fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

September 12, 2012

The sin of slander

Leave a Comment / Holidays /

V’al chet she-hatanu l’fanekha bil’shon ha-ra, “And for the sin we have committed before You through slander” — over the course of Yom Kippur we say these words over and over again as we recite the Viddui (Confessional) quietly to ourselves and then aloud communally. As we say them, we beat our breasts to physically hammer home the meaning of the words we say.  In fact, sins of the tongue represent the most common single category of transgression in the Al Chet confessional.

Unfortunately, President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney, along with most of their political operatives and the funders and staffs of the super PACs who support them, will not be sitting in shul all day on Yom Kippur and will not hear or say these words and allow their meaning to seep into their brains and souls. And so, I fear that over the course of the campaigning of the coming weeks, the slandering that has become a hallmark of the political process in the 21st century will continue unabated. I believe that, given the immediate and wide-ranging impact of today’s electronic media, the political divisiveness that we are witnessing today is, to a considerable degree, a result of the vitriolic defamation of character and proffering of half-truths that have come to dominate the rhetoric of our political process. 

Some will say that the ends justify the means, and, in order to get the right people into office so as to develop the correct public policy, almost any tactic is “kosher.” I disagree strongly with this approach. For a democracy to work, it must be based on the principle of respect for one’s political opponent and the understanding that in a democracy there will be many opinions expressed — otherwise it becomes a tyranny. In a democracy, respect, negotiation and compromise are the only way the needs of the people can be served in the long run. If we demean a person with whom we disagree, then we lose respect for that person and we can become more than political opponents — we can become enemies. Enemies harm one another. Enemies do not work together to solve problems — indeed, their enmity creates more problems.

Our rabbis teach us that Jerusalem fell to the Romans because of baseless hatred within the Jewish community of Eretz Yisrael. Slander leads to hatred.  Hatred leads to weakness. Weakness results in defeat. What America needs now, more than ever, is not a fractured polity, but a polity that can unite and work together for the greater good. The sin of slander, lashon harah, prevents that from happening and must be excised from our political campaigns. Please convey this message to the leaders of the political party you support, and remind them of the words of Torah (Deuteronomy 16:20) with which we are all familiar: “Justice, justice you shall pursue” — the means must be in agreement with the end, and the pursuit of justice must be accomplished justly, not with lies (R. Simcha Bunim).

Rabbi Joel Rembaum is rabbi emeritus at Temple Beth Am.

The sin of slander Read More »

Confessing our sins

Leave a Comment / Holidays, Judaism, Mobile, News /

Few prayers are as well known to Jews as Ashamnu (“We have sinned …”) and Al Chet (“For the sin …”), the twin confessions of Yom Kippur. Belief in human sinfulness is more central to Judaism than we think. Sin may not be “original,” as it is in Christianity — inherited from Adam, that is, as a sort of genetic endowment ever after. But it is at least primal: It is there, patent, indelible and unavoidable. We may not be utterly depraved — the teaching with which American Protestantism grew up — but we are indeed sinners.

Talmudic practice, therefore, was to say a confession every single day, a precedent that continued into the Middle Ages and still survives in Sephardi synagogues. Ashkenazi Jews also announce that sinfulness daily in a part of the service called Tachanun (“supplications”), which includes a line from Avinu Malkeinu, “Our Father, Our King, be gracious and answer us, for we have no deeds.” 

That translation misses the theological point, however. Classical Christianity believed that we are too sinful to be of any merit on our own. We depend, therefore, on God’s “grace,” the love God gives even though we do not deserve it. Jews, by contrast, preach the value of good deeds, the mitzvot. But Avinu Malkeinu hedges that bet. At least in Tachanun, and certainly from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, we proclaim “we have no deeds” and rely on God’s “gracious” love instead.

Our two Yom Kippur confessions appeared in “Seder Rav Amram,” the first comprehensive Jewish prayer book (circa 860), and became standard thereafter.

But do Jews really believe we are as sinful as the confessions imply? Nineteenth century Jews, recently emancipated from medieval ghettos, doubted it. For well more than a century, philosophers had preached the primacy of reason as the cognitive capacity that makes all human beings equal. These two influences, political equality and the fresh air of reason, paved the way for a century when all things seemed possible. And indeed, scientific advances and the industrial revolution did seem to promise an end to human suffering just around the corner.

It wasn’t just Jews who felt that way. For Europeans in general, the notion of human sin, whether original (for Christians) or primal (for Jews), lost plausibility. Far from bemoaning human depravity, it seemed, religion should celebrate human nobility. Enlightenment rabbis began paring away Yom Kippur’s heavy accent on sin.

From then until now, new liturgies (usually Reform and Reconstructionist) have shortened the confessions, translated them to lessen their overall impact and created new ones that addressed more obvious shortcomings of human society. But traditionalist liturgies also tried to underscore human promise and explain away the aspects of the confessions that no one believed anymore. Al Chet “is an enumeration of all the sins and errors known to mankind,” said Samson Raphael Hirsch, the founder of Modern Orthodoxy. It is not as if we, personally, have done them, but some Jew somewhere has, and as the Talmud says, “All Israelites are responsible for one another.”

Some would say today that as much as the 19th century revealed the human capacity for progress, the 20th and 21st centuries have demonstrated the very opposite. Perhaps we really are as sinful as the traditional liturgy says. Religious “progressives” respond by saying that we suffer only from a failure of nerve and that more than ever, Yom Kippur should reaffirm the liberal faith in human dignity, nobility and virtue. At stake on Yom Kippur this year is not just one confession rather than another, but our faith in humankind and the kind of world we think we are still capable of building.

I am not yet ready to throw in the Enlightenment towel. Back in 1824, Rabbi Gotthold Salomon of Hamburg gave a sermon in which he said, “All of us feel, to one extent or other, that, in spirit and soul, we belong to a higher order than the ephemeral. We feel that we are human in the most noble sense of the word, that we are closely connected to the Father of all existence, and that we could have no higher purpose than to show ourselves worthy of this relationship.”

Those words ring true for us today. We have something to gain from the Enlightenment’s belief that acting for human betterment is the noble thing to do, and that acting nobly is still possible.

Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, the Barbara and Stephen Friedman professor of liturgy, worship and ritual at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, is the author most recently of “We Have Sinned: Sin and Confession in Judaism — Ashamnu and Al Chet” (Jewish Lights).

Confessing our sins Read More »

PRO: Should rabbis endorse candidates?

Leave a Comment / Mobile, News, Opinion /

[Read the con argument here]

I celebrate the courage of the more than 613 rabbis who have chosen to endorse President Obama for a second term. It is impossible for me to represent all of them. Each rabbi must make his or her decision based on a number of factors, including the possibility that they could lose their jobs, damage their reputations or alienate donors and board members. There are consequences for each member of Rabbis for Obama in this diverse and distinguished group. Significantly, this group has doubled in size from 2008 to 2012.

Why?

I can speak only for myself and give my reasons for endorsing the president through Rabbis for Obama. I note with pride that none of the rabbis endorsing President Obama does so by announcing his or her congregational or institutional affiliations. We are aware that we must observe the law that disallows our religious institutions from endorsing candidates from the pulpit. Each of the rabbinic endorsers does so — to borrow a phrase from Rabbi David Wolpe, who gave a prayer at the recent Democratic National Convention — “off the pulpit.”  Rabbi Wolpe did not endorse the president.    

But when we rabbis became “teachers in Israel,” we did not forfeit our First Amendment rights. The pulpits of congregations are there for teaching Torah. Rabbis are allowed to advocate from the pulpit for issues and values but not candidates. Even in the area of issues advocacy, prudence and good congregational democratic process calls for us to be sure that a diversity of opinion is presented.

In the 2008 presidential election and again in 2012, we have been confronted with a profound challenge to the integrity of political discourse. The unprecedented level of falsehood, innuendo and demonization spread about President Obama was and is without precedent in our political system. That level of dishonest political rhetoric reminded me of a story of the consequences of the silence of the ancient rabbis. According to our legends, the rabbis stood by silently and allowed an act of sinat hinam (baseless hate) to boil over, and eventually it led to the upending of Jewish history, the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. and the end of Jewish sovereignty for 1,800 years. This is the famous story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, whose feud had disastrous consequences. The silence of the rabbis is a cautionary tale for our time, too.

In 2008, the whisper campaign that circulated in the Jewish community was delivered through the Internet. The lies claimed that Obama was disqualified from office because he was a closeted Muslim, was anti-Israel, was not born in the United States and was a socialist-radical. All these verbal attacks continued through the campaign and during the past four years. They are beyond the pale of normal political rhetoric. For the second time in 2012, the Republican Party did not break with its “wing nuts” but instead tried to incorporate, fund and appease these factions. These rumors and lies had to be responded to in a public and organized way by Judaism’s teachers primarily because the “doozies” reflected badly on the good name of Judaism.

I grew up in Barry Goldwater’s Arizona and still remember real conservative Republicans. Certainly, Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican and now independent, remembers a different Republican Party. He, too, did not take a vow of silence when he left the Republican Party. The two senators from Maine, Olympia  Snowe and Susan Collins, issued their demurrals, but to no avail.

In the run-up to the 2008 presidential election, the “dark money” groups paid for the distribution of 28 million copies of “Obsession.” This scurrilous movie and the accompanying “culture of lies” mobilized for a new round of Islamophobia. The movie was an attempt to brand Obama as a Muslim and create a diversion from the economic free fall at the end of the Bush administration. The movie stirred up the Christian right, especially Christians United for Israel and the Republican Jewish Coalition, which launched an unprecedented assault against political and civic norms on the Web site I co-founded, JewsOnFirst.org.

My reading of the underlying message of hate and disdain against the president and the manufacturing of religious hatred toward Muslims impelled me to join Rabbis for Obama. My Judaism cannot countenance sly messages of religious hate toward fellow Jews or Muslims or any religion. Jewish history reminds me of the apostasy committed by the majority of the German Catholic and Protestant churches’ priests and ministers in the 1930s.

Noted philosopher Martha Nussbaum’s new book, “The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age,” analyzes the nature of the fear based on religion with which so many communities continue to grapple. We need to articulate the moral principles and practices to evaluate this fear and to question the actions the fear motivates. No teacher with integrity can sit quietly on the sidelines.

[Read the con argument here]

Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak lives and works in Los Angeles and Poland.

PRO: Should rabbis endorse candidates? Read More »

Q&A With Rabbi Elliot Dorff

Leave a Comment / Holidays, Is Featured?, Judaism, Mobile, News /

In the age of 140-character tweets and 38-second video clips, the Conservative movement is putting its foot down with a nearly 1,000-page reference tome, “The Observant Life: The Wisdom of Conservative Judaism for Contemporary Jews.” The book, published by the Rabbinical Assembly and edited by Rabbis Martin S. Cohen and Michael Katz, elucidates topics ranging from the expected — prayers, lifecycle events, dietary laws — to more abstract matters, such as taxation, intellectual property, being single, and the ethics and obligations of being a co-worker, a sibling or a grandparent.

Thirty-five leading thinkers in the Conservative movement wrote essays for the just-released book, using a thorough treatment of traditional sources to understand the contemporary application for modern Jews.

Rabbi Elliot Dorff, rector and professor of philosophy at the American Jewish University, penned chapters on charity, caring for the needy and same-sex relationships. Dorff, author of 17 books and a past president of Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles, as well as chairman of the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, sat down in his home to talk about the book and the movement.

Jewish Journal: This is a big book, and it’s dense, with dozens of essays and four introductions. Who is this book written for? Who is going to read it and why?

Elliot Dorff: I think the intentions of the editors, Martin Cohen and Michael Katz, and the intention of [the publisher], the Rabbinical Assembly, is that, minimally, it is for rabbis to use in adult education kinds of settings. There are extensive essays on a whole series of issues of the observant life. So it includes kashrut, and Shabbat and holidays, but it’s not only that. It’s very much how you act in business; with medical issues; how you speak to each other and about each other; questions of citizenship in a democracy; of war — a whole series of things that Judaism really has a lot to say about.

But I think this book was deliberately written so anyone with a college education, and even someone with a somewhat reasonable high school education, should be able to read the essays and gain a lot from them. 

 

JJ: Much of American Judaism is moving away from denominational distinctions. People are identifying more as “just Jewish” than as Reform, Conservative or Orthodox. The Conservative movement, in particular, is the most rapidly shrinking. This is a very denominational book. Why do this now?

ED: There are several reasons to do it. Those of us involved in the Conservative movement for a long time have known that its vision of Judaism is intellectually honest and passionate and very wide-ranging. And this is an attempt to try to express that vision to anybody who is interested in reading it. 

I think the people who wrote for it, myself included, believe that the denominations do have a role to play in modern Jewish life. Young Jews who are trying to be post-denominational in the end, I think, will find that they’re going to have to create institutions for themselves and their children, and those institutions will be of different sorts, depending on what kind of Judaism they want to practice. So even if you don’t call it Orthodox, Conservative or Reform anymore, in the end, you have something like denominations.

 

JJ: What wisdom does Conservative Judaism in particular have to offer?

ED: Like every other American, I was not born with “Conservative Jew” branded on my forehead. This was something I actively chose, first as a teenager and later as an adult. And I think the reasons are very simple, namely that Conservative Judaism effectively says you can be traditional and modern in the strongest senses of those terms, while being completely intellectually honest, barring no questions whatsoever, and also really passionate and joyful.

For me the most important thing in my own religious development was a series of discussions with Rabbi David Mogilner, alav ha-shalom [may he rest in peace], who was director of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin in 1958, when I was 15 years old. We had a series of discussions with him on Monday nights with those in the division, and he was on the attack, saying ‘Why would anyone in his or her right mind believe any of these Jewish things, or do them?’ And he started with very concrete things, like kashrut and Shabbat, and he went to more abstract things, like revelation and prayer and God. And the thing that was most important to me was not any of the answers anyone suggested, but that here was someone clearly devoted to Jewish tradition, and yet he was not only willing, but actually eager to ask all kinds of questions that would upset the entire apple cart. What he showed me through that was, you didn’t have turn off your mind in order to be seriously Jewish. 

 

JJ:  So why is the movement shrinking, and what is going to turn it around?

ED: The vast majority of Jews are not getting married till their late 20s or early 30s. You have a 30 percent chance of having infertility problems [between ages 27 and 35], but if they are lucky enough to have children, it’s probably going to be one or two, and not three or four. 

And the tendency is not to get involved in trying to build a community until you are married and having children. That was the case even in my generation, but in my generation people got married earlier. 

So I understand that stage in life when you’re a young adult and want to be independent and don’t like institutions, and that’s fine up until around age 25, and beyond that you need to grow out of it. I think the thing that helps people grow out of that is getting married and having children. The fact that people are postponing that sometimes till their late 30s — I think that is the major reason the Conservative movement has shrunk.

I go around telling young Jews that it’s not too early to get married while in graduate school and to begin to have children, because the pressures of your first jobs, if anything, are going to be worse than the pressures of graduate school.

 

JJ: So you think it’s more of an issue of birthrate and demographics than people just deciding to leave?

ED: I don’t think it’s an ideological thing at all. To be honest, I think Conservative Judaism is the most authentic and wisest form of Judaism around. 

 

JJ: You wrote the chapter on same-sex relationships in this book. Early on, you staked out a very supportive stance on same-sex relationships. The chapter encompasses the range of views within the Conservative movement, but do you think that when the editors asked you to write this chapter they were making a statement about how this question is ultimately going to be answered in Conservative Judaism?

ED: You’d have to ask Martin Cohen, but that did occur to me. …

This is still very much an open issue in the Conservative movement. That was indicated by the vote of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards on Dec. 6, 2006, where after a lot of discussion and draft papers, there ultimately was a vote of 13 in favor of Rabbi [Joel] Roth’s teshuva [responsum] that would not permit gay and lesbian marriage or openly gay and lesbian rabbinical students, and 13 for the teshuva [that allowed both of those.]

Having said that, I have always thought that in many ways this is a generational issue. (I’m 69 and really old to be on this side of this debate.) The statistics are that people under age 40 are much more accepting of gays, and now we have statistics that say that a majority of Americans favor gay civil marriage. So do I think this is the way in which the Conservative movement is going to go over the course of the next generation? Yes, because I think that is the way America in general is already going. 

But that is not the reason why I came to my own personal decision. It was first the fact that I knew a lot of gay people who were seriously Jewish, along with the scientific evidence [about the nature of homosexuality] that convinced me that we simply had to confront this issue in a way that our ancestors had not.

 

JJ: In your chapter on caring for the needy, you touch on a lot of issues that are potentially political, such as immigration, health policy and public support for the poor. This is such a polarized political environment; did you feel you had to be careful with what you said?

ED: Yes. Yes.  Well, I mean, I’m a member of Rabbis for Obama — I think I’m actually a vice president of Rabbis for Obama — and that’s public, so my political leanings are pretty clear.

One of the things I learned a lot from was a project I did on poverty in the 1980s with the American Jewish Committee. … In Washington, D.C., we listened to staffers of a liberal member of congress, a moderate member and a conservative member. And I went in there expecting that the conservative member was going to be just mean and self-centered, but that wasn’t the case. He was arguing for us not to be enablers for families who one generation after another depend on welfare. And to some extent, the welfare-to-work approach is very Jewish, because if you look at Maimonides’ ladder of charity, the highest rung is to help someone earn a living. 

Having said that … the Republican budget takes away Head Start, it takes away programs for pre-K and it takes away a lot of the Pell grants and funds for college. I don’t know how you can justify that in any kind of reading of the Jewish tradition. And in terms of the poor, yes, everyone wants to get them the skills they need to earn a living, but in the meantime you have to recognize that you need to have a safety net in terms of food, clothing, health care and shelter to enable people to live while they’re getting the skills to earn a living on their own. And I don’t see how Jewish tradition can be read any other way, to be honest.

Q&A With Rabbi Elliot Dorff Read More »

A promise for Rosh Hashanah: Remembering the value of dignity

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Mobile, News, Opinion, Susan Freudenheim /

After all the political speechmaking of the past few weeks, in the wake of all the claims  and fact-checking, name-calling and back-slapping, one simple word has stuck in my mind and my heart. It was spoken at the beginning of Barack Obama’s short tribute film that was shown just before the president made his speech to accept the nomination for re-election.

“We all understand work as something more than just a paycheck,” the president said as images of autoworkers building parts on a factory line flashed across the screen. Recognizing the economic hardship many have suffered over his term of office, Obama spoke of how work is “what gives you dignity. What gives you a sense of purpose.”

Dignity. More essential than a paycheck.  More vital than money. 

The value of dignity reverberates as we approach this High Holy Days season, perhaps because its importance so often gets lost in our love for consumerism, our culture of us-against-them and winner-takes-all. I have spent the last year listening to men — priests, politicians and talk-show hosts — disparage a woman’s right to have governance over her own birth control. I have heard both men and women talk about rape and violence against women and use the term “legitimate.” And I’ve encountered the fear of the redefinition of marriage — other people’s marriages — as if we should have the right to choose whom someone should love, or want to spend their life with, to share their finances and every dream and hope. Where, I have wondered, is the dignity of others in such discussions?

In Judaism, we are taught not to put stumbling blocks in front of the blind, to never withhold wages from workers and to see all men — and women — as created in God’s divine image. We are told to do unto others as we would have them do to us, which is to say, to offer dignity to everyone, as we would wish it be offered to us.

Perhaps, following those fundamental Jewish guidelines, we could do better in respect to judging how others should live and love.

In 2005, Hershey H. Friedman wrote an extensive academic treatise that explores “Human Dignity and Jewish Law.” In it, this professor of business and marketing at Brooklyn College whose recent writings include “The Talmud as a Business Guide,” describes the various ways that kavod habriot — Hebrew for dignity for all living beings — is fundamental to Judaism, Jewish law and Jewish life. So significant, he argues, that the rules surrounding it should be applied to the dead as well as to the living. Friedman’s detailed and footnoted essay explores how respect for our own dignity and our regard for others ought to govern our lives, not only in our day-to-day interactions, but also in some very contemporary issues: from allowing abortion under certain circumstances, to how to protect the dignity of a marriage. 

He also writes about business transactions, and, among his many modern and biblical citations, he tells of how one Israeli business has come up with a way to dignify the needy:

“A wonderful example of kavod habriot is the Carmei Ha’Ir soup kitchen in Jerusalem, where the people who enter receive honor as well as food. It was designed to look like any other restaurant, only with no bill to pay at the end of the meal. The restaurant serves 500 portions a day, and there is a large wooden box near the exit so patrons can leave anything they wish. Many leave a napkin with a scribbled thank you.”

In the United States, a similar effort has been launched by the Panera Bread restaurants, which, in an attempt to serve the hungry, has launched a 501(c)(3) organization, Panera Cares, to operate community cafes — each one transformed from one of their ubiquitous Panera salad, sandwich and bread shops. At the Panera Cares cafes, however, all menu items are sold on a “pay what you want” system, with a suggested list price. Recently, a National Public Radio reporter visited the newest of these community cafes, in the mixed-income Lake-
view neighborhood of Chicago. The restaurant looked almost like any other Panera, but in place of a cash register, there was a donation box.

“Panera does not track the numbers exactly,” the NPR reporter, Niala Boodhoo, told her “Morning Edition” audience, “but it says roughly 20 percent of Panera Cares customers give more than they’re asked. An additional 60 percent donate the suggested amount. The rest pay less or nothing.” 

Affording dignity should, of course, be a matter of every aspect of our lives, no less in our workplaces than in our synagogues and homes. In our working world, where jobs are often scarce and salaries aren’t rising as quickly as people might hope, we can always afford to give our colleagues dignity. My research on this began long before I listened to the president’s words, but I’ve found, searching through one management-advice Web site after another, that the message is very like his: “We all understand work as something more than a paycheck.” Treating employees with dignity, openness and caring is as vital to a worker’s success as any financial incentive, because, at the end of the day, dignity can remain within us even when the money is gone.

So, here’s my resolution for the new year: to keep my office door open, to listen well, to communicate with others, to show caring and to always offer appreciation. To avoid conflict, gossip and to live by the example I would like others to set for me.

A smile in a hallway can improve a day, even a dark one. The gift of dignity is priceless.

May the year ahead be a sweet, good year for all. 

Susan Freudenheim is executive editor of TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal. She can be reached at editor@jewishjournal.com. You can follow her on Twitter at A promise for Rosh Hashanah: Remembering the value of dignity Read More »

The value of voice

Leave a Comment / Holidays, Is Featured?, Judaism, Mobile, News /

As we prepare for the High Holy Days, we often do not consider one aspect  of ourselves, our voice. I’m taking about our actual vocal cords; our means of producing sound. 

We use our voice to chant along with or respond to the cantor, but many of us will also use our voice minimally, as we let the cantor and choir fill our ears and hearts with deep meaning, letting us sit there and contemplate our lives, our loves and our transgressions.

Never before (most likely) has anyone said lift up your voice in song like your life depends on it! Even as cantors encourage you to sing, they don’t tell you that in doing so — by truly engaging your physical voice — you will create a physically healthy and rejuvenating experience. They also don’t tell you that psychosomatically engaging your voice will help you release fears and emotions stored in the voice and mind, and therefore help bring you to new levels of self-realization (what the High Holy Days are about).

It is true: Singing relieves stress, lowers blood pressure, simultaneously engages your left and right brain to build your intelligence and creates a vibration of your vocal cords that resonates throughout your entire body, that creates a positive, healing response in your mind, body and spirit. 

Not to mention, when a community sounds their voices together, the room shifts from a bunch of people with different lives and problems, to a kehillah (community) with a common intention for healing and peace. 

And here’s where I get personal: Having studied and taught voice for a decade, I know many of you believe “you can’t sing” or “you have a bad voice.” That’s OK. You can think that, but realize you’ve helped make the belief a reality by believing it. 

The ultimate truth is that you can sing. It is your birthright. Why do I know this? Simply because you have a voice. 

Cantor Neil Newman, my first cantorial mentor, reminded me to tell the congregation that it’s not singing we’re doing; it’s praying. This will make people more comfortable to join in the song. And while he is right, I cannot help but remember that singing and praying are often deeply connected. It often doesn’t matter if I’m singing an Italian aria, a Spanish rumba or the Avinu Malkeinu; to me, it’s all prayer.  

These High Holy Days, please give yourself permission to use your voice a little more assertively than you have in the past. I promise that the people sitting next to you won’t mind or judge you. It is most likely that you’ll motivate your neighbors to sing as well (they may be too nervous or uncomfortable to use their voices in the first place). 

It’s wonderful that your cantor has a great voice. But so do you. It’s yours!  

And as a cantorial soloist, sure, I love singing from my heart so that all can hear. But the magic truly happens when I succeed at leading the community in song; when they lift up my voice so I can continue to lift up theirs. 

We then become individual prayers as one voice. 

That, is ruach.

Ariella Forstein is a cantorial soloist, performer and vocal empowerment coach based in Los Angeles and in Minneapolis. Find out more about Forstein’s work at ariellaapproach.com and about her performing at ariellaforstein.com

The value of voice Read More »

Reform leader, Jewish groups condemn Libya attack on U.S. envoys

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Mobile, News, Worldwide /

A top Reform rabbi appeared with Libya's U.S. ambassador and Muslim and Christian leaders condemning the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya and the U.S. Embassy in Egypt, along with the anti-Muslim film that allegedly incited the violence.

A rocket attack Tuesday in Benghazi killed four U.S. diplomats, including the Libyan ambassador, Chris Stevens.

“This act of violence, and the similarly threatening violence at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, must be condemned unequivocally,” Rabbi David Saperstein, the director of the Reform movement's Religious Action Center, said at a news conference Wednesday at the National Press Club. “The losses of life in this manner are an affront to the values of humanity and tolerance that are at the core of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.”

Saperstein appeared at the event  with  Ali Suleiman Aujali, the Libyan envoy to the United States; Imam Mohamed Magid, the president of the Islamic Society of North America; the Rev. Welton Gaddy, a Baptist who is president of the Interfaith Alliance; and Haris Tarin, the director of the Washington office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Saperstein also singled out for condemnation the film “Innocence of Muslims,” which is circulating on the Internet and has been accused of inciting the attacks. The film, made in America, insults Islam.

“It was clearly crafted to provoke, to offend and to evoke outrage,” he said. “The denigration of religion and religious figures and the intentional framing of religious texts and tenets in this manner must likewise be condemned.”

The Muslim speakers, including the Libyan ambassador, abjured violent protest against perceived insults.

“Our differences, if we want to express them, have to be in peaceful ways,” Aujali said.

Other Jewish groups condemned the violence, suggesting that in its wake the offense of the film was secondary.

“Whether this murderous attack was premeditated or in reaction to a profoundly offensive anti-Islam film, nothing justifies the violence and killings of an innocent U.S. diplomat and embassy personnel,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement.

The American Jewish Committee similarly emphasized, “Whatever the provocation by the exercise of free speech in the United States, nothing can justify this heinous attack on U.S. Embassy personnel who sought to assist in building a new era in post-Gaddafi Libya.”

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations said “there can be no justification and no legitimization for such violence.”

Reform leader, Jewish groups condemn Libya attack on U.S. envoys Read More »

My Single Peeps: Bekah L.

Leave a Comment / Culture, My Single Peeps, Singles /

When I was 5 I knew I wanted to try Froot Loops, but my mom wouldn’t let me. That was the extent of my goals.  Bekah wanted to be a teacher. And she became one. To be fair, I’ve also eaten a good amount of Froot Loops since then, so we’ve both kind of accomplished what we wanted to. She says, “If you came into my family when we were in elementary school, we all knew exactly what we wanted to do. My brother wanted to study germs. My sister wanted to study fashion. And I wanted to teach.” 

Bekah, 33, grew up in a Detroit suburb, the middle child in a family with a long line of doctors — “Dad’s a doctor, grandpa’s a doctor, brother’s a doctor, [my] uncle’s a doctor. They all went to the same med school. My grandpa was practicing until a few months ago. He just turned 95. He was Jimmy Hoffa’s doctor. He was the first doctor in Detroit to refuse to hold separate office hours for blacks and whites.”

She couldn’t get a teaching job in Detroit, so she moved to Tampa, Fla., sight unseen when a school there offered her a job. “I didn’t know a single person, so I just got really involved with [Jewish] Federation to meet people.” By year three, she was tired of Tampa and wanted to move to L.A. “I applied to only Jewish day schools, flew out here for interviews, got a job I liked, and moved. This is going to be my sixth year teaching [in LA].”

I ask her what she does for fun. “I go to a lot of concerts. I kind of made a home for myself at Hotel Café, and I’d say my best friends are either because of work or from hanging out in the indy music scene in L.A. I’m very social. I can talk to a wall. I like doing things by myself a lot, too. I go to movies by myself.  I go to dinners by myself.  If there’s something I really want to do, and I can’t find someone to do it with, I won’t let that stop me.”

Bekah’s looking for a man who’s motivated and driven. “I think in L.A. you find a lot of people who think they’re trying but they’re complacent where they are. Their definition of ‘trying’ seems to be different than my definition. I surround myself with hard-working people. It’s really important to me. Someone said to me, ‘If you were a janitor, you’d be the best janitor there’d be.’ And that’s my personality. I just want someone who’s trying hard. I don’t care if they’re making five dollars, as long as they’re really into what they’re doing.”    

A friend of Bekah’s once asked her what she wants in a man. She was tripping over her words and her friend cut her off and said, “Cute, smart and funny.” “It’s so generic but it hits the nail on the head. I think it’s from a movie — ‘Kissing Jessica Stein’ or something like that. I want to really like the person I’m with — and to love them even when you hate them. I want to be with someone Jewish. I’m not very religious but being Jewish is part of my everyday life. I work in a Jewish institution. It’s just kind of part of who I am.”

I ask her if she imagines doing anything else for a living. “No. I don’t know what else I would do. You could have the worst day, the worst things going on in your life, and the kids [say something] — they don’t mean to be funny — but it changes your whole day.”

Seth Menachem is an actor and writer living in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. You can see more of his work on his Web site, sethmenachem.com, and meet even more single peeps at mysinglepeeps.com.

 

My Single Peeps: Bekah L. Read More »

Chabad Telethon raises $4 million

Leave a Comment / California, Is Featured?, Mobile, Mobile Sections, News /

Hollywood stars and dancing rabbis came together for the 32nd annual Chabad “To Life” Telethon on Sept. 9. Held for the first time at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, the high-profile fundraiser raised approximately $4 million for Chabad of California.

“At Chabad, there’s no greater joy than the joy of giving,” declared Larry King, whose hosting duties and interviews were recorded days earlier at KCET in Burbank and shown on screens straddling the stage.

KTLA Morning News’ Sam Rubin, “Good Morning Arizona” anchor Stella Inger and comedian Elon Gold co-hosted the event live, playing to a small studio audience at the Art Deco theater.

The three-hour telethon aired locally on KTLA 5, from 8 to 11 p.m., and was carried nationwide by cable and satellite providers, as well as stations in San Diego, San Francisco, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.   

Actor Jon Voight, one of the evening’s main celebrities, remains an active supporter of Israel and Chabad, having appeared in multiple telethons. 

“I’ve had many major roles in motion pictures, but one of my favorite roles is taking part in Chabad’s” yearly telethon, he said. 

Onstage throughout the evening, Voight was in good spirits, surrounded by a house band, a rotating crew of people working the phone banks and an active tote board. He danced with black-suited Chabadniks young and old. “I’m learning new steps every day,” Voight said. 

Then, catching his breath, he delivered his spiel, asking viewers to call the phone number that appeared on the bottom of their television screens and donate what they could. 

In addition to Voight, speakers included actors Tom Arnold, David Arquette and Howie Mandel, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, L.A. City Councilmen Paul Koretz and Dennis Zine, Consul General of Israel in Los Angeles David Siegel and philanthropist Stanley Black.

Among the featured performers were 11-year-old piano prodigy Ethan Bortnick, Chasidic rock-and-pop duo the 8th Day and Chasidic singer and composer Lipa Schmeltzer. 

The $4.03 million raised on Sunday — last year’s telethon raised $4.2 million — will benefit the international Chasidic movement’s social services and programs, including summer camp scholarships, support for children with special needs, community outreach centers, crisis intervention and drug and alcohol rehabilitation. 

Seated near L.A. Clipper forward Trey Thompkins at the phone bank, actor-comedian Arnold made his pitch for Chabad. Never shy, Arnold highlighted his past as a recovering alcoholic and drug addict when requesting donations in support of Chabad’s drug rehabilitation services.

“They do wonderful work there and they help everybody,” Arnold said.

Highlights from the Chabad “To Life” Telethon: 

7:58 p.m.: Backstage, two minutes until showtime, production assistants scramble to prepare performers, including Voight and dancing rabbis, for their cue. 

8 p.m.: A message from King segues into Bortnick’s piano performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The rabbis follow — young men grab one another’s hands or shoulders, kicking up their feet as they dance in circles. 

8:12 p.m.: Dressed in black sneakers to match his suit, comedian Gold warms up the crowd: “You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy the Chabad Telethon, but it helps,” Gold says.

8:55 p.m.: King interviews Arquette about what it took to get sober. Building “a connection to God” and learning how to manage self-critical thinking both played a role in his road to sobriety, Arquette says. 

9:10 p.m.: Consul General Siegel, City Councilman Koretz, County Supervisor Yaroslavsky and philanthropist Black share the stage with Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin, director of West Coast Chabad. Black announces his own pledge for $250,000.

9:35 p.m.: Looking out at the theater’s numerous empty seats, Arnold quips from the phone bank, “How about a hand for all of Clint Eastwood’s chairs out there,” referring to Eastwood’s controversial speech at the Republican National Convention.

9:40 to 10 p.m.: Entertainment attorney and Chabad Telethon co-chairman Marshall Grossman pledges $25,000. Television producer Kevin Bright (“Friends”), who was not in attendance, pledges $180,000 and Ralphs supermarket representative Jose Martinez hands over a jumbo-check for $20,000.

10:10: An interview between King and TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal president David Suissa is screened. “Chabad means ‘love’ more than anything,” Suissa says.

10:55 p.m.: The tote board jumps to more than $4 million for the evening’s final total. The rabbis return for a final dance — until next year.

Chabad Telethon raises $4 million Read More »

On the ground in Syria

Leave a Comment / Live from the Arab Spring, Worldwide /

It started with a routine border crossing. 

The Turkish border guard at the Bab Al-Salama crossing point glanced at my passport, pounded a few keys on his keyboard and tossed the travel document back at me. My Syrian guide said a few words in Turkish, then we got back into his car to drive the short stretch into Syria. As we approached the Syrian side, two large Syrian flags flapped in the wind, and I suddenly realized my adventure into the world's most dangerous war zone was about to begin.

As soon as we were on Syrian land, we were greeted by the cruelties of war. Thousands of Syrians who have fled their homes in recent days are stranded along the border. The Turks refuse to let them cross into Turkish refugee camps, claiming they cannot absorb any more refugees. As a result, Syrians remain cramped into the tiny border post. They sleep under a large roof the size of a football field where border authorities inspect cars. They subsist on rations doled out by a Turkish aid organization. Few are satisfied with their new accommodations, but none wants to return home to areas where air strikes and long-range shelling occur daily. 

Syria has been mired in a revolution for 18 months. It began peacefully with marches and slogans about freedom, but when President Bashar Al-Assad unleashed his army against protesters, the bold among them organized fighting units. Soon, the weekly demonstrations with their canvas banners gave way to fighters shooting at soldiers and paramilitary units loyal to Assad. Today, the regime unleashes the full power of its arsenal against rebels armed with little more than small arms and RPG (rocket-propelled grenades) in areas where civilians have no time and no place to flee.

After heading out from the border post, we met up with a few Syrians in the Turkish town of Kilis. Because they never acquired passports, they could not use the official border crossings to enter and exit Turkey. As a result, they have had to use back roads to sneak in and out of Syria when the need arose. 

From there, we drove to the city of Azaz in Syria, about two miles from the border. Azaz was liberated in June, after three weeks of intense fighting. It still showed scars of war, which will take years to heal. Fighter jets leveled residential areas, leaving mounds of rubble where children slept and women cooked. Outside a mosque, the charred remains of two tanks peeked out from beneath a heap of stones from the temple's collapsed facade. Burned-out tanks still litter the road on the town’s outskirts, as well.

Beyond the now-relatively safe confines of Azaz lie the heightened dangers of the Syrian war. At every checkpoint our guides asked whether the roads ahead were safe. At every roadside store, they inquired whether the regime had moved forces into the area. In a war zone where cell phone networks have been cut off, word-of-mouth is the best way to communicate warnings of lurking dangers.

But even on the ground, updates cannot prevent spontaneous bombardments from upsetting plans. Near the Minagh airport, we saw tracer bullets and explosions. Though most of Aleppo province is under rebel control, they have not been able to dislodge regime forces from the airport. Every few days, Assad’s troops try to take it, only to be repelled. While we were there, they tried again. But the rebel army responded with a barrage of fire, leaving our guides worried that a small clash could lead to a larger conflagration and a call for air strikes that could imperil us.

Our guide quickly turned off his headlights and pulled over to the side of the road. After 10 minutes, the shooting subsided, and we resumed our journey. We meandered through roadside villages until we stopped for the night in a rural district. But even here, among the olive trees and vegetable fields, the war is close.

Shortly after midnight, regime forces pounded nearby Aleppo with mortars. Occasionally the sky lit up. Loud explosions woke us from our sleep. Air strikes, perhaps. Or maybe tank fire. It made no difference, though. In Syria's second largest city, the battles of war that are under way, no one can escape.

For The Media Line’s daily reports from Syria, visit Live from the Arab Spring at jewishjournal.com.

On the ground in Syria Read More »