November 16, 2022

About a year ago, a new siddur—prayer book—called “Siddur Davar Hadash,” began making the rounds in certain progressive Jewish corners of the internet. Created by trans Jew brin solomon (who uses it/its pronouns and, for some reason, lowercase letters), Davar Hadash reimagines Jewish prayer for a radically diverse world.

To this end, the siddur uses nonbinary pronouns for God; replaces all prayers that yearn for Zion with prayers that “yearn for a full decolonization of the world;” replaces “ableist” directives to “stand or bow or look” with words like “worship, be humble, [and] pay attention;” along with countless other alterations to bring Jewish tradition in line with modern notions of gender, politics, and theology.

Even passages from the Torah, such as the Shema, have been reworked to fit the political/social agenda of the siddur’s architect.

While the Davar Hadash project is extreme, it isn’t unique. It is essentially just a more dramatic version of the approach that the Reform and Conservative movements have taken with the siddur, which is to rewrite prayers with modern political and social considerations in mind.

For the Reform and Conservative movements, this means mentioning the matriarchs along with the patriarchs, removing prayers that express longing for the return of the Temple and the sacrificial service, universalizing prayers that express ideas of chosenness or Jewish particularity, and softening prayers that express longing for our enemies to be crushed or whatnot.

In nine cases out of ten, I find these updates to be needless, pollyannaish, and uninspiring. For this reason, I remain a non-Orthodox Jew who uses an Orthodox siddur.

I’m not here to condemn this practice of updating prayer for modern sensibilities. Jewish prayer wasn’t handed down at Sinai. The siddur evolved over millennia and has undergone changes throughout the years for all kinds of reasons. I find nothing inherently objectionable about this fact, and I myself add the names of the matriarchs to the first blessing of the amidah.

That said, if the Orthodox world is stuck on the notion that prayers can never change, the non-Orthodox world seems obsessed with the idea that our prayers should have an asymptotic relationship with our political ideology.

It’s this idea—that prayer should primarily be a vehicle for ideology—that I take issue with.

The brilliant historian of religion Karen Armstrong makes the case that humans apprehend the world in one of two modes. The mode of logos—logic—is what allows us to think rationally, objectively, and strategically. The mode of mythos—myth—is what allows us to think creatively, analogically, and associatively. Logos gives us science and history. Mythos gives us art and religion.

One is not superior to the other. “Logos was essential to the survival of our species,” Armstrong writes, “But it had its limitations: it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life’s struggles.  For that people turned to mythos or ‘myth.’”

In Armstrong’s analysis, we live in an era of logos. Our mythic minds have atrophied, and we have come to view even matters of the spirit through the lens of hard logic. The result has been increasing atheism on the one hand, and the rise of fundamentalism on the other—both phenomena having a flat, literalist interpretation of religion in common.

It seems to me that a certain fundamentalism of this kind is at work when we try to make our liturgy align perfectly with our politics. I find the very notion to be noxiously literalist. Prayer is a matter of mythos. Like poetry, it speaks in the language of metaphor and symbol. To try and make it suit our modern sensibilities about gender and geopolitics is, in my opinion, as absurd as erasing all references to the “corners of the earth” from the Torah because we now know that the world is round.

Prayer emerges from murmuring deep of the mythopoetic imagination. It is not a matter of studied, inoffensive, political sloganeering.

If we want to create a new liturgy that stands a chance of becoming a lasting, vital contribution to Jewish spiritual life, we will not achieve this by going through the siddur (or the Torah) with a red pen. This officious impulse would scrub our tradition clean of all that is lurid, mysterious, outrageous, challenging, vivid, and beautiful. Rather, we will achieve this by diving into the mythic deep as our ancestors did. Only then will we find new realms of spiritual expression and utter at last a new word.

Matthew Schultz is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (2020). He is a rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts.

Comedy is not pretty.
-Steve Martin.

I love Dave Chapelle. I’ve laughed at his line-crossing humor, including his monologue from this past weekend’s “Saturday Night Live” that had the dual effect of also making me uncomfortable as a Jew.

I consider myself to be a student of comedy. Most people I interact with think I’m funny and I often get asked why I’m not a stand-up comedian. I guess I’d be good at it, but it seems like a whole lot of work, going to the comedy open mic circuits, and I’m at the point in my life where I’m just tired.

That having been said, I continue my studies, not just for entertainment, but also to inform my appreciation of comedy and for my eventual great act.

There’s an unwritten rule in comedy that draws from a line often attributed to Mark Twain: “Tragedy plus time equals comedy.” What this means is that everything is funny; you just need to wait an appropriate amount of time before you joke about it. There are some notable exceptions to this. For many people the Holocaust will never be a source of humor and that joking about it will cause problems for everyone. (This makes me wonder about the pitch meeting for the old show “Hogan’s Heroes.” “It’s a comedy set in a German prisoner of war camp — hilarious!”) The secret part to this rule of comedy is that for many comedians everything is funny immediately. They (and possibly we) just know, at least most of the time, not to say it right away while the tragedy is still fresh in the public’s mind.

Enter Dave Chapelle, fresh off his not quite cancellation by the trans community and supporters due to his alleged transphobic material. 

Dave’s monologue, which was lengthy in terms of the amount of time hosts are typically given, dealt with many things, including Kanye West, the midterm elections and, of course, the Jews. As a self-professed student of comedy, I have studied Chapelle’s sets thoroughly. I have watched all his Netflix shows. I have seen a handful of his TV show episodes, and I have followed his career with a great deal of enjoyment for a long time. I must admit, I laughed throughout his entire monologue, even when he mentioned “the Jews” and it became awkward. I knew when I heard this that it was going to be a problem for a lot of people. I wondered if before he came out on stage he was thinking, “Am I not doing enough to get canceled?” This monologue may speed the process along.

Dave implied that we’re not allowed to talk about “the Jews” and that although Jews may not run Hollywood, there sure are a lot of Jews in the industry. I believe that’s actually true. Southern California has one of the largest Jewish populations in the world. Many Jews come to Los Angeles, or stay, to have access to and be comforted by the large Jewish community. Here in LA, we find Jews in any corner of our city.

I don’t believe that Chapelle is transphobic or antisemitic. I think shock value humor has always been successful, and among the funniest. 

I don’t believe that Chapelle is transphobic or antisemitic. I think shock value humor has always been successful, and among the funniest. There’s a reason why “South Park,” which has crossed every conceivable line, and many we didn’t even know existed, is so successful. Most of us find it very funny.

But how comedy is delivered makes a difference. In the “Weekend Update” segment of “SNL,” Michael Che delivered a very funny joke about newly-elected women governors. It crossed a line, implying that in the states where women were not governors, dinner would be served on time. I’ll give you a minute to be shocked by this. Michael’s reaction to his own joke, gave us a clear signal that he was just kidding and saying something he doesn’t believe, just for the sake of humor. Everyone in the audience laughed. 

The difference with Chapelle is that he delivers his shocking lines with the acknowledged context that he is offending people who are trying to silence or cancel him. His delivery implies he believes what he is saying, and that it’s actually important that he gets to say it. And that’s the potential problem with his recent monologue.

Comedy has always been an important platform for social commentary on politics or any world events, and it should continue to be that. But delivery matters.

Much of the Twitter-verse responded with comments suggesting that this was the best thing “SNL” has done in decades. There were also some comments from Jews, calling out the antisemitism they heard from Chappelle’s set.

I laughed while I watched his monologue. But as a Jewish person deeply immersed in the news cycle, which lately comes complete with daily instances of antisemitism, I found Chappelle’s portrayal of Jews as the mysterious other uncomfortable.

Perhaps it sounds like I’m equivocating too much. I admit to appreciating Chappelle’s comedy on its own terms. I laughed while I watched his monologue. But as a Jewish person deeply immersed in the news cycle, which lately comes complete with daily instances of antisemitism, I found Chappelle’s portrayal of Jews as the mysterious other uncomfortable. Twitter has told me I’m not the only one.

P.S. Dave, please stop smoking, especially in front of audiences. This is going to kill you much sooner than the court of a public opinion will, and it’s a terrible example for children and all humans.

Rick Lupert is the poet in residence at the Jewish Journal, the author of 26 books of poems, including “God Wrestler: a Poem for Every Torah Portion“ and “I Am Not Writing a Book of Poems in Hawaii.“ Find him at www.jewishpoetry.net. 

On Monday morning, news broke that controversial, far-right, probable soon-to-be-minister in the Knesset Itamar Ben-Gvir, while in coalition talks with Benjamin Netanyahu, expressed support for an amendment to existing Israeli policy, an amendment that would no doubt harm relations between American Jews and Israeli Jews. This change relates to aliyah — who is considered Jewish enough to move to the Jewish state, and who must be kept out. Status-quo Israeli policy welcomes converts to Judaism into Israeli citizenship, even converts who underwent the process of becoming Jewish with a rabbi in the Reform movement. The approval of such Jews has drawn the ire of the more observant in Israel, including the Rabbinate, which notably launched an open rebellion against the state when hundreds of thousands of Russians began emigrating in the 1990s, some of them with only one Jewish grandparent.

Ben-Gvir is seeking to revive this war by ensuring that only converts who were guided by an Orthodox rabbi are allowed to immigrate to Israel. American Jews, the second largest Jewish community on earth, tend to trend more liberal on such matters, and they aren’t afraid to show it. Comments online after the news broke ranged from: “This lunatic (Ben-Gvir) thinks he gets to decide who qualifies as a Jew and who doesn’t,” “Ben-Gvir is determined to ruin the state,” and “This will be a divorce between American and Israeli Jews.” Yaakov Katz, Editor-in-Chief of the Jerusalem Post, writes: “This is just the beginning. Hang on tight.” 

Regardless of whether this more traditional preference on the matter of aliyah has any possibility of being a reality (and not just typical saber rattling from rabble rousers in government), this development has sparked a familiar debate. And I am in a unique position to see both sides when it comes to whether or not American Jews deserve to have an opinion on Israeli politics.

Israelis have a right to their ruffled feathers when those who have not spent a day in their shoes feel entitled to explain how they should vote and how they should feel about their reality.

Last week, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times wrote a scathing opinion piece on the heels of the Israeli election, airing fears that “the Israel we once knew,” meaning the one that American Jews are comfortable defending, is slipping away. Whether or not to support Israel “will haunt pro-Israel students on college campuses. It will challenge Arab allies of Israel in the Abraham Accords … it will stress those U.S. diplomats who have reflexively defended Israel as a Jewish democracy that shares America’s values,” Friedman writes. 

Though I have lived in Israel for barely two months, I can sympathize with some of the bitter reactions to this piece from Israelis, which are based, I believe, in a justified resentment. It’s true: Most Diaspora Jews have not served in the Israel Defense Forces, most of us do not understand the language being spoken by the politicians who we want to make certain kinds of decisions, and many of us have never even spent a prolonged amount of time in the Jewish state. 

When the Executive Council on Australian Jewry published a statement condemning the rise of Itamar Ben-Gvir and partner Bezalel Smotrich, comments on their Twitter page ranged from “Stay out of our Israeli election, focus on Australia,” to “If you don’t like the results of the election, put on your big boy pants, move here and vote,” and “With all due respect, Israeli politics can only be by Israelis, in Israel, in Hebrew … Diaspora communities cannot be a part of it.”

This discomfort must be acknowledged as valid. Israel is constantly in the limelight of the international arena, constantly analyzed unfairly, disputed, and placed under harsh scrutiny by those who see the land between the river and the sea as a grand morality play between good and evil. Israelis have a right to feel defensive; they have a right to their ruffled feathers when those who have not spent a day in their shoes feel entitled to explain how they should vote and how they should feel about their reality.

If Israeli Jews shifting further and further to the right truly feel that American Jews have absolutely no standing to intrude into their lives, then they cannot expect American Jews to remain vocally supportive of Israel.

Yet this right does not come without its consequences. If Israeli Jews shifting further and further to the right truly feel that American Jews have absolutely no standing to intrude into their lives, then they cannot expect American Jews to remain vocally supportive of Israel, as Thomas Friedman says, either on campus, in politics or in the diplomatic arena. They would have to rely on support mainly from Evangelical Christians, who unlike American Jews, emphatically support right-wing policies in Israel like annexation of the Palestinian territories and the incorporation of more religious law in the public sector. Such a future, many agree, such a detachment from Israel in the lives of American Jews, is far from appealing. 

Tsvi Bisk, social critic and author of “The Suicide of the Jews,” said during an interview for his (very Zionist) book: “We (Israeli Jews) have resentment, justifiable resentment, at the hypocrisy and double-standard of the world … our resentment is justified. However, you cannot make rational policy based on an emotional resentment.” 

What Bisk means by this is that yes, when an animal is backed into a corner, lashing out is expected. But this impulse cannot infiltrate a society so profoundly that it results in terrible governance. Is American infiltration, what some Israelis go so far as to label a form of cultural imperialism, justified? Probably not. But is doing whatever the hell you want as a response, with no eye on international opinion let alone on the attitude of half the world’s Jews, justified? Definitely not. 

The emotional tug of war will no doubt continue to persist. Israelis will be shocked and offended by UNESCO’s shameful declaration that Jews have no right to the Temple Mount, which will compel them further to vote for radical parties. Jews in the Diaspora will continue to voice their moral condemnations of this, which will only deepen the hostilities.

A solution to this quandary would be for both sides to bite the bullet. If Jews outside of Israel feel so strongly about what is happening in Israel, they should take the advice of those with whom they most disagree and move their lives here. They’ll have a stake in the future of the nation, and will have a sturdier platform when speaking for or against its policies. Simultaneously, Israeli Jews should come to realize that though they are entitled to their choices, they are not entitled to be free of scrutiny and backlash, and that what the rest of the world thinks of you does make a difference in the future. No nation has ever been able to survive moral and political isolation, especially not one whose citizens consider millions living overseas to be part of the nation as well.

Blake Flayton is the New Media Director and Columnist at the Jewish Journal.