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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

November 11, 2021

A Moment in Time: Holding On, or Letting Go

Leave a Comment / 'A Moment In Time', Blogs /

Dear all,

I was watching my kids at play this past weekend. Suspended from a bar, their little minds contemplated whether to jump or not. Their faces revealed a combination of fear and fearlessness, doubt and daring. They both eventually let go and descended down the slide with joyful laughter permeating the playground.

It really made me think.

How often does holding on actually hold me back?
How often does letting go open the door to freedom?

Over and over, Judaism teaches that in order to be free, we have to let go. (Think of Moses to Pharaoh “Let my people go.”)

Let go of hate and resentment. Let go of burdens. Let go of fear. Let go of regret.

Yes, let go of a missed opportunity. And capture this moment in time to create your next dream!

With love and shalom,

 

Rabbi Zach Shapiro

A Moment in Time: Holding On, or Letting Go Read More »

A Self-Made Cloud of Smoke – A poem for Parsha Vayeitzei

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Poetry, Torah /

Reuben went in the days of the wheat harvest,
and he found dudaim in the field and
brought them to Leah, his mother
-Genesis 30:14

I recently stood up for my mother
who left the earth two handfuls of years ago.
She is with flowers now, in the Earth.

I brought her flowers when she
breathed the air of her neighbors.
You had to open her front door

to get the good air in. Most of her life
she spent removing oxygen from
her immediate surroundings.

We tried to make deals with her
like two wives sharing one husband
arguing over whose turn it was.

It led to her spending her life
in the smallest room with a cat
whose eyes were broken.

If you tried to tell her facts
her capacity for language would diminish.
She would change subjects like

she’d been practicing her whole life.
Her whole life waiting for the Tsar
to call with her money.

Her whole life much shorter than
anyone would have preferred.
Her whole life in a cloud of smoke

suffocating the flowers
leaving us to stand up
and say her name.

God Wrestler: a poem for every Torah Portion by Rick LupertLos Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 25 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express” (Poems written in Japan – Ain’t Got No Press, August 2020) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.

A Self-Made Cloud of Smoke – A poem for Parsha Vayeitzei Read More »

StandWithUs Files Complaint Against Hunter College Over Handling of Antisemitic Incidents

Leave a Comment / News, United States /

StandWithUs filed a complaint to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) on November 10 against Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work at the City University of New York (CUNY), alleging that the school’s response to antisemitic incidents on campus has been inadequate.

The complaint, which was also filed on behalf of students Jessica Shafran and Raphi Cooper, cited a May 2021 incident in which a Zoom class was disrupted with students changing their backgrounds to Palestinian flags and their screennames to “Free Palestine: Decolonize.” The students began reading a manifesto accusing Israel of “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing.” No effort was taken by professors to stop the disruption and one professor even joined in on it. The complaint alleges that when Shafran talked about the issue to her professor, the professor replied that “sometimes extreme protest needs to be done for change to happen.”

The school’s administration said they would investigate the matter, yet Shafran and other Jewish students who were subjected to the disruption have not been contacted, nor has the school denounced the incident.

The complaint goes onto list several other antisemitic incidents that have occurred on campus, including a professor stating during a 2021 class that the Chasidic Jewish community don’t wear masks and then ignoring a Jewish student who countered that Jews were among the first people to wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic and donate plasma to those afflicted with COVID-19. Another incident in 2021 involved a student claiming that American Jews have “privilege” during a class discussion about the shooting at the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue without any pushback from the professor.

The complaint concluded by noting that Jewish students have raised concerns with campus administrators about the issue of antisemitism multiple times and yet the school has yet to take any meaningful action against antisemitism. StandWithUs urged the school to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and adopt mandatory bias training for staff and faculty that includes on how to identify and combat antisemitism on campus.

“No student should have to endure such a hostile climate at school, and we are proud of these three current and former students for standing up and speaking out against antisemitic harassment and discrimination,” StandWithUs CEO and Co-Founder Roz Rothstein said in a statement. “Every school has a legal responsibility and moral duty to ensure a safe and welcoming learning environment for all. Because of the administration’s repeated refusal to take meaningful corrective action, we are appealing to the Department of Education to ensure that the rights of Jewish students on this campus are equally protected alongside those of all other students.”

Hunter College did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment by publication time.

StandWithUs Files Complaint Against Hunter College Over Handling of Antisemitic Incidents Read More »

Who We Are, and Who We Aren’t: Vayeitzei 2021

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Opinion /

It is easy to be swept up by the emotional power of the first narrative in our Torah reading. Yaakov, who is running for his life, is suddenly homeless and hopeless; he lies down to sleep in the middle of nowhere, with the ground as his bed and a stone as his pillow. He has a powerful vision, with angels walking up and down a ladder, and God calling out to him, offering blessings of protection and redemption. Yaakov awakens overawed by his dream; he names that place Beit El, the house of God, and dedicates the stone he slept on as a monument to be used for divine service. Yaakov promises he will return to Beit El to build a house of worship, one that will be used by future generations.

But this plan is not meant to be. When we skip forward to the Book of Kings, we see that the site of Yaakov’s dream is desecrated. After the Kingdom of Israel split, Jeroboam refuses to let the people of the Northern Kingdom return to the Temple in Jerusalem. Instead, he builds a competing Temple in Beit El, along with competing holidays, and installs two golden calves for worship. Beit El fails to live up to its original promise.

Even more dramatic is the Torah’s change in attitude toward monuments. Yaakov sees his holy monument as the foundation of a future Temple; but in Deuteronomy 16:22, monuments are not just forbidden, but condemned as a mode of worship that “the Lord your God detests.” What is loved by Yaakov will be rejected by the Torah of Moshe. Many commentaries struggle to resolve this contradiction. Rashi offers a fascinating interpretation, and writes that “although monuments were pleasing to God in the days of our Patriarchs, He now hates them, because the Canaanites made monuments a fixed rule in their worship of idols.” It doesn’t matter that monuments have a deep historical connection to Jewish worship; if they are now used by the Canaanites for idol worship, they are to be rejected.

Rashi’s insight is profound. Our Jewish identity is not just about who we are, but also about who we aren’t. Elsewhere, the Torah forbids imitating the practices of idolaters, a prohibition called “Chukat Akum.” This Rashi reference is cited as an example of how far this law extends; even if a practice is a long held Jewish custom, it can still be prohibited as Chukat Akum if it is similar to idolatrous practices. Chukat Akum insists a Jew must make a point of being different than others. This prohibition of reaction and negation might seem strange, because contemporary spirituality is always expressed in affirmations. But Chukat Akum reminds us that an authentic identity is not just about what you choose to be; it is also about what you choose not to be.

Rashi’s insight is profound. Our Jewish identity is not just about who we are, but also about who we aren’t.

In the diaspora, the laws of Chukat Akum have been critical to maintaining communal cohesion. One school of thought in rabbinic literature saw Chukat Akum as primarily about separatism, of distinguishing Jews from non-Jews. Maimonides expresses this view when he writes that “we may not follow the statutes of the idolaters or resemble them in their [style] of dress, coiffure, or the like.” In another passage, Maimonides offers another example, that the prohibition includes saying that “since they go out wearing purple, so too I will go out wearing purple.” Rabbi Israel Bruna, a 15th-century German Rabbi, sees separation as the reason for Chukat Akum. Even though the Talmud makes it clear that men do not have to cover their heads, Rabbi Bruna writes that Jews of his time had to wear a head covering for otherwise they “will not be distinguishable among the non-Jews.” He explains that what was permitted by the Talmud would not be allowed in times of exile, when it is critical for a Jewish minority to establish an independent and separate identity.

Among the medieval authorities, there is a competing school of thought, one of selectivity. It sees rationality as the determining principle of whether or not a practice is considered Chukat Akum. What is prohibited are practices that reflect paganism, superstition and indecency. Beth Berkowitz points out in “Defining Jewish Difference: From Antiquity to the Present,” that in medieval Jewish-Christian polemics, Jews would often refer to the rationality of the Jewish tradition, in contrast with Christianity; and that may have influenced how the law of Chukat Akum was perceived as well.

This definition of Chukat Akum offers a different lesson; the goal is for Jews to take a critical eye to every new practice, and reject foolish customs. This will ensure that one doesn’t unconsciously assimilate unworthy pagan perspectives.

This definition of Chukat Akum offers a different lesson; the goal is for Jews to take a critical eye to every new practice, and reject foolish customs.

This debate was less important when Jews were largely excluded from communal life. But as Jews began to enter general society in the Renaissance, Chukat Akum was debated once again among Halakhic authorities. Does Jewish identity require one to always be different, even in dress, language and culture?

Around 1460, Rabbis Judah Messer Leon and Samuel de Modena posed a halakhic question to the Maharik, Rabbi Joseph Colon Trabbatto. Both had been given the privilege of wearing academic gowns; but local critics said that the academic gown was a violation of Chukat Akum, because it is an imitation of non-Jewish dress. The Maharik ruled that the gown was permissible. He disputes the idea that Jews must dress differently than others, and adds that the academic gown is rational, and allows people to be recognized for their achievements. The Maharik’s ruling best articulates the philosophy of selectivity, and gains wide acceptance. But some later authorities, including the Gaon of Vilna, dispute the Maharik’s ruling.

Even the celebration of Thanksgiving is forbidden by some authorities; Rav Yitzchak Hutner writes that it is forbidden because one must resist any desire to imitate the customs of general society. This ruling is striking in its extremism; even Thanksgiving, a celebration based on the virtue of gratitude, in appreciation of a country that has done so much for the Jewish community, is considered to be anathema. However, many rabbis disagree. Affirming what is good is a critical value as well, and Thanksgiving represents values cherished by the Jewish tradition. (For precisely this reason, my synagogue, Kehilath Jeshurun, used to hold a special Thanksgiving prayer service.)  To be a Jew in the 21st century requires one to carefully select, to affirm what is positive and reject what is negative in general society.

Since the early 1800s, it has become possible for Jews to fully engage in general society. To accomplish this, some argued that Jews need to blend in and stop being different. Judah Leib Gordon, in his poem “Hakitzah” (“Awaken”), famously wrote:

“Be a man in the streets and a Jew at home.”

This is very comfortable advice. Turning Judaism into a private affair hidden behind closed doors makes it much easier to be part of a minority; there is no standing out in public spaces, no uncomfortable glances from strangers. Unfortunately, this approach has been spiritual quicksand. What was carefully hidden became unimportant, and what was private became a mere hobby. Without a strong and independent identity, Jews slowly assimilated. It became the path of least resistance.

Chukat Akum is a reminder that one cannot just be a Jew at home; sometimes a Jew needs to be a Jew in the streets, to resist fads and fashions. That is part of our mission. Jews have been iconoclasts from the very beginning, from the moment that Avraham smashed his father’s idols; and we are ready to smash Yaakov’s monument as well. As a minority, we must know who we aren’t as well as who we are. But how far do we have to go in distinguishing ourselves? That still is a matter of debate.

Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.

Who We Are, and Who We Aren’t: Vayeitzei 2021 Read More »

Esprit d’Escalier

Leave a Comment / Poetry /

“Was the ladder—Hebrew sulam— which our father Jacob dreamed about dramatically
an elevator or an escalator?” asked my grandson to my son, a rabbi-mohel, Zak.
I answered: “It’s irrelevant! Both elevations work today quite automatically,
requiring no divine help to take angels down to earth, and after this to heaven back.

I’ll share this weird escalatorogical discussion with some Scottish liquor at
my Shabbos kiddush where I tell my friends hiddushim with which I attempt to school ‘em,
but won’t inform them what my son, but not my grandson, knows. The ladder was a ziggurat,
but it would waste all people’s time—and mine! — to fool ’em with the truth about the sulam.

Esprit d’Escalier Read More »

Heroic Poles of the Time of War

Leave a Comment / Commentary /

After the fall of Poland at the start of World War II, some Polish diplomatic offices in other countries remained open. In Bern, Switzerland, ambassador Aleksander Ładoś and his two principal aides, Stefan Ryniewicz and Konstanty Rokicki undertook a major rescue effort of Polish Jews. It began when dozens of Paraguayan documents were obtained from Rudolf Hügli, the Paraguayan consul in Bern, in which the names of Polish Jews were entered and properly sealed as supposedly Paraguayan nationals, that enabled some of them, living in Polish lands under Soviet occupation, to escape to Japan. There, the Polish legation issued them proper Polish passports with which they proceeded to other destinations. 

This led to a greater effort of help to Jews; to those mostly in Poland, but also in other German occupied countries, to avoid deportation to the death camps, by issuing them false Latin American, but mostly Paraguayan, passports. Such passport holders were kept by the Germans in special camps under the policy of hostage exchange which the Nazi regime hoped to accomplish with Germans living in various Latin American countries, for their return to Germany. This work, initiated by the Polish legation, was coordinated with two main Jewish rescue activists, both stationed in Switzerland – Abraham Silberschein, head of a subsidiary of the World Jewish Congress dealing with rescue, and Rabbo Chaim Israel Eiss, of the Orthodox Agudat Israel movement. Similarly, also with Yitzhak and Recha Sternbuch, who represented the New York-based rescue committee, known as Vaad Hatzalah. Julius Kühl, the Jewish employee in the Polish legation, also played a significant role in this false passports scheme. 

The converting of Polish citizens into Paraguayan ones was done secretly, and without the knowledge of the Paraguayan government. It was also done without prior approval of the Polish government-in-exile in London, although it consented to it when it learned of the initiative that Ładoś had taken of this highly unorthodox diplomatic action, that risked complicating relations between Poland and the Latin American countries. 

In his statement before the Swiss police, Silberschein emphasized that his work was done “in full cooperation with the Polish diplomatic authorities in Switzerland.” Juliusz Kühl, too, under investigation by the Swiss police, stated that the passports operation “was fully carried out with the knowledge of our envoy, Herr Minister Alexander Lados.” 

When Lados learned that the Germans were questioning the validity of the Latin American passports in possession of mostly Polish Jews, who were temporarily held by the Germans in the Vittel camp, in occupied France – on December 19, 1943, he dispatched an urgent message to Tadeusz Romer, the Polish Foreign Minister, in London, pleading for intervention with the Latin American legations in Berlin to recognize these passports, since they were “issued solely for humanitarian purposes in order to save people from certain death … The matter is very urgent.” Lados followed this up with additional pleas in the next months, including to the head of the International Red Cross, in Geneva. 

Another important mechanism through which the Polish legation in Bern was of immense help to Jews was the use of its special radio station to transmit secret messages on the situation of Jews in German-occupied countries. This, too, was in violation of the Swiss policy of neutrality in the current war. Isaac Lewin, of the Jewish Agudat Israel organization, who was the recipient of these messages via the Polish consulate in New York, stated after the war, that Ładoś merited to be inscribed “in gold letters in the book which records for posterity the attempts at helping the unfortunate victims of Nazism.” On January 21, 1944, H.A. Goodman, head of Agudat Israel in London, wrote to K. Kraczkiewicz, of the Polish Foreign Office, of “the most helpful attitude adopted by our Minister in Berne, Dr. Ładoś; that “without his assistance many of the activities which we have undertaken could not have been fulfilled.” Julius Kühl, in his post-war memoirs praised Ładoś as “a real Righteous Among the Nations,” and “a real humanitarian.” That he did his utmost to be of service, by “using all his influence in the Swiss diplomatic service as well as with the Polish government-in-exile.” 

On October 13, 1943, Swiss Foreign Minister, Marcel Pilet-Golaz, summoned Aleksander Ładoś to explain the Latin American false passports scheme. As recorded by the Swiss foreign minister, “I point out to him [that] we found that members of the embassy and consular staff had conducted activity that was beyond the scope of their competence and duties…. That is why we intervened.” To this, Ładoś responded in anger that his government will not accept the Swiss protest, since it was strictly a humanitarian action. Also, there was no intention of the false passport holders to head to these countries, but the intention was simply to avoid their deportation to the death camps. 

There are no exact figures how many Jews benefitted from the Latin American passports scheme with the aid of the Swiss legation in Bern but, by all accounts, the figure runs into the thousands. In a major study, Jakub Kumoch, former Polish ambassador in Switzerland, he has so far identified 3,262 names, of which an estimated 796 survived. However, when one takes into account that family members were also included in many of the passports, the total beneficiary figure may run much higher, perhaps as many as 8,000, of which between 2 to 3,000 may have survived. Work on this tabulation is still continuing. 

Polish diplomats Ładoś, Ryniewicz and Rokicki, risked being expelled from Switzerland and the Polish legation closed. The record shows that the Swiss authorities seriously considered the taking of punitive measures, but stopped short of this due to the changing military situation in favor of the Allies, to which the Polish government-in-exile also belonged. 

This is probably the only recorded story to emerge from the Holocaust of a close and intimate collaboration between Polish diplomats (mainly in Switzerland, but also in other countries) and Jewish rescue activists that led to a major effort to rescue thousands of Jews, and succeeded in saving certainly many hundreds, and perhaps even more. The major rescuers in this story, headed by Aleksander Ładoś, need to be acknowledged, praised, and made universally known. Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem has so far awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations to Konstanty Rokicki. Hopefully, Aleksander Ładoś (the man mostly responsible for this vast rescue operation) and Stefan Ryniewicz will soon also be added to this honor. 

Text published in the monthly Wszystko Co Najważniejsze (Poland) as part of a historical education project with the Institute of National Remembrance and National Polish Bank.

Mordecai Paldiel is former director at the Yad-Vashem Institute in Jerusalem. The unit he led between 1984 and 2007 awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations to tens of thousands of people around the world. He is the author of numerous books on the Shoah and a university lecturer in the United States. 

Heroic Poles of the Time of War Read More »

Pro-Palestinian Protesters At London School Attempt to Deplatform Israeli Ambassador

Leave a Comment / Israel, News /

Pro-Palestinian protesters attempted to deplatform and intimidate Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom Tzipi Hotovely when she spoke at the London School of Economics (LSE) campus on November 9.

The Jewish Chronicle (JC) reported that Hotovely was speaking to the LSE debating society that night; prior to the event, LSE for Palestine said they were “outraged” that Hotovely had been invited to speak on campus. An account called “LSEclasswar” posted to social media: “Whoever smashes the Ambassador car window (Lincoln’s Inn Field) gets pints.  Let’s f—in frighten her.”

Protesters gathered outside the building she was speaking at and called for her to be deplatformed. Video footage showed the protesters chanting “Free Palestine” and “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free”; when Hotovely was being escorted to her car, the protesters booed her and surrounded her security convoy. One protester can be seen running through security before being tackled.

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1458218239247405056?s=20

The Community Security Trust (CST) said in a statement that the protesters failed to disrupt the event and didn’t “chase” Hotovely off campus, but they did foster “an atmosphere of unacceptable intimidation.” “We condemn the violent threats made in some online posts regarding the event and the intimidation as the ambassador left the building.”

Various Jewish students told The JC that they hid their kippot as they walked through the protesters to exit Hotovely’s talk. “When you’re a Jewish student and you’ve been to Israel you do feel slightly threatened,” one student said. “You have to just live life and get on with it.”

British Home Secretary Priti Patel condemned the incident in a tweet. “Disgusted by the treatment of the Israeli Ambassador at LSE last night,” she wrote. “Antisemitism has no place in our universities or our country. I will continue to do everything possible to keep the Jewish community safe from intimidation, [harassment] & abuse.”

Secretary of State for Education Nadim Zahawi tweeted that the incident was “deeply disturbing.” “I am so sorry Ambassador Hotovely.”

James Cleverly, Minister for Middle East and North Africa in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, also tweeted: “The aggressive and threatening behaviour directed at [Hotovely] last night was unacceptable.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid tweeted in Hebrew that Hotovely “is strong and will not let any gang of violent and anti-Semitic thugs intimidate her, as will all the other Israeli ambassadors in the world. The struggle against the delegitimization of Israel and anti-Semitism is part of our struggle for the Israeli story and our ambassadors are at the forefront of this struggle.”

Jewish groups also denounced the incident.

“Violent threats on LSE campus are unacceptable,” LSE Jewish Society and Union of Jewish Students said in a joint statement. “Jewish students have the right to feel safe when attending an event on campus free of fear, harassment, and threats. This type of behavior is absolutely inexcusable and only serves to create hostility on campus. We are here to support any Jewish students who felt unsafe.”

“Those who exceeded the bounds of peaceful protest must be disciplined by @LSEnews
& prosecuted where appropriate,” Board of Deputies of British Jews tweeted. “Huge credit to [Hotovely] for facing down intimidation & for an engaging 90-minute event with students. The bullies will not win.”

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted, “We join our colleagues at [CST] in condemning the online violent threats and physical intimidation directed at [Hotovely]. Glad to see no one was harmed as a result.”

“When will democratic societies stop enabling such criminal behavior?” the Simon Wiesenthal Center tweeted, asking if there have also been protests at LSE against “Chinese or Iranian regimes.” “Israel is systematically attacked by anti-peace, anti-Semites.”

LSE Palestine issued a statement lauding the protesters and accusing police of assaulting students. By inviting Hotovely to campus and deploying the police, LSE “failed in their duty of care to Palestinian students.”

LSE said in a statement, “Students, staff and visitors are strongly encouraged to discuss and debate the most pressing issues around the world, but this must be in a mutually respectful manner. Intimidation or threats of violence are completely unacceptable. We are aware of some threats of violence made on social media around this event. Any LSE students identified as being involved in making such threats will face disciplinary action. We will be reviewing the processes around this event to inform future planning.”

Hotovely wrote in a JC op-ed that the speaking event was “positive” and that her freedom of speech was not inhibited in any way. “This fact has been overshadowed by footage of the protest that raged outside and targeted me as I left the building,” she wrote. “Far from wishing to take part in the debate that the college had provided, the activists were calling for me to be ‘no-platformed,’ holding up banners proclaiming lies about Israel such as the pernicious smear that it is an ‘apartheid state.’ Such behaviour will help no one.”

Hotovely later added: “I will not be intimidated into letting these extremists decide what happens. They will never dictate what I do or how Israel conducts its diplomacy.”

The LSE debating society was scheduled to host Palestinian Mission to the UK Head Husam Zomlot on November 11, but he canceled following the Hotovely incident, saying that he’ll speak when there is a “healthier environment” on campus, The Guardian reported.

Pro-Palestinian Protesters At London School Attempt to Deplatform Israeli Ambassador Read More »

88% of 2020 Religious Hate Crimes in LA Were Antisemitic, Report Says

Los Angeles, News /

Eighty-eight percent of religious hate crimes that occurred in Los Angeles County in 2020 were antisemitic, according to a new report from the county.

The report, released on November 10, found that hate crimes increased by 20% overall in the county from 2019 to 2020. This included a 76% increase in hate crimes against the Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) community, 56% increase against Latinos and 35% increase against Blacks. Religious hate crimes declined by 18% from 2019 to 2020, the majority of which were perpetuated by white supremacists. Additionally, violent hate crimes increased from 65% to 68%; the majority of the victims were transgender women.

The report also found that the parts of the county with the highest per capita hate crimes were “West Hollywood to Boyle Heights, followed by a western region that includes parts of West L.A., Santa Monica and Beverly Hills,” LAist reported.

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), examples of antisemitic incidents in the county in 2020 included graffiti stating “Jews control the world” on a Chatsworth synagogue and a female spitting at a Jewish woman and her son in the Beverly Grove area and saying, “You Hassidic Jews always break the law.”

“While Jews make up only 2% of the U.S. population, they are consistently the most-targeted group of religious-based hate crimes,” ADL Los Angeles Regional Director Jeffrey Abrams said in a statement. “Unfortunately, we saw a severe spike in antisemitic hate incidents and hate crimes during the height of the deadly conflict between Israel and Hamas, a U.S.- designated foreign terrorist organization, along the Gaza Strip in May 2021. In Los Angeles, ADL worked closely with law enforcement to ensure that antisemitic assaults were appropriately enhanced as hate crimes.”

He added that the ADL has also found “a scourge of anti-AAPI hate” scapegoating the community for the COVID-19 pandemic and praised President Joe Biden for signing a hate crime bill into law for addressing the matter. “The best way to combat hate is to stand together as one community against racism and bigotry of all kinds. We are grateful to continue to have LA County as a key partner in our work to reduce hate crimes and increase public awareness of the impact these kinds of crimes have on our communities.”

American Jewish Committee Los Angeles Regional Director Richard S. Hirschhaut said in a statement to the Journal, “The 2020 Hate Crimes Report is deeply troubling, though hardly surprising. Our friends in the AAPI community were subjected to unrelenting scapegoating and bigotry amid the worst days of the pandemic. We saw in stark terms the power of words to cause unspeakable harm. For the Jewish community, the rise in antisemitic acts was consistent with a coarsening of our culture on both the right and left, with rank hostility toward Israel and vitriolic rhetoric too often left unchallenged. Hate is indivisible and we must continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with our allies to push back.”

88% of 2020 Religious Hate Crimes in LA Were Antisemitic, Report Says Read More »

Are You Procrastinating Inside Your Productivity?

Leave a Comment / Columnists, Opinion /

As an executive coach who focuses on women’s empowerment, one of the things I hear constantly from women is that they want to be more “productive.”

Usually, when a woman tells me about how much better her life would be if she were “just more productive” she already has a packed calendar, a long list of accomplishments, and an even longer to-do list. 

“But really,” they often insist, “I could be doing so much more … and I really should be.” 

Being productive is important, but as the old adage goes: too much of a good thing is a bad thing, and productivity is no exception. That’s why I want to ask you a question and I’m asking you to be honest with yourself when you answer it:

Are you procrastinating inside your productivity? 

It’s ironic, I know, to procrastinate inside our longing to be more productive, but it’s also really convenient—especially for high-performing women at work. 

That’s because it allows us to hide out from some other really big and scary stuff we don’t want to deal with—and it’s a particularly convenient hideout too, since to-do lists and inboxes can never really get to zero for more than a moment in time. Productivity is one of the few things in life we can never max out, which is part of what can make it such an insidiously bad habit.

Studies have long shown that the more efficient and productive we are at work, the more we fill our time with, you guessed it, more work.

Studies have long shown that the more efficient and productive we are at work, the more we fill our time with, you guessed it, more work. We find ourselves trapped on the hamster wheel of overflowing to-do lists, inboxes and calendared commitments, working harder and faster to get more done—often crossing things off our list at the expense of using our limited time to do the things that truly make us most fulfilled and impactful.

This vicious cycle provides a convenient (and sneaky) way to procrastinate inside our productivity. Here are three reasons I often see women hide from inside their so-called productivity:  

1) Hiding out from how overwhelmed you are by your to-do list: Wait, you’re trying to tell me when I’m overwhelmed by my to-do list that I add more to it? This was my reaction when I read “Time Smart,” the latest book by Dr. Ashley Whillans of Harvard Business School, an organizational psychologist who studies the relationship between how we use our time and our happiness. As Dr. Whillans explains: 

“When we feel time poor, we take on small, easy-to-complete tasks because they help us feel more control over our time. We think, There. Made a protein shake and finished that errand. I’m getting stuff done! In this case, it’s a false sense of control that doesn’t alleviate the root cause of our busyness.” 

Instead of finding ways to pare down our calendars, commitments and to-do lists, we hide from the hard work of making that lifestyle change by taking on more (often meaningless) things we can check off as “small wins.” The result is a to-do list that only grows longer, often triggering more stress and keeping us trapped in a vicious cycle of procrastination inside our productivity.   

2) Hiding out from our perfectionism: Years ago I worked with a client named “Emma” who was an extraordinary tactician. There’s just no other way to describe her: there was truly nothing Emma couldn’t execute with excellence inside her large, national non-profit. 

Emma had ideas about ways the organization’s mission could be more impactful for their stakeholders and about how a reorganization of the staffing plan could support critical programs and save money, but she was scared to share her ideas because they weren’t “fully-fleshed out.”

So she hid out inside her productivity: instead of carving out time to brainstorm and get creative, she focused on packing and executing this week’s to-do list. She’d get to this big idea stuff next week when she “had time.” 

As my friend and mentor Claire Wasserman notes in her book “Ladies Get Paid,” the tendency to burrow in our overworking and obsess over our productivity is all about our fear of judgement. As Claire notes about a client named “Kate” who was just like Emma:

“She was cocooning herself away with the most minor details so as to avoid the real work and the potential judgement that goes along with it … Because her hard work usually paid off—and because of the rush she got from the sense of achievement and the approval of other that came with it—Kate could never seem to get off the hamster wheel of overworking.” 

I can tell you this has long been my personal kryptonite. Alongside Kate and Emma, I know we’re not alone. 

3) We’re hiding out from finding out what actually makes us happy. On many occasions I’ve had women come to coaching and tell me that they don’t know what they want to do with their life. The problem isn’t their uncertainty, they swear. This, they insist, is the most important thing in their life. If they could just be more productive at their current jobs, they’d have time to figure it out. 

In “Time Smart,” Whillans calls our bluff on this bad habit, “We keep ourselves overwhelmed in the hopes that this busyness will provide us fulfillment. Ironically, perpetual busyness undermines the goals that we set out to achieve with our busyness in the first place.” 

It’s counterintuitive, but sometimes we’re so overwhelmed by the overwhelm of not knowing what we want that we can’t even engage with it. Keeping ourselves too busy to think about it is the equivalent of driving to McDonald’s tonight because you’re starting the diet tomorrow. 

Is being productive a bad thing? Of course not. But one thing I do ask my clients every time they tell me they want to be more productive is: 

Do you want to be productive or do you want to be impactful? 

So far, nobody has ever chosen the former. Most of us think our productivity makes us impactful, but they are actually different things. Consider the difference between:

• Must complete my to-do list (productive) vs. Must do the things that matter (impactful) 

• Must do it all (productive)  vs. Must do it well (impactful) 

• Must do it myself (productive) vs. Must make a plan to ensure execution (impactful)

When we hang out inside impactful—doing the things that matter—there’s a lot less room to hide out and procrastinate. Bonus points: you also do better work that you feel better about.

So are you going to be impactful or productive today? Shoot me a note and let me know.

Randi Braun is an executive coach, consultant, speaker and the founder of Something Major.

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