy and defend their own ideas and their own record with vigor and courage.

I give Republicans credit. Despite all the noise about birthers and the other mishegoss, the Republican Party in Washington has remained true to its one heartfelt commitment: to ensure the welfare of the wealthiest individuals and corporations. They will fight for it. They will lose battles for it. They will trade away things that should matter to them in order to protect it. Remember how much they gave up in the post-election negotiations with President Barack Obama in order to keep the tax cuts for the wealthy?

Despite evidence that the stock market does better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones, the wealthy and corporate America know that the true protectors of their interests are the Republicans. They know that Republicans will risk public ire and political attack to preserve their base. And so the base pours cash and energy into electing as many Republicans as possible to office. Does the Democratic base have that kind of confidence in the Democrats in Washington?

Democrats in Washington must look beyond the Beltway to envision those Americans who are invisible in official Washington — the forgotten people: the unemployed worker in Ohio, the elderly Floridian worried about retirement but also about his or her children’s economic prospects, the homeowner in the Inland Empire whose home’s value is under   water. The president needs to publicly use all available executive authority when legislative action to help these people is blocked. Amid all the rhetoric, it’s hard to get a message through to the Democratic base, but it can be done.

This has nothing to do with ideology. The great internal battles of the Democratic Party in the 1970s and 1980s were about keeping divisive social issues, such as abortion rights, from obscuring the party’s basic economic mission. Today, those social issues are no longer at the top of the nation’s issue agenda. The payoff was supposed to be a Democratic Party that could stay on message and speak boldly about the economic needs of most Americans. Hopefully, the political necessity of defending their turf in a struggling economy will bring the Democrats together to deliver on that promise.

When the state of the economy doesn’t speak unambiguously on its own, as it did in 1964 and 1984 for Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan, only clear messages can win.

The Democratic Party does not need to be more liberal or more centrist. It needs to be more confident that its economic ideas and record are better than those of the Republicans. Democrats must be willing to fight, even if they lose some battles, over these ideas. Their commitment must cut through the fog of public discourse.

For Obama, this means recognizing that what elected him was not a vague promise of hope and change, as appealing as that was, but a bad economy, for which he and his party offered better solutions than the other side.

If his appeal in his first run for president was that he was more cutting-edge in a cultural sense, a cool and cerebral minority candidate with an inkling of where the new century was heading, it’s time now to move away from the rhetoric to address the immediate problems that people have paying their mortgages and planning for retirement while hoping that their ill health won’t sap all their savings and security. It’s time to talk directly to the students who have no idea how to pay for college. These practical concerns, juxtaposed against lofty aspirations, remind me of Woody Allen’s line: “I’m not sure I believe in an afterlife, but I’m bringing along a change of underwear just in case.”

Obama’s difficulty up until now in winning over white working-class and elderly voters certainly has had a lot to do with race and culture. But the road to bringing them into his camp will be fixing the economy and delivering a concrete focus on their day-to-day needs.

In the morass of public debate in this country, it will take a simple message to cut through the noise. Obama’s administration already has taken concrete steps, and he needs to remind the voters of what he has done every day. And he will have to clearly and consistently make the comparison to what the other side is offering. This will go against his own desire to blur differences to win compromises, but that won’t work if he wants to be re-elected.

The Democrats must show the forgotten people that somebody really is watching out for them.

Raphael J. Sonenshein is chair of the Division of Politics, Administration and Justice at California State University, Fullerton.

The forgotten people in the 2012 election Read More »

Anthony Weiner, and How We Can Do Better

Leave a Comment / News /

A few times over the last couple of weeks. I’ve asked myself, “What’s the lesson to be derived from the sordid tales of Anthony Weiner, John Edwards, Arnold Schwarzenegger et.al?” I mean aside from the lessons we already know: that one should avoid doing stupid things, things that are hurtful and destructive to the people you love, things that are exploitative of people who may be in a position of relative weakness. Is there something else, something larger, that can only be seen by taking one step back, and considering these sorry stories within the larger framework of Jewish thought?

The conclusion I came to is that this is a great time to look again at that sometimes-maligned Jewish value called tzniut, physical modesty. It’s a sometimes-maligned value because people tend to think that it’s fundamentally about the superficial matter of how people dress, and further that it’s specifically about how women dress, or even further that it’s about placing the responsibility upon women to save men from their own out-of-control libidos or utter lack of moral compass. But this is all wrong. Tzniut surely has implications for dress – for both genders alike! – but it’s fundamentally about a core ethical belief, the very core ethical belief that you can bet was nowhere to be found when these sexual scandals originated.

What core ethical belief does physical modesty express and uphold? The answer is simple. The belief in human dignity. The idea that every person possesses an attribute that endows him with ultimate value, and which demands that she be the recipient of honor, respect and equal treatment. And that this attribute is in no way connected to anything physical or visible. In fact it exists even when the physical is compromised or degraded. It’s the meta-physical attribute we call human dignity. And it’s ultimately the only trait that we believe ought to define a person’s worth, and ought to determine the way in which we relate to and interact with another person. And dignity’s advocate and guardian is the value we call tzniut.

Properly lived, tzniut is the way we express our commitment to the ideal of building a society, in which no one of us thinks about or defines themselves or anyone else in terms his / her physical attributes. It’s lived out through carrying ourselves, and teaching our children to carry themselves, entertaining ourselves, and teaching our children to entertain themselves, and indeed dressing ourselves, and teaching our children to dress themselves, in a way that insists that dignity – and dignity alone – be understood as the core of human identity. It’s a way of looking at the world that renders it unthinkable to abuse or exploit, to cheapen or demean another human being – to see them merely as an object of entertainment or sexual gratification. The rope with which we try to pull the world out of the muck of its worst and most ancient habits and attitudes, is the notion of human dignity.  And the muscle with which we pull it, is the steady, continuous commitment to the value we call tzniut.

We of course acknowledge that we are physical, sexual beings.  But when, through the practice of tzniut,  we see others as defined not by their bodies but by their human spirit, we come to understand that our sexuality is a Divine gift to be cherished, not a primal urge to be satisfied. This is the crazy Jewish idea, first expressed in chapter of two of the Torah, and then embedded in all of the laws concerning on what occasions and with what frequency a husband and wife are to engage in intimacy, that human sexuality is an instrument God gave to us through which to fully know our life partner, to find ecstatic joy in the marital relationship, to continuously renew an everlasting covenant. What an unthinkable betrayal of God’s generosity it would be, to reduce this gift to a tool of mere physical gratification. Our Sages regarded the sin of adultery to be rooted in a kind of insanity. This is a perspective anchored in our beliefs about human dignity, supported by our practice of tzniut, and our reservation of ourselves as sexual beings to our spouses alone.

The big lesson here, is that our tradition and practice of physical modesty is not a medieval relic, but a guardian of our most cherished modern ethical beliefs.

Anthony Weiner, and How We Can Do Better Read More »

It’s a Boy! for Natalie Portman

Leave a Comment / Family /

The ” title=”fiancé Benjamin Millepied ” target=”_blank”> fiancé Benjamin Millepied are now the proud parents of a baby boy. Born Wed. morning, that’s pretty much all we know for sure.  The famously private actress is keeping tight-lipped about the baby’s name and place of birth, and has not released photos of the newborn.

Portman and baby daddy Millepied met on the set of It’s a Boy! for Natalie Portman Read More »

GoodFellas—at shul

Leave a Comment / Books, Entertainment, News /

The words “money laundering rabbis” in any book subtitle seems guaranteed to arouse the curiosity of at least some Jewish Journal readers. Add into the equation that the “informant” of the subtitle is a rabbi’s son; that fact might fairly be termed the clincher.

This truth-is-stranger-than-fiction crime narrative is told by Ted Sherman and Josh Margolin, reporters for the Newark (New Jersey) Star-Ledger, in “The Jersey Sting: A True Story of Crooked Pols, Money Laundering Rabbis, Black Market Kidneys, and the Informant Who Brought It All Down” (St. Martin’s Press, 386 pages, $26.99).

A human organ trafficking crime even shows up amidst the real estate scams and money laundering schemes. The crimes are interrelated and convoluted, making it difficult at times to tell the players without a scorecard—or, to abandon that cliché, to understand the criminals without an Old Testament. The list of characters helpfully included by the authors tops 100, and a significant percentage are Jewish, at least six rabbis in the mix.

The protagonist who emerges from the thicket of characters is Solomon Dwek, a risk-taking real estate developer in New Jersey and beyond whose enthusiasm frequently outstripped his business acumen. Dwek’s father is Rabbi Isaac Dwek of the Deal Synagogue. (The Jewish characters involved tend to be of Syrian ancestry.)

The web of crime that Dwek began to expose while cooperating with law enforcement authorities, under duress, transcended Jewish collaborators and victims. But the Jewish angle alone could fill multiple volumes because of Dwek’s volubility and brash deal making. As the interrelated crimes became public during 2009, with arrest after arrest (44 during the same day) rocking New Jersey and New York (mostly Brooklyn)politicians, business owners and religious figures, reporters Sherman and Margolin felt comfortable writing passages like this:

“Rabbinical scholars acting more like crime bosses than religious leaders were being accused of laundering millions through synagogues, charities and yeshivas. Some had money-counting machines in their offices. It was like GoodFellas—at shul. Indeed, the brazenness of the intertwined schemes played out in stark terms and in languages that included English, Yiddish, Hebrew, Aramaic and yeshivish slang, captured by hundreds of hours of surveillance tapes recorded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation…”
The detailed account of how Dwek ended up in trouble with law enforcement agencies is not particularly compelling, partly because of his naivete—no master criminal, he—and partly because the convoluted dealing might rightly confuse anybody but a sophisticated forensic accountant.

More compelling are the interactions between informant Dwek and his law enforcement masters. Legal and ethic dilemmas crop up on page after page. From a current politics standpoint, the book is significant today because the U.S. attorney directing the show was Christopher Christie. He is currently governor of New Jersey and frequently mentioned as a Republican candidate for the White House.
As an informant, Dwek realized he would be shunned by his Jewish cohorts, bring shame on his synagogue, and separated from his wife and children. The family narrative offers something to readers who care little or nothing about East Coast political and corporate corruption.

In the aftermath of the arrests and guilty pleas and jury trials, Dwek’s five children were no longer welcome in their religious schools. As the authors explain, the children “reappeared some time later in Pikeville, an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood just outside Baltimore, far from the Syrian community. Their reemergence into public view led to public controversy after Dwek was seen in a kosher pizzeria and the owner captured a picture of him with a cell phone camera. Then he posted it online. There was an angry outcry from many that Dwek was living among them, and some in the neighborhood criticized the local rabbinical council for giving safe passage to an enemy of the Jews. Dwek’s father, the rabbi, was forced out of the synagogue he had built and led…”

Because certain threads of the scandals have yet to be unraveled, Dwek continues to function as a cooperating witness for law enforcement agencies. When he will receive a prison sentence, and how many years that prison sentence will last, is uncertain. He is pretty much without friends, praying alone on weekdays, the Sabbath, and holidays.

The authors close what is obviously an ongoing story like this, setting the scene as Dwek testifies at one of the corruption trials: “…After all the millions of dollars, all the lies, all the families destroyed, all the phony profits, all the elaborate stories, all the FedEx envelopes stuffed with cash, Solomon took off his glasses in silence and wiped the tears that suddenly welled from his eyes. Finally, Solomon Dwek cried.”

Steve Weinberg is an investigative reporter based in Columbia, Missouri. He reviews books regularly for the Jewish Journal and numerous other publications.

GoodFellas—at shul Read More »