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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

October 5, 2016

The Role of the Chevrah Kadisha

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Culture, Judaism, Living Well, Mitzvahs and More, More Culture /

Mayim Bialik has written beautifully in her blog about the death of her father, may his memory be a blessing, and some of the Jewish practices involved in the mourning process. One important aspect around death and dying in a Jewish community that she hasn’t written about is the chevrah kadisha.

The word chevrah comes from chavurah, or friend. The word kadisha comes from kodesh, or holy. So a chevrah kadisha is a “holy group of friends,” more commonly referred to as a “holy society” or even “burial society,” although that refers to only a small part of the work many chevrah kadisha groups are engaged in. Many chevrah kadisha groups visit people who are sick, plan and/or leading shiva services for mourners, and comfort mourners during the first year after the death of a loved one.

The main role the chevrah kadisha plays, however, is to take care of a dead person between death and burial. Many people may assume the physical and spiritual care of a person ends at the time of his or her death, but the members of the chevrah kadisha continue that care during this liminal time when the body is no longer animated by the person’s spirit, but is still above the ground, in the realm of the living.

Jewish tradition does not claim to know with any certainty what happens after a person dies. However, there is a belief that it is a jarring experience when a person’s spirit is separated from his or her body at death, and the spirit is fond of the body which housed it for so long. Therefore, the spirit wants to make sure the body is well taken care of, and will hover nearby until the body is safely buried.

In some communities, the chevrah kadisha will help the family of the deceased person make the funeral and burial arrangements. In most communities, the chevrah kadisha will provide people to stay with the dead person between death and burial (this is called shmirah, or “to guard”), so they never feel alone or abandoned. Lastly, the chevrah kadisha will perform taharah, the physical cleansing and ritual purification the body, and will dress and seal the body in the casket.

One might think, “But wait, isn’t it the funeral home employees who wash and dress the body, and place it in the casket?” Most funeral homes have professional staff who are skilled at these tasks, and some even offer taharah. However, below are reasons why it is preferable for a chevrah kadisha to do these things.

First, taharah is a Jewish ritual involving the reading of Jewish liturgy, and some believe it requires Jewish people to do it with the proper kavanah, or intention. In addition, the members of the chevrah kadisha are usually members of the same community as the deceased person and/or the primary mourners. When, God forbid, someone you love dies, would you rather they be taken care of by strangers who are only doing their job, or by members of your own community who are volunteering their time and who you know will act with great love and respect?

The chevrah kadisha takes extra care which will generally not be afforded by funeral home employees. Regardless of the personal beliefs of any individual chevrah kadisha member, we always act as if the deceased person’s spirit is in the room with us. We start and end our work by stating aloud our intention to provide honor to the dead, and asking forgiveness from the deceased person if we do anything that may offend them during the performance of our task.

We always refer to the deceased person by name or by using the pronouns “him” or “her,” never “it.” We refrain from turning our back on the deceased person, and we don’t talk about anything other than the task at hand. We walk around the body when we need to hand an item to another person, rather than passing it over the body, since doing so would be considered rude.

I am not aware of any similar rituals in the Christian tradition, nor am I knowledgeable about practices in most other faith traditions. However, it is my understanding that the Muslim traditions around the ritual preparation of the dead for burial are strikingly similar to the Jewish traditions. It is one of many things we have in common.

What experiences, if any, have you had with a chevrah kadisha?

Did you ever experience the death of a loved one and wish you had a group like a chevrah kadisha to help you through it?

 

Susan Esther Barnes is a founding member of Rodef Sholom’s (Marin) Chevrah Kadisha, and she can regularly be seen greeting people at her synagogue before services. Read her blog at   GAMLIEL INSTITUTE COURSES

Please Tell Anyone Who May Be Interested!

           Winter 2016:

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN:

Gamliel Institute Course 1, Chevrah Kadisha History, Origins, & Evolution (HOE) will be offered over twelve weeks on Tuesday evenings from December 5th, 2016 to February 21st, 2017, online.  

Not quite sure if this is for you? Try a free ‘taste’ by coming to an introductory session on Monday, November 14th, 2016 from 8 to 9:30 pm EST. The instructors will talk about what the course includes, give a sense of how it runs, and talk about some of the topics that will be covered in depth in the full course.

For those who register, there will be an orientation session on Monday December 4th. It is intended for those unfamiliar with the online course platform used, all who have not taken a Gamliel Institute course recently, and those who have not used an online webinar/class presentation tool in past.

Class times will be all be 5-6:30 pm PST/6-7:30 pm MST/7-8:30 CST/8-9:30 pm EST. If you are in any other time zone, please determine the appropriate time, given local time and any Daylight Savings Time adjustments necessary.

Please note: the class meetings will be online, and will take place on Tuesdays (unless a Jewish holiday requires a change of date for a class session).  

The focus of this course is on the development of the modern Chevrah Kadisha, the origins of current practices, and how the practices and organizations have changed to reflect the surrounding culture, conditions, and expectations. The course takes us through the various text sources to seek the original basis of the Chevrah Kadisha, to Prague in the 1600’s, through the importation of the Chevrah Kadisha to America, and all the way to recent days. It is impossible to really understand how we came to the current point without a sense of the history.

SIGN UP NOW TO TAKE THIS COURSE!

There is no prerequisite for this course; you are welcome to take it with no prior knowledge or experience, though interest in the topic is important. Please register, note it on your calendar, and plan to attend the online sessions.

Note that there are registration discounts available for three or more persons from the same organization, and for clergy and students. There are also some scholarship funds available on a ‘need’ basis. Contact us (information below) with any questions.

You can “>jewish-funerals.org/gamreg. A full description of all of the courses is there as well. For more information, visit the “>Kavod v’Nichum website or on the

Please contact us for information or assistance. info@jewish-funerals.org or j.blair@jewish-funerals.org, or call 410-733-3700, or 925-272-8563.

 

           LOOKING FORWARD:

Gamliel Institute will be offering course 4, Nechama, in the Spring (starting March 6th, 2017). Look for information to be forthcoming, or visit the “>Kavod v'Nichum Gamliel Institute Registration site.  

  

DONATIONS:

Donations are always needed and most welcome. Donations support the work of Kavod v’Nichum and the Gamliel Institute, helping us provide scholarships to students, refurbish and update course materials, support programs such as Taste of Gamliel, provide and add to online resources, encourage and support communities in establishing, training, and improving their Chevrah Kadisha, and assist with many other programs and activities.

You can donate online at You can also become a member (Individual or Group) of Kavod v’Nichum to help support our work. Click  

MORE INFORMATION

If you would like to receive the Kavod v’Nichum newsletter by email, or be added to the Kavod v’Nichum Chevrah Kadisha & Jewish Cemetery email discussion list, please be in touch and let us know at info@jewish-funerals.org.

You can also be sent an email link to the Expired And Inspired blog each week by sending a message requesting to be added to the distribution list to j.blair@jewish-funerals.org.

Be sure to check out the Kavod V’Nichum website at “>Gamliel.Institute website.

 

RECEIVE NOTICES WHEN THIS BLOG IS UPDATED!

Sign up on our Facebook Group page: just search for and LIKE “>@chevra_kadisha.

To find a list of other blogs and resources we think you, our reader, may find to be of interest, click on “About” on the right side of the page.There is a link at the end of that section to read more about us.

Past blog entries can be searched online at the L.A. Jewish Journal. Point your browser to  

SUBMISSIONS WELCOME

If you have an idea for an entry you would like to submit to this blog, please be in touch. Email J.blair@jewish-funerals.org. We are always interested in original materials that would be of interest to our readers, relating to the broad topics surrounding the continuum of Jewish preparation, planning, rituals, rites, customs, practices, activities, and celebrations approaching the end of life, at the time of death, during the funeral, in the grief and mourning process, and in comforting those dying and those mourning, as well as the actions and work of those who address those needs, including those serving as Bikkur Cholim, Caring Committees, the Chevrah Kadisha, Shomrim, funeral providers, funeral homes and mortuaries, and operators and maintainers of cemeteries.

 

The Role of the Chevrah Kadisha Read More »

The unforgivable sin I committed Yom Kippur morning

Leave a Comment / Holidays, Judaism /

With my mind racing with what I would be saying in synagogue, how I will be praying, and the powerful meaning of this day, I barely noticed what was going on in the street. I rushed into synagogue thinking of ten different things at the same time. As I walked in, right when the service was about to begin, I looked around at the empty seats which would all be full once we got started, my eyes caught two young ladies sitting down, looking around with hesitation. They seemed like real outsiders; they did not know that most people don't show up at the time the morning service is called for. They seemed unsure as to whether they were in the right seat or not, why the place was not full yet, and what prayer they should be saying right now. They projected uncertainty and insecurity.

My instinct pushed me to walk over to them, ask them where they are from, or if anything I can do for them. I didn't. I had hundreds of people coming to the service, sermons and comments to deliver, and my own praying to do. I can speak to them when the service is over, I told myself. They will be fine, I thought–they weren’t.

Twenty minutes later I looked around again, they were gone. Realizing what had happened, I started to panic. I looked again. And again. And again. But they were gone. They had left the synagogue and I never saw them again.

These two young ladies, are just some of the thousands of Jews who step through our synagogues during the High Holiday season, and I was just one of the many who failed to engage them and make sure they felt welcome and at home in synagogue.

This was yet another validation of the statistics showing one of four Jews leaving religion, a growing number of Jews without an affiliation, and many Jews no longer identifying as Jewish, which have been the gloomy talking points in Jewish circles ever since the Pew study of American-Jews was released in 2013.

Mistakes can serve as obstacles that disparage and devitalize us; they can also serve as powerful, invigorating, and eye-opening experiences. So I decided to make the most of this horrible mistake.

I spent many hours looking into the subect of inclusion and the power of greeting and had since learned that the power of inclusion, welcoming, and increased connectivity are not only socially appreciated—but scientifically necessary.

In a study published in Psychological Science, lead author Dr. Eric Wesselman, a psychology professor at Purdue University, points out that:” simple eye contact is sufficient to convey inclusion. In contrast, withholding eye contact can signal exclusion…Diary data suggest that people feel ostracized even when strangers fail to give them eye contact. Experimental data confirm that eye contact signals social inclusion, and lack of eye contact signals ostracism. Wesselman went on to experiment the matter and found that people who were “looked through” as if they were thin air–even in busy and crowded areas– felt more disconnected than those who were looked at.

It is safe to say though, that we all know that others appreciate being acknowledged, smiled at, and welcomed. So why don't we do it as often as we should? A 2005 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology shows that the main reason we fail to engage with others as often as we would like to is because of our fear of rejection and that others will not be interested in engaging with us. We believe that others lack interest and for that reason fail to engage them. True, some people people probably do lack interest and want to be left alone– most people don't.

I went on to experiment on this in my own armature way. I started saying hello to people I had never met, inviting them for a Shabbat meal, or just having a small chat. No surprises here. Most people were really moved, appreciative, and receptive to those gestures. 

Amy Rees Anderson,points out in her Forbes article “Make Eye Contact, Smile and Say Hello,” how we have all been in a situation social situation where nobody knew us. “Then some superhero — a stranger —comes up and smiles, puts out their hand and says “hello.” And just like that, the awkwardness is over. “

This year, let's make an effort to be another person's superhero.

As Jews, we have now been “traveling” together for more than three thousand years. We have faced our spiritual and physical utter obliteration time and again, and yet we survived. At times of distress and persecution we stand united and the strength we find in turning to each other helped us survive. However, this cannot be what brings us together. As Lord Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom points out ““If unity is to be a value it cannot be one that is sustained by the hostility of others alone.”

Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are great opportunities to stand up to our shared historical experience, the undeniable bond of the present, and create a bright destiny for Jewish future. Let us reach out to each other with love, friendship, and kindness. We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to each other, we owe it to our history. Most importantly, we owe it to our future.

Shana Tova.

Rabbi Elchanan Poupko is a rabbi, writer, teacher, and blogger (www.rabbipoupko.com). He lives with his wife in New York City

The unforgivable sin I committed Yom Kippur morning Read More »

Who by strangling and who by Starbucks: the fate of Yom Kippur

Leave a Comment / Marty Kaplan, Opinion /

What would you give to know who’ll win the election? A lot, I bet — not because you’ll know whether to get out of the stock market, but because the anxiety is killing you. 

What if someone could tell you whether that sweetie you’re flirting with is truly your bashert, or whether Alzheimer’s is in your future, or even how “Game of Thrones” will end? 

The promise of clairvoyance keeps psychics and pundits in business. Knowing the ending is the storyteller’s superpower. Omniscience is God’s ace in the hole. If we knew what God knows about us, if we foresaw our fate, maybe we’d choose to live like angels. But if fate is a crock, then Einstein is playing dice with the universe, and Judgment Day is just magic thinking. 

Not long ago, I read in my alumni magazine that a guy I knew when I lived in Washington, D.C., who later became a judge in Los Angeles, had been killed by a car as he was crossing the street near his home in Pico-Robertson. When I first met him, he was a lawyer at a federal agency who moonlighted as a stand-up comic. I saw his act once, at a comedy club on Connecticut Avenue; he was actually pretty good. 

His passing brought to mind another man’s obit, also in my alumni magazine. I didn’t know him, but I’ve never forgotten it. A 40-year-old astrophysicist, a Stanford professor, was visiting his father in New Jersey for Father’s Day. He was sitting alone in a Starbucks, catching up on work on his laptop and sipping coffee, when out of nowhere a red Mustang GT crashed through the Starbucks window and killed him. The professor had taught a popular undergraduate class called “The Nature of the Universe”; his research interests included cosmology and dark matter. The driver was unharmed.

What is the nature of a universe that can contain such darkness? The mind struggles to make sense where there is no sense; the soul weeps. Man plans; God does stand-up. 

On the Day of Atonement a few days from now, in unison with my fellow congregants at Temple Israel of Hollywood, I will recite the U’Netaneh Tokef prayer. On that day, we will say, our fate is sealed: 

Who shall live and who shall die
Who at the measure of days and who before
Who shall perish by water and who by fire
Who by the sword and who by wild beasts
Who by famine and who by thirst
Who by earthquake and who by plague
Who by strangling and who by stoning …
But repentance, prayer and righteousness
 avert the severe decree.

Do you believe in fate? Or is fate a name for our vain effort to impose necessity on chance? Can repentance avert fatality, or will it be our bad luck, not our bad behavior — a chaotic cosmos, not a sinful soul — that will pin us against the Mustang’s grill? 

Leave it to Jews, 10 days after the festive celebration of Rosh Hashanah, to devote 25 hours to simulating our own deaths. I wish you everything good, darling, a healthy and sweet New Year — Hey! Not so fast, kiddo, suck on this: You’re gonna die.

Yom Kippur is when devout Jews, twice-a-year Jews and everyone in between heads to shul to rehearse our own deaths. From sundown to sundown, we fast; corpses don’t eat or drink, nor do we. We wear white, the color of the kitel, the traditional burial shroud. No showering, no shaving, no brushing your teeth, no makeup, no sex — just like in the cemetery. We say the Vidui, the deathbed prayer. We confess our sins and forgive those we’ve sinned against. Full of dread, we inventory the ways we may die. We repent, and we pray to avert our fate. If we wrestle with the taboo truth that bad things do happen to pious people, we keep it to ourselves.

And then, when three stars can be seen in the sky, the shofar blows, we kiss our families and friends, we break our fasts with bagels and lox and we return to our regular lives, imbued — for a while, anyway — with renewed awe at our existence and gratitude for our endurance.  

This descent and return from death is not just a Jewish journey, and not just the path of the believer. Anyone, religious or secular, who has survived a terrible illness or accident; who has lost or nearly lost a loved one; who has experienced the arbitrary, minuscule gap between their lot and the tragedies of others — all lifetime long, we are all summoned to private Yom Kippurs, to revelations of the good luck of being and the bad joke of nothingness. 

These awakenings are not the exclusive province of misfortune. Art, music, literature, nature, love: these, too, can loft us to a sublime whose transcendence inevitably entails mortality. “Death,” Wallace Stevens wrote in “Sunday Morning,” “is the mother of beauty.” If there were no endings, there could be no stories. But here’s the rub: Artistic genius may take us out of time, but immortality belongs to the artwork, not to us. 

I believe in the story of a God who writes and seals my fate in a Book of Life each year, but I don’t believe in such a God, and I can’t accept that concept of fate. Here’s what I do accept, because I have to: Fatality, which fate inheres in, doesn’t depend on my believing in it or not.

Marty Kaplan is the Norman Lear professor of entertainment, media and society at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Reach him at martyk@jewishjournal.com.

Who by strangling and who by Starbucks: the fate of Yom Kippur Read More »

JDC aiding Hurricane Matthew victims in Haiti

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), the world’s leading Jewish humanitarian assistance organization, is responding to Hurricane Matthew's widespread destruction in Haiti, focusing on medical aid and other basic needs provision for beleaguered storm victims. JDC – which deployed extensive relief and rebuilding efforts aiding hundreds of thousands in Haiti following the devastating earthquake in 2010 – is providing medical supplies and medical team assistance through its partner on the ground, Heart to Heart International. Donations for JDC's efforts can be made at http://jdc.org/hurricanematthew

“Our hearts go out to the people of Haiti, and the wider region, in the wake of Hurricane Matthew’s devastation. All too familiar with the acute needs facing Haitians, JDC activated its network of international and local partners and is mobilizing relief efforts in an expression of humanitarian solidarity and Jewish values,” said Alan H. Gill, JDC’s CEO. “Our response to this crisis is especially poignant during the Jewish High Holidays, when we examine carefully our actions in the last year and recommit to our obligation as individuals and a global people to aid those in dire need.”

JDC’s relief work in Haiti will focus on the hardest-hit areas in the south of the island where reports of torrential rains, flooding, and strong winds were accompanied by damage to homes, farming stock and land, and infrastructure like bridges. JDC is in communication with its local civil society and NGO leadership contacts and long-term partners in Haiti to assess needs and ensure the most vulnerable victims are cared for in an expedient manner.

JDC has provided immediate relief and long-term assistance to victims of natural and manmade disasters around the globe, including Ecuador, Macedonia, Italy, Nepal, the Philippines, Japan, and South Asia after the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and continues to operate programs designed to rebuild infrastructure and community life in disaster-stricken regions.

JDC's disaster relief programs are funded by special appeals of the Jewish Federations of North America and tens of thousands of individual donors to JDC. JDC coordinates its relief activities with the U.S. Department of State, USAID, Interaction, and the United Nations.

For Donations to JDC's Hurricaine Matthew Relief Work:

Online: http://jdc.org/hurricanematthew

By Phone: 212-687-6200

By Mail:

JDC Hurricane Matthew Relief Fund
C/O
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
P.O. Box 4124
New York, NY 10163
United States

Please make check payable to: JDC’s Hurricane Matthew Relief Fund

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) is the world’s leading Jewish humanitarian assistance organization. JDC works in more than 70 countries and in Israel to alleviate hunger and hardship, rescue Jews in danger, create lasting connections to Jewish life, and provide immediate relief and long-term development support for victims of natural and man-made disasters. For more information, visit www.JDC.org.

JDC aiding Hurricane Matthew victims in Haiti Read More »

Israel’s Ministry of Tourism hires Democratic PR firm for U.S. outreach

Leave a Comment / Israel, Jewish Insider /

This story originally appeared at “>Holmes Report.

According to the report, MWWPR will develop and execute a strategic communications program designed to proactively promote Israel as a top tourist destination for North American travelers. The firm will also seek to reach out to the LGBT community.

MWW is headed by Michael Kempner, a top fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, President Obama and the Democratic Party. Kempner is listed as a “Hillblazer,” having raised more than $100,000 for Clinton’s presidential campaign last year, and served as deputy finance director for President Obama’s campaign.

The crisis management public relations firm also “>fired former Congressman Anthony Weiner to its board of advisors last year after his presence “has created noise and distraction that just isn’t helpful,” according to an internal memo.

“MWWPR has deep expertise in the travel sector and a proven record of successfully executing large-scale tourism efforts, which makes it the perfect strategic communications partner as we work to increase awareness of Israel’s offerings through a multifaceted media campaign,” Uri Steinberg, Israel’s Tourism Commissioner for North America, said in a statement.

In 2004, MWW was selected as one of the agencies along with 5W Public Relations to handle Israel’s North American public relations and marketing for a three-year contract. Since 2006, Geoffrey Weill Associates handled the Tourism Ministry’s PR and social media outreach.

” target=”_blank”>Subscribe here.

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Gordon Davidson, director and producer, dies at 83

Leave a Comment / Los Angeles, Obituaries /

Gordon Davidson, the Brooklyn-born director and producer who played a key role in transforming Los Angeles from a perceived cultural backwater into a creative center for innovative and controversial plays, died Oct. 2.

He was 83 and died after collapsing at dinner in his Santa Monica home, according to his wife, Judi.

In both his personal and professional lives, Davidson drew frequently on his Jewish heritage.

“I guess we are the prototype of the American Jewish family,” he said during one of a series of interviews with this reporter over a quarter of a century. “My paternal grandfather, born in a small town near Kiev, was Orthodox; my father was Conservative; and I’m Reform.”

Initially set on an engineering career, Davidson changed his mind during college and in 1964 moved to Los Angeles as assistant to John Houseman. The following year, he succeeded his mentor as managing director of the Theatre Group at UCLA.

In a daring decision, the novice director set as his first production “The Deputy” by Rolf Hochhuth, which indicted Pope Pius XII for his silence during the Holocaust, raising the ire of many of the city’s most influential Catholics.

In 1967, the Theatre Group, with Davidson at the helm, moved from the UCLA campus to the nearly completed Mark Taper Forum in downtown Los Angeles. To inaugurate the new venue, Davidson decided to stage and direct “The Devils” by John Whiting, centering on a libertine priest, a nun and their sexual fantasies. This choice almost ended the director’s career, with the Catholic Archdiocese and Davidson’s bosses at the L.A. County Board of Supervisors demanding his scalp. Thanks to the intervention of some of the most influential names in Los Angeles and Hollywood, Davidson survived.

In subsequent years, Davison also took charge of the Ahmanson and Kirk Douglas theaters and to a large extent reversed the flow of theatrical hits from Broadway to Los Angeles.

The banner years of the early 1990s saw the production of the six-hour landmark dramas “The Kentucky Cycle” by Robert Schenkkan and Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America.”

The two plays won back-to-back Pulitzer prizes. Even more remarkably, in 1994, three out of four plays vying for the Tony Award were Taper productions.

Other Davidson artistic successes included “In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” “The Trial of the Catonsville Nine,” “The Shadow Box,” “Children of a Lesser God” and “QED.”

Davidson showed less of an affinity for Shakespeare plays and among his rare flops were productions of “Hamlet” and “Julius Caesar.”

By the time he retired in 2005, Davidson had directed more than 40 plays and produced more than 300 works for the Center Theatre Group. He also earned such plaudits from often critical actors and colleagues as “The Moses of theater in Los Angeles,” “He does theater from the breakfast table all the way through to the midnight snack,” and “Gordie is just a huge mensch. He is what the word means. And he’s haimish (homey).”

Core support for Davidson’s plays came from Jewish audiences, and throughout his career he directed or produced such Jewish-themed works as “Dybbuk,” “Number Our Days,” “Tales from Hollywood,” “Green Card,” “The Immigrant” and “Ghetto.”

Not every subscriber was happy with Davidson’s choice of plays. “Every group wants to see itself reflected on the stage, but it doesn’t work this way,” he said. “The best plays may be about a specific group but evoke universal identification.”

In a 2007 interview, Davidson mused about his Jewish connections and identity — both strongly re-enforced by his wife, who was raised in an observant and Zionist family.

Another major influence was his affiliation with Leo Baeck Temple, a liberal Reform congregation, led by a succession of socially active rabbis. From the examples set by these rabbis, he drew a parallel to his own work as artistic director.

“In some ways, both deliver sermons,” he said. “Sometimes a rabbi has to ask disturbing questions which his audience may not want to hear. The artist has the same function.”

During the same interview, Davidson recalled how he and his wife had been moved during a recent trip to Russia by a visit to a school in St. Petersburg where Jewish kids, with no background in their heritage, were learning the rudiments of celebrating Shabbat.

“What defines a Jew?” Davidson asked rhetorically. “I am still trying to absorb the mystery.”

Davidson is survived by Judi, his wife of 57 years; their children, Adam Davidson and Rachel Davidson Janger; brothers Michael and Robert; and five granddaughters.

Gordon Davidson, director and producer, dies at 83 Read More »

World’s oldest man celebrates bar mitzvah 100 years late

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

The world’s oldest man, 113-year-old Yisrael Kristal, a Holocaust survivor living in Israel, celebrated his bar mitzvah a century late.

Kristal, of Haifa, celebrated the rite over the weekend with his two children, grandchildren and nearly 30 great-grandchildren, The Associated Press reported. He was recognized as the world’s oldest man in March.

He missed his bar mitzvah at 13 due to World War I. His father was in the Russian army and his mother had died three years earlier.

His daughter, Shulamith Kuperstoch, told the AP on Wednesday that Kristal was “very pleased” as he recited the Shehechiyanu prayer of gratitude as a prayer shawl was draped around his shoulders while surrounded by his family.

“Everyone sang and danced around him. He was very happy,” she said. “It was always his dream to have a bar mitzvah and he really appreciated the moment.”

Kuperstoch said her father is still in good health and remembers his life in the early 20th century, including seeing a car for the first time at age 9.

Born on Sept. 15, 1903, in the town of Zarnow, Poland, Kristal moved to Lodz in 1920 to work in his family’s candy business. He continued operating the business after the Nazis forced the city’s Jews into a ghetto, where Kristal’s two children died. In 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz, where his wife, whom he had married at 25, was killed. In 1950, he moved to Haifa with his second wife and their son, working again as a confectioner.

When asked at the time he was certified as the oldest living man what his secret was to long life, Kristal said: “I don’t know the secret for long life. I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why. There have been smarter, stronger and better-looking men than me who are no longer alive. All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost.”

World’s oldest man celebrates bar mitzvah 100 years late Read More »

The Aphrodite exchange, part 1: On how Greek and Roman culture influenced Judaism

Leave a Comment / Domain's Guest, Israel, News, Rosner's Domain, Worldwide /

Rabbi Burton Visotzky serves as Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies at The Jewish Theological Seminary, where he joined the faculty upon his ordination in 1977. Rabbi Visotzky is the Louis Stein Director of the Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies of JTS, charged with programs on public policy. He also serves as director of the Milstein Center for Interreligious Dialogue of JTS. Rabbi Visotzky holds degrees from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Harvard University, and JTS. He has been visiting faculty at Oxford, Cambridge, and Princeton universities, and at the Russian State University of the Humanities in Moscow. With Bill Moyers, Rabbi Visotzky developed 10 hours of television for PBS. Their collaboration, Genesis: A Living Conversation, premiered in 1996. He also consulted with Jeffrey Katzenberg and DreamWorks for the company's 1998 film, Prince of Egypt. Rabbi Visotzky's articles and reviews are published in America, Europe, and Israel. He is the author of 10 books and more than 100 articles and reviews.

The following exchange will focus on Rabbi Visotzky’s new book Aphrodite and the Rabbis: How the Jews Adapted Roman Culture to Create Judaism as We Know It.

***

Dear Rabbi Visotzky,

Your book explores the Roman influences that have shaped Judaism as we know it. My first introductory question: how surprised do you expect your readers to be by the examples of influences you explore in your book – and do you think some readers could reject the idea that Judaism owes a lot to Hellenism? (and please, provide an example or two as you answer this question).

Yours,

Shmuel.

***

Dear Shmuel,

I wrote Aphrodite and the Rabbis: How the Jews Adapted Roman Culture to Create Judaism as We Know It precisely because what has been known for 70 years among academic scholars is generally surprising to the Jewish public. Folks initially think that Rome was our implacable enemy and that’s the whole story. But as I wrote in the book, the Jews of the Land of Israel lived in the geographic center of the Greek and then the Roman empires for centuries. One of the main languages in the Land of Israel was Greek, including the majority of synagogue and burial inscriptions there. This is all the more true for Jews who lived elsewhere in the Roman Empire or what we call the Diaspora (a Greek word, by the way).

Major Jewish institutions like the synagogue and our courts, the Sanhedrin, have Greek names. In a famous passage in the Talmud (Hagiga 14b) the great founder of rabbinic Judaism, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai refers to Mt. Sinai itself as a Roman banquet chamber (triclinium). The Passover Seder is structured like a Greco-Roman symposium banquet – including hors d’oeuvres called by their Greek name: karpos (yep, it’s Greek). At the symposium they ate an appetizer made of nuts, fruit and wine, drank multiple cups of wine, dipped vegetables into briny sauce, asked questions about the food and quoted sacred literature in response – with the Greeks and Romans quoting Homer, not Moses. The symposium banquet ended in debauchery with so-called “flute girls” coming out to practice their wiles and vaudeville comedians telling dirty jokes. The rabbis, eager to distinguish the Seder from the symposium, warn us that after the paschal meal we should not go off to the comedians – in Greek: api komias. This gave us the afikomen at the end of the meal, through some creative mistranslation on the part of the non-Greek speaking Babylonian rabbis.

I want to offer another example of just how much Greek influence there was among the rabbis by quoting from a fifth-century Midrash that refers to a verse of Jeremiah (31:20), HaBen Yakir Li Ephraim, “Truly Ephraim is a dear son to me.” This Scripture is from the prophetic portion read in synagogues world-wide on the second day of Rosh HaShannah. But the rabbis of old were, in fact, stymied by the invocation of Ephraim in the verse. Did God, speaking through Jeremiah, refer to Ephraim who was the son of Jacob? Did this perhaps mean the tribe that Ephraim spawned? Maybe it was a metonymy for the exiled Northern Kingdom, the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel? Still other rabbis understood that Ephraim should be read as an honorific title.

In fact, in Leviticus Rabbah 2: 3, one Rabbi explains the word to mean: Palatiani. His colleague says: Eugenestatos. If this seems Greek to you, it should! The palatiani had palatial lives – they were courtiers. Our rabbi employs Greek to convey his precise meaning. Not to be outdone, his colleague uses Greek as well. The term Ephraim means the best (which is the Greek –statos ending), the well-born (Greek: eugenos, like eugenics). Ephraim means nobility!

Jews in fifth century Israel entered the New Year singing in Hebrew, but thinking in Greek. In my new book Aphrodite and the Rabbis, readers will learn how much Roman culture and Greco-Roman languages penetrated Jewish practice. That’s why the book is sub-titled: How the Jews Adapted Roman Culture to Create Judaism as We Know It.

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Not the Unetaneh Tokef

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Every year on Yom Kippur we recite the Unetaneh Tokef. It is, basically, a list of the ways we might die in the coming year, based on the premise that, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, God decides who is going to die in the coming year, and how. It’s problematic in a number of ways, but, in some ways, it does serve a purpose as well, reminding us that life is fragile, and living through the next year is never guaranteed.

This year on Erev Rosh Hashanah I sat next to my dear friend Patty, who very much wants to live through the next year, and I was inspired to write a parallel prayer, below, which focuses more on the ways we might live.

 

On Rosh Hashanah it is written,
On Yom Kippur it is sealed
How many will seek joy in this world,
How many will pass it by
Who will live and who will languish
Who will focus on what they have lost,
And who will find ways to celebrate the life they have
Who by old friends
And who by a baby
Who by birdsong
And who by laughter
Who by matzo balls
And who by ice cream sundaes
Who by walking in nature
And who by long car drives
Who by reconnecting
And who by letting go

Who will dwell on the negative
And who will express gratitude
Who will struggle
And who will find peace
Who will be lonely
And who will live with love
Who will retreat from life
And who will embrace it –

And, through turning back toward what we know is right,
prayer, and righteous giving, we can invite God to be our partner in life.

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Not the Unetaneh Tokef Read More »