The Jewish Journal Archive
March 6 - March 19, 1998
editorial
Converts: To be Rejected or Embraced?
In our February
20 issue we ran an op-ed piece by Brandeis Professor Jonathan Sarna.
He made comparisons between Jews "by choice" and "born
Jews." Jews who have chosen their faith are more spiritual, attend
synagogue more often and are more observant at home than born Jews,
he states. However, "they are diffident about Klal Yisrael." More troubling to Sarna is that 50
percent of converts would not be bothered a great deal if their children
converted to Christianity. Converts' ties to the fold don't "easily
transfer across the generations." He fears that converts will
be one-generation Jews.
A different
view is presented by Brandeis University's Gary Tobin in this issue.
Those who are so fearful that their children will be potential Gentiles
are creating a self-fulfilling prophesy, he says. The walls of Judaism
must be permeable for Judaism to prosper. He advocates active promotion
of conversion in order to create a more exhilarating, interesting
and accessible faith community.
While Sarna
presents a logical argument, it lacks heart and understanding. We
embrace the welcoming, equitable attitude expressed by Tobin.
It is the
worst kind of feeling to be rejected by one's religious community,
whether it is one that a person was born into or has adopted by choice.
Too many people have felt frozen out of their local community of Jews
because they have intermarried or for other unfair justifications,
such as being widowed, poor, single or childless.
The conversion
crisis, which is driving a wedge between the Orthodox and the Conservative/Reform,
is fueled by a faction of extremists in one stream of Judaism refusing
to allow the others to even think of obtaining equal status. This
has gone on too long, and the determination of the Conservative and
Reform leaders to say, "Enough!" will ultimately make for
a stronger Jewish community - not one that will merely survive, but
one which will be stable, influential, and bountiful.
Despite the
Orthodox Chief Rabbinate's rejection of the Ne'eman Commission's plan
to establish an institute for potential converts, progress is being
made. Many moderate Orthodox rabbis and leaders are now stating their
willingness to work with Conservative and Reform rabbis for the sake
of Jewish unity, for Klal Yisrael. The formation of the Ne'eman Commission
itself is a significant first step by the Israeli government in recognizing
the legitimacy of the more liberal streams of Judaism. As Israel approaches
its 50th anniversary, we can celebrate the country's vast achievements
politically, and now, with some light at the end of the tunnel, we
can sense the beginnings of religious equality on the horizon as well.
arts & entertainment
'Old Wicked Songs' Come Alive in Newton
JUDITH
KLEIN
Jewish Journal
Staff
Two-character plays
are a challenge - both for the actors and for the audience. There
are lots of words to articulate and to digest. And there is not a
lot of action to distract. After all, no one can die, or the play
will become a monologue instead of a dialogue. Neither character can
leave the set for long, or the audience is left watching the remaining
character talking to him/herself or performing some exciting feat
such as opening a letter. What action there is generally takes place
on one set. I am reminded of plays like Night Mother, Frankie and Johnnie, and Love Letters.
With these limitations
in mind, and having just returned from watching what felt like a cast
of thousands perform The
Scarlet Pimpernel on multiple
sets in New York, I ventured to Newton to see Old Wicked Songs presented by the Jewish Theatre of New England at the
Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center.
The old wicked songs
of the title refer to the works of Robert Schumann and are interwoven
throughout the play. The two characters are Mashkan, portrayed by
Mitchell Greenberg, an old Austrian professor of voice, and Stephen
Hoffman, played by Barry Abramowitz, a young American piano prodigy
who has lost his ability to perform. Hoffman comes to Vienna planning
to study with a pianist who will teach him to be an accompanist. Instead,
he finds himself with a vocal coach who insists he must sing in order
to understand how best to accompany. Hoffman is a reluctant student,
full of anger, angst and attitude. Mashkan is a nearly broken man,
often bent on self-destruction. Through their evolving relationship,
both reveal their pasts, conquer some harmful ghosts in the process,
and open up to new possibilities in their lives.
The dialogue is spiced
with clever repartee, as each tries to get the better of the other.
There are many sight gags, when the professor peeks over his spectacles,
or needs to be walked around to wear off his alcohol/drug overdose,
or when Hoffman mugs with his hat. The humor gently spares the audience
from only the tragic elements of these two men's lives.
Mitchell Greenberg
reprises the role he played in the show's New York run. A native of
Brooklyn, his Broadway and Off-Broadway credits include Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Threepenny Opera, Can-Can,
The Chopin Playoffs, and Scrambled Feet. He also has a long list of regional, television and
movie credits. His performance in Old Wicked Songs is both comic and full of pathos, sympathetic and exasperating.
Just as Mashkan admonishes Hoffman to feel the joy and the sorrow
in a song, Greenberg conveys both sides of his character convincingly.
Abramowitz is equally
engaging as Hoffman, though at times he inhabits his character less
than fully. Hoffman begins the play so uncomfortable with himself
and his development is mirrored by his more relaxed clothing and mien.
As Abramowitz plays the part in the coming weeks, he will undoubtedly
reach a firmer comfort level as well. Abramowitz holds his MFA from
Brandeis, and has many credits in Boston area shows such as The
Taming of the Shrew at the
Worcester Forum, and Pump
Boys and Dinettes at the
Charles Playhouse.
New York credits include
shows at LaMama, the Gene Grankel Theatre, the Soho Rep, and the Ensemble
Studio Theatre.
The set is an impressive
recreation of the professor's room at the university, complete with
the old, beautiful cornices and fading wallpaper of a formerly grand
building. A Victorian couch shares the forefront with a baby grand
piano. Books are stacked everywhere, though one wonders why there
are books instead of sheets of music. An old victrola seems somewhat
out-of-date for 1986. Still the overall effect is of a lavish past
which has not embraced the present or future. While the actors at
times played the piano themselves, most of the accompaniment was pre-recorded
and activated by a switch on the piano. Although they were invisible
to the audience, the keys actually move, and the piano operates like
a high-tech player piano.
Technically, the show
was impressive, both for the set, the sound, and the lighting. Different
times of day were easily understood by the changes in lighting coming
through the large windows of the room.
The theater is recently
renovated with the stage expanded to become much wider. The seating
is what seemed like function chairs on risers, and while the sight
lines are fine, the comfort of the seats leaves something to be desired.
Old Wicked Songs was
written by Jon Marans and was a finalist for the 1996 Pulitzer Prize
in drama. While it is a wordy play which demands close attention from
the audience (we've all been lulled by sound bytes and movies of titanic
proportions), the story of self-revelation and unshackling from the
chains of the past is both amusing and intriguing. As a Schumann song
expresses, it is about "the dreams, wicked and grim: Let's bury
them."
The play runs through
March 22. For more information, call the box office at 617-965-5226.
Group rates are available by calling the Group Sales Hotline at 617-558-6486.
Mandy
Patinkin Returns to His Roots with 'Mamaloshen"' (Mother Tongue)
Mandy
Patinkin, whose musical, film and television career has taken him
from sold-out Broadway shows to an Emmy Award-winning role in TV's
Chicago Hope, just released Mamaloshen (Mother Tongue), his
third solo album on Nonesuch Records. A celebrated singer of popular
standards, Patinkin presents this 16-song collection, performed with
full orchestra, guest vocalist Judy Blazer, and violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg.
Born
into a Jewish immigrant family on the south side of Chicago, Patinkin
grew up in the 1960s hearing popular music and also Yiddish standards,
some sung by his father. But it was another father figure - the legendary
producer Joseph Papp, who gave him his first break at New York's Public
Theater - who urged Mandy to take the musical journey back to his
Yiddish roots. "This is your job," Papp said in 1990 to
the singer-actor who would soon be called "the greatest entertainer
on Broadway by Clive Barnes of The New York Post.
Mamaloshen,
which follows Patinkin's best-selling Nonesuch recording Oscar
and Steve, has been all these years in the making. The songs range
from well-known Yiddish standards like Raisins and Almonds
and Oyfn Pripetshik, to Rabbi Elimeylekh and Der
Alte Tzigayner, to new arrangements of Irving Berlin's God
Bless America and Paul Simon's American Tune.
"Yiddish
is not a religious language; it is a street language," says Patinkin.
"Like everybody who has ever left home, I wanted to preserve
the street, the neighborhood, that corner of my heritage. It's not
my intention to literally trace the history of Jewish or Yiddish music,
or its journey to America, but I have always been interested in what
Jewish musicians and composers have done to assimilate. I think all
these writers - Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim,
Paul Simon - did write Jewish music."
The
new release is available on CD ($16.99) and on cassette ($10.99) at
In One Ear, 282 Derby St., Salem, MA 01970, or by mail. For mail orders
add $4 for postage and handling. The Jewish Journal/North of Boston
will receive $3 from each sale.
feature
stories
Young
Mother's UJA Mission to Cuba
BETTE
WINEBLATT KEVA
Jewish Journal Staff
As
a mother of three young children, Stephanie Simon sadly had to give
up going on one mission after another offered by United Jewish Appeal's
Young Leadership Cabinet, of which she is a member. UJA has sponsored
trips to Poland, Israel and Czechoslovakia, which she could not attend
because they spanned 10 to 14 days - far too long to be away from
her children.
When
a four-day trip to Cuba arose, she jumped at the chance. Her husband,
Jay Epstein, and other relatives would care for the children while
she visited Havana and met some of the the 1,800 Cuban Jews living
on the island.
During
an interview in her Marblehead home last week, Simon recalled an "amazing
trip which changed my life." It wasn't until her husband picked
her up at Logan Airport and she was halfway home that she burst into
tears from all that she had seen, and from all the emotion that had
built up in her.
"I
thought we would see a lot of old Sephardic Jews who were sick, too
poor to leave the country. I thought most would have loved to have
come to the United States. Since my background is Ashkenazi, I thought
I'd feel they were my people only in a distant sense. All three notions
were blown out of the water!"
Simon
described a "beautiful" city of Havana, but one which has
been left virtually untouched since the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Like
a time warp, the UJA group walked around the city seeing cars built
in the 40s and 50s. However, there were very few cars there, virtually
no transportation, and no new construction in 40 years.
Simon
met people who walked an hour and a half to get their children to
the Sunday morning Hebrew school in Havana.
The
39-member Young Leadership group "stayed in luxury hotels and
ate in fabulous restaurants. Many of us complained to the UJA travel
coordinator. We felt it wasn't appropriate. She told us there was
no alternative." Either the accommodations in other hotels and
restaurants were even fancier, or they were mom and pop shops with
only two or three tables, serving food that the organizers could not
guaranty would be sanitary.
Simon
imagined from the ornate arches and mosaics that Havana once was a
jewel. Now, so much is shabby, crumbling, and overcrowded. "Anyone
who owned housing prior to and during the Revolution, was allowed
to retain ownership. As a result there typically are three generations
living in one apartment," said Simon. Havana has a population
of 47,000 people per square mile.
The
American Joint Distribution Committee's presence is strongly felt
in Cuba. Children would go hungry, if not for the Joint, she said.
"The
Joint bought the good will of the government by setting up a network
of US doctors who come on rotations to Cuba every five or six weeks.
They treat the general public, not just Jews." Often the doctors
bring all their own equipment and medicines because it either doesn't
exist in Cuba or is outdated." Simon, along with every person
in her group, brought an extra suitcase filled with medicines and
toiletries which they left in the basement of the Havana Jewish Community
Center &emdash; enough for three months.
After
speaking with the Youth Councilors of the Jewish community, Simon
learned that the food situation "is almost desperate." There
is a rationing system whereby people use coupons for food. There is
a kosher butcher in Havana. People can purchase two pounds of meat
a month, five pounds of rice, a few pounds of soybeans, a slice of
bread a day, an egg every other day, a few pounds of beans a week.
Even with the coupons, food is not always available.
Simon
observed that though the Cubans did not appear thin, their diet is
heavily based in starch rather than protein. "The people aren't
emaciated, but they are horribly malnourished."
Though
it is difficult for North Americans to grasp, the Cuban people are
happy, said Simon. One Jewish woman told her "What you see here
is poverty, not misery."
The
Jews of Cuba traveled there from Poland, Russia, Germany and other
European countries. A small Sephardic population came early in the
century. Their children married within the faith until 1959. After
the Revolution, religion was "discouraged greatly" and Jews
began marrying out.
Today,
however, Simon sees a Jewish renaissance emerging. People are embracing
religion. As television viewers saw this month when Pope John Paul
visited Cuba, there is a sea change occurring among the public, and
religion figures prominently in it.
While
Simon envisioned seeing "police on every corner" and bus
drivers informing on what her group said, she saw instead a "loosening
up" of authority. "Things are getting better. Fidel Castro
is 72. The political and economic structure isn't going to last much
longer." People the UJA group spoke with didn't speak ill of
Castro. They felt he was doing the best he could, yet the government
"is just not working."
Simon
described the "renaissance." There are three houses of worship
for Jews: a Sephardic one-room shul; a huge Conservative temple seating
1,000; and a small Orthodox congregation.
Simon
said there is no Reform temple, and there are no rabbis on the island.
To perform the 130 conversions to Judaism in the past one and a half
years, rabbis were flown in from Argentina. These rabbis also officiated
over other Jewish life events, such as the 80 brit milah since
1992. There are 60 students attending the Hebrew school in Havana.
"I
saw where our Federation dollars go. People here complain about the
JCC or this or that. In Cuba, those dollars are buying milk for children.
The funds are purchasing a breakfast and a lunch. This is 60 miles
from the US! These are kids who don't have enough food to eat,"
exclaimed Simon. The Joint, providing breakfasts and lunches for the
children when they come to Sunday Hebrew school, "is a miracle.
The Joint is a lifeline."
She
spoke about watching a performance that the Hebrew school children
dramatized for the UJA group. She felt "joy" yet it scared
her. They sang the same Hebrew songs her children sing: Dovid Melach
Yisroel and Hinei Ma'atov. It occurred to her that these
could be her children "but for the grace of G-d."
When
people offered them a stick of gum or candy, the children took it
politely. When a UJA group member gathered up rolls that weren't touched
after a meal and passed them out to the children, Simon was astonished
to watch them stuffing the bread into their mouths. "The scene
is burnt into my mind."
Despite
the difficult conditions and shortages of food, medicines, electricity
and transportation, Cuba is trying to build tourism. The feeling from
the people, according to UJA officials, is acceptance and survival.
A law passed in 1996 allows foreign investors to own 100 percent of
their businesses.
At
the conclusion of the mission, participants learned that the Jewish
people of Havana gather on Friday evenings for Kabbalat Shabbat, but
because they cannot afford challah, they welcome Shabbat with left
over matzah from the Passover donations. The UJA group decided to
pool their contributions to provide them with challah, chicken, wine
and candles. The group raised $18,000 - enough for Shabbat dinner
for one year.
The Great Purim Epidemic
ADAPTED
AND RETOLD BY HERSH GOLDMAN
Jewish Journal
I like listening to the stories old people tell. They have a lot
of experiences and if a story stands out in their memories it's going
to be an interesting one. This Purim story was told to me by an elderly
Jewish doctor while he was giving me a general checkup. The doctor
has long since passed on. But this, more or less, is the story about
The Great Purim Epidemic. All the names have been changed.
There's
one Purim (heh, heh) I'll never forget. I was just a little pitzeleh
(pipsqueak) then. Oh, this was even before you were born. All the
Jews in the city lived on just two streets, Birch and Lincoln Streets.
Everybody knew everybody. We had two shuls. The Russian Jews davened
(prayed) at one, that's where my family went. And there was the other
where the Litvaks (Lithuanian Jews) went to pray. Sometimes my buddies
and I would visit the Litvesheh shul when we didn't want our parents
at the Russian shul to know what we were up to.
I
was playing ball with my friends in an empty lot when we heard the
shammes (sexton) of the Litvesheh shul calling, "Hey, boyiss.
Hey, boyiss. Come here. I have something for you." He was standing
on the shul steps with a hammer in his hand, and he asked if we would
each like to make a quarter. A quarter was a big deal in those days.
My mother wouldn't even send me to the store on an errand with that
much money. We told the shammes that we'd do anything he wants.
He led us into the shul and showed us the wooden bench that he was
working on. He shook the bench so that it wobbled and creaked. He
said, "This shmatteh (rag) you can say already kaddish
for it. It should have been thrown out years ago. The shul says,
"why spend money when you can fix the old bench." So all
the time I'm fixing the bench and all the time somebody is hurting
his toches (behind) on it. The only way to get a new bench
is to break the old one." The shammes pulled his beard
with both fists for emphasis. "I mean really break. You
know how we bang and klop on Purim during the Megilla reading every
time we hear 'Haman.' Well, this time I want you boyiss to do it extra
hard, especially on this bench. If the bench lives through Purim we
will be stuck with it for another year. But if you break it you will
have a big mitzvah and a quarter for each of you."
We
came to the shul for Purim and we banged on that old bench until our
hands and feet were sore. The bench was a lot sturdier than we expected.
One of us ran home and came back with a baseball bat. We took turns.
We broke the bench alright. The people started yelling, "Throw
them out. Throw them out before they destroy the whole shul."
The shammes came over. We thought he was going to stick up
for us. Instead, he threw us out. When we asked for our money the
double-crosser slammed the door and locked us out. We said, "they
can't do that to us and get away with it."
We
found our way back into the shul through a small cellar window left
unlocked. We had brought with us lots of black pepper for our mission
of retribution. The shul was heated by a hot air system from the coal
furnace in the basement up through the floor of the shul. We threw
handful after handful of black pepper into the furnace. It wasn't
long before the congregation was sneezing and wheezing. We could hear
them from down in the basement. I don't know how those people managed
to stay in shul for the whole Megilla reading.
All
the Jews in the city had one doctor, Doctor Krankman. Everybody from
the Litvesheh shul crowded at Dr. Krankman's house (also his office)
to be treated for the "sneezing epidemic." The doctor saw
us through his window as we sat on the rail fence in front of his
house. He noticed us laughing as we watched the shul patients coming
and going. The doctor called us aside and said, "I know you kids
are mixed up in this. You better tell me exactly what you did if you
know what's good for you." After we told him the whole story,
Doctor Krankman scolded us and had us promise that we would never
try anything like the "pepper prank" again. He sounded very
angry and we were anxious to get away from him. "Wait! I'm not
through with you," he called out as we were trying to leave.
He said, "My business was never better." The doctor then
smiled and gave us each 50 cents.
international
news
Ethiopian
Jews Coming Home
NANCY
ZUCKERBROD
Washington Jewish Week
WASHINGTON
(JTA) - Every day in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, roughly 2,000 Jews come
together in a crowded compound to learn about Jewish rituals and prayer,
Israeli culture and Hebrew.
In
a few months, these Ethiopians, known as Falash Mura, will have their
prayers answered - the compound will close and they will go home to
Zion.
"The
Ethiopian government has been very cooperative," said Avi Granot,
Israel's ambassador to Ethiopia. "Anyone who wants to leave Ethiopia
can."
According
to Israeli officials, some 3,500 Ethiopians who are believed to be
Jewish and who are living in the northern province of Gondar, where
Jews have historically resided, could also come to Israel within a
year.
The
Falash Mura are leaving the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa at a
rate of 400 per month, according to Gadi Baltiansky, a spokesman for
the Israeli Embassy in Washington. That's more than three times what
the average rate of emigration from Ethiopia to Israel has been over
the last few years.
Several
American activists say the change in policy stems from a recent legal
settlement between the Israeli government and the Israeli Ethiopian
rights organization South Wing to Zion, among others.
But
Baltiansky said it was a government decision that dates back to last
June. He said it took time for Israeli officials to verify that the
Ethiopians trying to go to Israel were of Jewish descent, which has
apparently been verified.
"Their
Judaism can't be questioned," he said.
The
Falash Mura currently in Addis Ababa, or recent generations before
them, converted to Christianity or assimilated out of Judaism. Israel
deemed them not Jewish and left them behind in 1991, when it airlifted
some 14,000 Jews out of Addis Ababa during Operation Solomon. This
came seven years after the first airlift, Operation Moses.
Since
then, the Falash Mura remaining in Ethiopia have returned to Judaism
and live Orthodox lives centered around the compound. They are aided
by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the North
American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry.
That
these Jews will finally be able to leave is "thrilling,"
said Rabbi Avis Miller, associate rabbi of Adas Israel Congregation
in Washington, who visited Ethiopia in 1989.
With
the plight of Ethiopian Jews waiting in Addis Ababa apparently near
resolution, the Israeli government is turning its attention to Jews
living in Gondar.
"We
saw a community there that is in very critical condition. They are
very sick," said Avraham Neguise, an Ethiopian Jewish activist
who recently visited the region in northern Ethiopia, along with officials
from the Jewish state.
Neguise
said in a telephone interview that he met with a family of 11 that
had buried five of their children in the past two years. Their journey
to join other Falash Mura in the city of Gondar from the isolated
region of Lower Quara, near the Sudanese border, was treacherous.
The
Israeli envoy to Addis Ababa, Avi Granot, confirmed that assessment
in a telephone interview.
Granot
said the difficulty of the journey partially accounts for why it took
so long for this group of approximately 1,000 Jews to get to Gondar.
The
ambassador said another 2,000 Jews are still living in villages in
Quara.
"Every
effort is being made to secure the aliyah of the remaining Jews both
in Gondar and in Quara,'' Granot said.
Easing
of Iraq Crisis Doesn't Put Mideast Peace Back on Track
LAURA
KING
HEBRON,
West Bank (AP) - Squinting against the cold sunshine, Palestinian
shopkeeper Abed Samir Isseileh chose his words carefully as he tried
to explain how his outlook on the peace process had changed lately.
"Before,
it was like a winter, but one that might be followed by spring,"
he said. "Now it seems like a winter that won't ever end.''
In
recent weeks, the threat of a U.S. war with Iraq had cast a cloud
over Israeli-Palestinian peace hopes and tarnished America's image
among Palestinians. So reason would dictate that the easing of that
crisis should brighten peace prospects and defuse anti-U.S. sentiment.
But
a different, dark rule seems to apply here: When it looks like things
ought to get better, they have a way of getting worse.
Since
the U.N.-brokered pact on Iraq, Israel and the Palestinians have already
quarreled over what constitutes a real peace overture. Tensions in
the Palestinian lands, rather than diminishing, have spiked even higher.
And many Palestinians still harbor deep doubts about America's ability
to serve as a fair Mideast mediator.
"It's
all part of the same question," said Isseileh, the Hebron shopkeeper,
whose mattress-and-pillow store is in the shadow of a mosque where
an Israeli settler gunned down 29 Muslim worshippers during dawn prayers
four years ago Wednesday.
"The
United States doesn't put pressure on Israel to abide by agreements
as it did on Iraq," he said. "How can we trust America to
be fair in all this?''
The
fact that the Clinton administration refrained from what most Palestinians
would have considered an unjust strike on Iraq did not do much to
improve its standing.
"It
was just a lot of showing off,'' scoffed Hebron laborer Hussein Nahaneh.
"So they didn't attack - why were they throwing their weight
around like that to begin with?''
Mideast
peacemaking was frozen during the Iraq crisis, but there was little
sign that either the Israelis or the Palestinians used the lull to
consider new proposals.
Within
hours of the weapons-inspections agreement in Baghdad, both sides
were staking out familiar and inimical positions in their own long-running
dispute.
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for Camp David-style talks under
U.S. auspices to try to reach a permanent peace agreement with the
Palestinians.
The
Palestinians could barely contain their irritation at what they considered
grandstanding: They have long insisted such talks could take place
only after promised Israeli troop pullbacks from the West Bank - something
the prime minister knows all too well.
Palestinian
officials, who say they expect a U.S. message Thursday that may herald
a new initiative, made it clear they consider the ball to be in the
Clinton administration's court.
The
two sides did make what they described as progress on a secondary
issue, toward the long-delayed opening of a Palestinian airport. But
there was no sign of any easing of the overall, yearlong deadlock.
Had
the Iraqi weapons-inspection standoff culminated in a U.S. strike,
both Israel and the Palestinians would have had a lot to lose.
Israel
faced the prospect, though perhaps remote, of becoming an Iraqi target,
as it did during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Yasser Arafat and his
Palestinian Authority risked an explosion among their people that
could have endangered Israel as well: potential out-of-control riots,
and a new threat by the radical Islamic group Hamas to attack.
Both
Israel and the Palestinians reacted to the Iraqi crisis with a measure
of theatricality - but the theatrics overlaid some real fears.
Israeli
leaders from Netanyahu on down said Palestinian shows of popular support
for Iraq showed they weren't serious about peacemaking. But while
the hard-line Israeli government may have seized on the Palestinian
rallies to score public-relations points, many Israelis were genuinely
rattled by the sight of protesters screaming, "Beloved Saddam,
send your missiles to Tel Aviv!''
Palestinians,
for their part, claimed Israel was exploiting the crisis, enjoying
the respite from U.S. pressure to curb settlement-building and agree
to a troop-pullback plan.
At
the same time, though, Arafat reverted to a pattern of behavior that
has infuriated Israel in the past: saying one thing and doing another.
While officially forbidding pro-Iraq demonstrations, he did little
to enforce the ban; his Fatah faction even organized some of the protests.
One
reason that the rallies truly were hard to contain, however, was that
they were fueled by Palestinian frustration over their own plight.
That
anger has been much in evidence in recent days, with scenes reminiscent
of the six-year intifadah: predawn Israeli sweeps of West Bank
refugee camps, rough house-to-house searches, hails of stones from
young Palestinians on the rooftops.
On
Wednesday, in the Kalandia refugee camp north of Jerusalem, Israeli
border police fired at a Palestinian mob menacing a trapped Israeli
officer. No one was injured, but use of live ammunition is a drastic
step, allowed only when troops are confronted with what they consider
clear and present danger.
In
Hebron, a frequent flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence, the
mood was ugly Wednesday as Israeli troops prevented a Palestinian
fruit-and-vegetable vendor from leading his donkey-drawn cart too
close to an Israeli settlement.
A
sullen crowd watched soldiers jostling the wooden crates of oranges
and potatoes. A young man with a handful of stones crouched on a nearby
roof.
"I
can't put my trust in the Americans or anyone else to help us,'' said
93-year-old Abed Hakim, rubbing his rheumy eyes. "Only Allah
can solve our problems.''
letters
to the editor
Don't
Scapegoat Jews by Choice
Jonathan
Sarna's insulting piece on people who convert to Judaism ("Committed
Today, Divorced Tomorrow," Feb. 20) is a perfect example of why
Jewish law prohibits the separation of these people into a separate
category ("converts") that will only be used to make them
second-class citizens within Jewry. Whether he realizes it or not,
Sarna attempts to do just that!
However
- to invoke and reverse his stereotypes - since Sarna is a "born
Jew," he undoubtedly "subordinates" the religious aspects
of Judaism and is "diffident about" halachic considerations.
By his own admission, "ethnicity" is more important.
Sarna's
study contains two basic flaws that should be evident to anyone with
a critical eye:
(1)
His sample of "born Jews" is restricted to the organized
Jewish community - hence, the most involved "born Jews."
Had he included "born Jews" who are unidentified, uninvolved,
or completely hidden through assimilation, his findings would have
been quite different.
(2)
His sample of "converts" is restricted to those Jews who
are willing to be labeled as such. I suspect that this favors people
who convert via the liberal rather than the traditional branches of
Judaism. Again, this skews the data.
Isn't
it time that Jews stopped trying to deal with the problem of Jewish
continuity by scapegoating Jews who weren't born Jewish?
Judith
Antonelli
Brookline,
MA
Police
Chief is 'Too Nice' for Some in Webster
I
am a resident of the town of Webster, and a friend of Chief Faer.
I first met him when he was a part-time sergeant. He had gone to the
neighboring town of Contoocook to fill the cruiser with gas, and I
was stranded there because my truck had broken down. I saw the Webster
Cruiser and flagged it down. I explained my predicament, and asked
for a ride. He told me that he really wasn't supposed to, but he did
anyway. That's the kind of man he is. A good, very good man.
One
of the reasons - in my opinion - that Chief Faer has problems in this
town is that he is a good man. Certainly a much better man than any
of the three selectmen, and I feel they resent that. Another source
of problems for him has nothing to do with his religion. He simply
refuses to kiss up to the woman who has run the town for over 20 years
as Town Administrator, or to be solicitous toward any of the "old
time" residents. Chief Faer prefers to treat everyone equally.
This is the way that a police officer is supposed to treat people,
isn't it?
The
Jewish Journal article of Feb. 6 quotes Selectman Richardson as
saying "...Steve was moved up because he was the next guy in
line." This is an absolute lie. When former Chief Roy retired
- under a cloud of budget mismanagement - there was a selection process
for the first time in Webster's history. Chief Faer was asked to submit
a resume. After extensive research, it was found that he was the most
qualified canditate.
I
am not Jewish. I say that because some people in this town tend to
get hostile toward the members of the Jewish Defense League [of Greater
Boston] who have attended town meetings with Chief Faer. I want people
to know that it's not just people of one particular religious belief
who are supporting Chief Faer. It's people who just don't like the
sneaky, devious, underhanded things that are being done in this town,
and people that just plain like Chief Faer as a person. Because that's
what it should be all about.
Anthony
P. Costine
Webster,
NH
local
news
Interfaith
Passover Seder Welcomes All
JUDITH
KLEIN
Jewish Journal
Staff
"When people do
things together, they understand each other," believes Sandy
Sheckman, assistant executive director of the Jewish Community Center
of the North Shore and administrator of Seminars in Adult Jewish Education
(SAJE). "It breaks down barriers and misunderstandings,"
she avows.
For these reasons,
the JCC, SAJE, and the Jewish Federation of the North Shore are joining
the New England Chapter of the Anti-Defamation League to host their
second biannual joint interfaith seder on April 5 at the JCC. "Our
goal is to invite non-Jews to experience a Jewish tradition and holiday,
to feel welcome and learn," explains Sheckman. "If we invite
people into our house &endash; in this case, the JCC - it furthers
peace by stopping prejudice."
The cooperative effort
grew out of A decision in 1995 by SAJE and the JCC to sponsor more
interfaith programming. That year, they created a four-session series
which featured Professor Marvin Wilson of Gordon College in Wenham,
and attracted more than 500 people. Following on this success, the
organizations joined with ADL in 1996 for the first joint seder, created
an interfaith Sukkot celebration, and began germinating the impetus
for an interfaith trip to Israel which just left this week.
An important component
of the evening will be the presentation of the first Leonard Zakim
Humanitarian Award to Rabbi Samuel Kenner of Temple Shalom in Salem
and Deacon John Whipple of Star of the Sea Church in Marblehead for
their work in furthering interfaith understanding. Zakim is the director
of the ADL-New England Region and a prominent figure in the field
of building tolerance and fighting bigotry. Under his direction, the
ADL-New England Region has organized interfaith seders on the North
Shore for six years as well as Black-Jewish and Irish-Jewish seders
in the Greater Boston area.
The upcoming seder
will accommodate 420 people. The evening will begin at 6 p.m. Anyone
over the age of eight is invited to participate. A $5 fee will entitle
guests to a full-course kosher seder dinner catered by Green Manor,
though additional donations are requested. Rabbi Edgar Weinsberg of
Temple Beth El will lead the service and Cantor Sara Geller will chant
and sing. The Haggadah which will be used was created by the former
San FrancisCo congregatIon of Rabbi David Meyer of Temple Emanu-El
as a "family-friendly" inexpensive alternative to more costly
versions. Meyer used the Haggadah to lead the first interfaith seder
sponsored by the ADL on the North Shore six years ago.
Students from Gordon
College, St. John's Prep in Danvers, and other schools are expected
and invited to attend. Families and school groups can call 781-631-8330,
ext 388 for reservations. The deadline for reservations is March 26.
The interfaith seder is being subsidized by the Jewish Federation
of the North Shore through the Trinitas Foundation.
SAJE's First
Interfaith Journey to Israel Begins
BETTE
WINEBLATT KEVA
Jewish Journal Staff
What began as adult
Jewish enrichment classes here on the North Shore took a major leap
forward this week. The developers of the popular 4-year-old SAJE series
(Seminars for Adult Jewish Enrichment) carried their program across
the seas into Israel on March 2, where Rabbi Samuel Kenner of Temple
Shalom in Salem and Dr. Marvin Wilson of Gordon College in Wenham
are leading program participants on an interfaith tour.
Even in the midst of
the crisis which brought the US to the brink of war with Iraq a week
before the group was to leave, none of the 30 participants who signed
up for the program ever suggested that they wanted to drop out. On
the contrary, according to SAJE Coordinator Sandy Sheckman, two more
people enrolled, and others called her to say they hoped the trip
wouldn't be canceled.
"I'm encouraged
that these people are really serious," said Sheckman who has
a duel role as assistant executive director of the Jewish Community
Center of the North Shore. The JCCNS and SAJE planned the trip to
coincide with Israel's 50th anniversary. The goal is for "Christians
and Jews to rediscover their shared roots together." While much
progress has been made in interfaith relations over the years, SAJE
leaders say there are still misunderstandings and anti-Semitism. Sheckman
wants to see "fewer barriers between people."
Arriving by Swiss Air,
the group toured the Arab town of Jaffa, then stayed at the Carlton
Tel Aviv overnight before heading for Caesarea.
Coincidentally, this
trip is the 22nd time both Kenner and Wilson will have separately
traveled to the Jewish State.
"I have seen the
land in different contexts, predominantly with Christian groups,"
said Wilson. "In the Galilee, we will take a look at the life
of Jesus and its impact on Jewish life. Copernium was the headquarters
for his teaching. We will visit Nazareth where he grew up. Jesus both
unites and divides people. He unites Christians and Jews; you cannot
understand the Gospels until you understand the Jewishness of Jesus.
Christians have to deal with Judaism."
"At the same time,
the religion developed about Jesus, Christianity, was predicated over
the watershed that divides Christians and Jews. Jesus in that sense
becomes a very curious figure of history, uniting and dividing.
There will be a Christian
service at the Mount of Beatitudes overlooking the Sea of Galilee.
"We are going to consider the teachings of Jesus which are profoundly
Jewish, including the Lord's Prayer, a very Jewish prayer."
The Jewish component
of the tour will be led by Rabbi Kenner who was not available for
comment while this story was being written.
Reverend Ruth Stallsmith
will be among the participants. It will be her first trip to Israel.
She will assist Dr. Wilson in leading a worship service and two baptisms
in the Jordan River. She will also be involved in a Christian service
on the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus is said to have given the
Sermon on the Mount.
Rev. Stallsmith first
became a student of Wilson's in 1985, taking a modern Jewish culture
class. "I was devastated with the history of the Christian Church
and the pain we caused the Jewish people. I fell in love with the
Jewish people and their graciousness to me." The pastor became
deeply involved in Jewish/ Christian dialogue and education since
then. "That is where my heart is," she said.
Stallsmith followed
the progress of negotiations between the US and Iraq over the past
few weeks. Even before the trip began, it was a learning process for
her to follow the news of possible chemical weapons attacks on the
Israeli people,a fear that Israelis have had to live with every year
of their short existence as a state. Stallsmith said she had no qualms
about going to Israel, "only sympathy with the Israelis."
She heads the 132 member Memorial United Methodist Church of Beverly.
Linda Lerner and Audrey
Weinstein, two initiators of SAJE, are among the participants of the
trip. On the itinerary are: visits to kibbutzim, Safed, Nazareth,
Mt. Scopus, Western Wall, Citadel Museum, Church of Holy Sepulchre,
Gethsemane and Mount of Olives, Yad Vashem, Supreme Court, Church
of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Gush Etzion, Masada, Dead Sea, and finally,
a Purim celebration in Jerusalem.
The interfaith trip
grew out of the SAJE interfaith series of lectures by Wilson and a
panel of North Shore religious leaders held in the fall of 1995 at
Salem High School. "We realized the Jewish and non-Jewish communities
wanted to pursue what we started, and not just drop it," said
Sheckman.
The next SAJE series
will be at Temple Beth Shalom of Peabody in May. It will deal with
Jews who are mentally ill, alcoholic, abused or abusing.
national news
Brandeis, at 50, Returning to Jewish Roots
URIEL
HEILMAN
The Jewish Advocate
As Brandeis University
prepares to mark its 50th birthday, the Jewish-sponsored, nonsectarian
university founded in Waltham the same year the State of Israel was
established, appears to be experiencing a resurgence of Jewish life
unparalleled in the school's brief history.
While the number of
Jewish students at Brandeis has remained relatively constant in recent
years, students and faculty alike point to an increase in Jewish activity
on campus, a growing number of Jewish institutes sponsored by the
university and a renewed interest in Jewish affairs and community
as indicators that Brandeis is returning to its Jewish roots.
It is not difficult
for longtime members of the Brandeis community to pinpoint the beginning
of this Jewish resurgence: the 1990 resignation of former university
president Evelyn Handler. During Handler's seven-year tenure, Brandeis
reportedly lost considerable support in the Jewish community as a
result of a drive toward diversification seen coming at the expense
of its Jewish character. When interim president Stuart Altman donned
a yarmulke during Brandeis' first commencement ceremonies after
Handler's departure, it was considered a harbinger of change on campus.
But, says Jonathan
Sarna, Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American History
at Brandeis, it was not until Jehudah Reinharz's assumption of the
presidency in March 1994 that Brandeis took a crucial step back toward
matters Jewish.
"President Reinharz
has been able to articulate a vision for the university that makes
its ties to the Jewish community central to what the university is
about," said Sarna in a recent interview. "He glories in
the university's Jewishness."
Born and raised in
Israel, Reinharz is the first Brandeis alumnus to become president,
and his close ties with Jewish leaders and academics in the United
States and Israel are regarded as a boon for the university. Fund
raising has increased, university administrators report, and during
Reinharz's tenure more than 12 Jewish-related centers and institutes
have been created at Brandeis.
The young president
is being credited for wooing back into the fold Jewish supporters
who had been estranged from Brandeis and attracting the support of
big-name Jewish leaders nationwide, among them industrialists Charles
Bronfman and Max Fisher and filmmaker Steven Spielberg.
"Brandeis is a
microcosm of world Jewry, and this imposes special obligations upon
us," Reinharz told The
Advocate. "We are seen today by the Jewish community as the
think tank and action center of the Jewish community."
In the past year alone,
Brandeis has launched several programs to address Jewish issues, among
them the Fisher Bernstein Institute on Jewish Leadership and Philanthropy,
the Genesis Program for Jewish youth and the International Research
Institute on Jewish Women. Brandeis' close association with the New
Jewish High School in Waltham, which sits adjacent to the Brandeis
campus and uses university facilities, is seen as reflecting the college's
renewed focus on Jewish education.
'Huge identity
problem'
While not everybody
has been happy with Brandeis' turn back toward Jewish affairs, Reinharz
remains unapologetic. "I define very clearly what Brandeis is,
knowing full well that some people will not like it," he said.
"Brandeis is unique. There is no other university which has service
to the Jewish community as part of its mission."
For some, Brandeis'
special role remains complex and ill-defined.
"Brandeis has
a huge identity problem," said Elisheva Rovner, Hillel director
for student activities and former president of the Orthodox Organization.
"The conflict is that on the one hand Brandeis wants to maintain
its unique role at the forefront of the Jewish community, while on
the other it has a desire for diversity."
This conflict is reflected
in the student body, according to Dahlia Kronish, student president
of Brandeis Hillel.
"While students
at other schools know they have to be active to remain Jewish, most
people here figure that the simple act of being at Brandeis fulfills
their need for a Jewish identity," she said. Slightly less than
two-thirds of the student body is estimated to be Jewish.
Hillel Rabbi Albert
Axelrad, who has been a fixture at Brandeis for 33 years, attributes
the recent growth in Jewish student activity to the influx of greater
numbers of traditional Jews.
"The yarmulke
count on campus is higher than it has ever been," said Axelrad,
who pointed to the burgeoning Orthodox community as the most impressive
of those changes.
The Orthodox presence
at Brandeis has more than tripled in the last decade, according to
Brandeis Orthodox Organization student president Todd Kammerman. After
students initiated a recruitment drive five years ago designed to
appeal to day school and yeshiva graduates, the traditional community
has grown by leaps and bounds, he said.
Shabbat services have
grown so large that seating space has become a problem, prompting
Reinharz to acknowledge that the creation of a new Hillel building
to accommodate this growth is "clearly one of the next things
we need to do."
Rabbi Says
Human Cloning Could Benefit Mankind
LESLIE KATZ
Jewish Bulletin of Northern
California
SAN FRANCISCO - Human
cloning.
Wouldn't Jewish law
prohibit such an act because it undermines the natural world God created?
Not necessarily. If
used for therapeutic ends, the practice would be condoned by Jewish
law, according to an Orthodox expert on Jewish medical ethics.
"If it's perfected
with timexcloning could have tremendous benefits for mankind,"
said Rabbi Pinchas Lipner, speaking Saturday evening at the ninth
annual International Conference on Jewish Medical Ethics in Burlingame.
During a nearly three-hour
session at the Park Plaza Hotel, he joined Drs. Charles Epstein and
Kenneth Shine and other rabbis in advancing a debate that has replayed
itself in national headlines ever since the birth of Dolly, the now
infamous cloned sheep.
Following the Scottish
sheep's arrival in the world, reports on the specter of human cloning
flooded the media, resulting in a flurry of legislative activity.
The White House called for a five-year ban on cloning humans, and
anti-cloning legislation was filed in the Senate.
But Saturday night,
panelists urged the public and legislators to slow down, take a deep
breath and determine what cloning would and would not mean. It is
unlikely, they said, to mean we'll be bumping into exact duplicates
of ourselves or Albert Einstein in the street anytime soon. In fact,
one doctor explained, cloned organisms are not completely identical
to those that spawned them.
But cloning could mean
producing cells and tissues that could prove useful for people whose
own specialized cells and tissues - bone marrow or liver, for example
- are no longer viable.
Lipner argued that
halachically there is no basis for disallowing human cloning. Most
rabbis, he pointed out, consider the acquisition of knowledge for
the sake of finding cures for human illnesses to be divinely sanctioned,
if not mandated.
Because the Torah forbids
standing idly by and not saving a human life, cloning, were it to
be honed, could ultimately be viewed as an obligation.
And because Jewish
law would consider cloning for certain purposes legal, Judaism would
also view the practice as ethical.
"What is ethical
in Judaism is legal, and what is legal is ethical," Lipner pointed
out. "We don't divide the two."
In the Jewish view,
chief among the potential benefits of human cloning would be helping
infertile couples procreate. "In Judaism, having children is
a very serious matter and families that can't have them could possibly
[do so] through cloning," said Lipner, dean of San Francisco's
Hebrew Academy and its Institute for Jewish Medical Ethics, which
sponsors the conference.
Lipner also acknowledged,
however, that human cloning could lead to unknown consequences. He
urged taking a measured approach to research and developing moral,
ethical and legal guidelines.
Banning a practice
before fully understanding its implications, he added, would be wrong.
Earlier in the evening,
Shine also addressed the current anti-cloning climate. He charged
the press with whipping the public into a science fiction-inspired
frenzy over the very notion of cloning.
"Whether it's
Monica Lewinsky or Dolly, the media in this country gets into frenzies,
and it's extremely difficult to determine what's reality," said
Shine, president of the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy
of Sciences in Washington, D.C.
"In a period of
hype, people come along who want to ride the gravy train."
In examining the public
outcry over the possibility of human cloning, Shine, who is also a
clinical professor of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center,
addressed the important interplay between science and society. In
his view, society must sometimes set limitations on the directions
science takes.
As an example, he cited
biological warfare, which is "doable from a scientific point
of view but inappropriate from an ethical point of view."
On the other hand,
he said that the increasing intrusion of politics and theology into
science - he cited bans on embryo research as an example - has a chilling
effect on progress.
"The result is
that whole areas of science that could be beneficial, either as a
result of a direct product or a spin-off, don't happen."
Shine agrees with the
National Biomedical Advisory Commission, which has recommended a moratorium
on the cloning of human beings until more information is gathered.
"We don't know
if you clone someone, if you're going to have more congenital abnormalities,
more genetic defects."
opinion
A Case for Pro-Active Conversion
GARY
TOBIN
Cohen Center,
Brandeis University
Jews do not have an intermarriage problem.
Rather, they have the challenge of redefining the structure, meaning
and purpose of Jewish civilization. The Jewish community must not
fear that all of its children and grandchildren will be potential
Gentiles. Instead it must embrace the belief that many Americans are
potential Jews.
Because religious and ethnic walls are permeable,
Judaism's rationale must be attractive to those who are born Jews,
or they will choose to leave. And it must be attractive to those who
were not born Jews who may choose to become part of the Jewish people.
For Judaism to prosper in the marketplace of America's religions,
it must actively promote conversions, creating a process that is open,
interesting, exhilarating and accessible.
Whether or not Judaism will open its gates
is a key question for the future of Jewish life in America. Jews will
continue to intermarry and some will leave Judaism, no matter how
successful identity and community-building efforts are. Without efforts
to grow the Jewish community will stagnate. A strong core of two or
three million Jews can survive by recreating a self-imposed psychological
ghetto. They can continue to live under a siege mentality, always
worried about who they lose, the threat of survival and the possibility
that they will be destroyed. Jews are now worried that the stranger
will destroy them from within, not from without, and the commentators
refer to "genocide through intermarriage."
The Jewish community cannot be strong and vibrant
without growth. Keeping destruction at bay is not equivalent to growth,
which involves expansion, evolution into new forms and increases in
size and variety. Jews in America must do something that Jews have
not approached actively for a very long time - devise strategies for
including others.
Promoting conversion must take place in two
realms. The first is promoting religious conversion. This is the process
through which individuals become part of Judaism as a religion by
understanding its laws, its forms of worship, its ritual observance
and so on. Most discussions of conversion focus on religious conversion.
But the Jewish comunity must also promote cultural conversion. Cultural
conversion takes place through the adoption of values and norms of
Jewish peoplehood - the customs in terms of language, history, mythology,
self-views and institutional participation.
Actively promoting conversion will require
the abandonment of the current approach of grudging acceptance of
those who can clear all the hurdles that a hostile institutional and
organizational network puts in front of those who might consider being
Jews. Judaism must have new adherents, supporters and practioners.
Jews cannot continue to hoard their heritage as a birthright only
and inhibit others from swelling and reinvigorating their ranks. If
Jews are strong, they will be able to acculturate others into their
people's story and future. If Jews are too weak and too afraid to
take the risk of recruiting and helping others to be Jews, that fear
will create a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby Judaism diminishes
by degree. The organized Jewish community is so obsessed with intermarriage
weakening the state of Jewish life that it will help create that which
it fears the most.
It is important for Jews to maintain the normative
imperative to marry other Jews. The growth and vitality of the Jewish
community depend on the formation of Jewish households and the transmission
of the Jewish religious and cultural traditions within the family.
The radical change that is necessary, however, is the departure from
believing or emphasizing that marrying a born Jew is preferable to
marrying a Jew by conversion. The Jewish community cannot send a message
that a born Jew is a better Jew, a preferable marriage partner or
more legitimate than a Jew who chooses Judaism. The problem is subtle
and profound. Conversion cannot be promoted as a defense, a stop-gap,
a line of last resort, the second best choice to marrying somebody
who was born Jewish. Conversion must be advocated as equal, an equivalent
and desirable choice for the Jewish people. The prevention strategy
implies that Jews by conversion are second best.
Does anyone really believe that the non-Jew,
a potential convert, does not hear this messageÉ "First
marry a born Jew. If that doesn't work out, then and only then, marry
a convert, which is better than the disease of a mixed marriage?"
Protestations that this is not the message, that converts are fully
part of the Jewish people, that the Jewish community welcomes them,
considers them the same as born Jews, are a denial of the messages
that are often sent.
Jews should declare that it is good for Jews
to marry other Jews. There need be no shame, apologies or second-guessing
about saying that the formation of the Jewish family is a powerfully
positive event and that an unambiguous Jewish household provides a
rich framework for life. The Jewish community must, of course, help
provide that rich fabric and a meaningful Judaism.
To then say that the preferable entrance to
that world is through the bloodline creates an implicit inequality
in the merit of both the marriage and the family. Judaism must open
up its psychological and institutional gates for real. Standards should
be maintained for ritual conversion. But the suspicion, testing, second-guessing
and reluctance need to be discarded now.
Gary Tobin is the director of Brandeis University's
Center for Modern Jewish Studies, and author of the forthcoming book,
"Opening the Gates: How Active Conversion Can Revitalize the
Jewish Community." This article was reprinted with permission
from JTS Magazine. On Feb. 20, an opposing view by Brandeis Prof.
Jonathan Sarna, was published here.
Reprinted from JTS Magazine
A Woman's Voice
Spinning the Web
MARLENE
ADLER MARKS
After spending months moderating a weekly chat
room in America On Line's Jewish section, I finally found Emes, someone
I could really talk to.
It happened a few weeks ago, following an hour
of lively conversation about Monica Lewinsky: Is she a "Nice
Jewish Girl" or not? Naturally, given the red hot nature of the
news surrounding her and President Clinton, everyone had an opinion,
even those who pretended to be unaware that Monica was Jewish. ("Polish,
right?" was the general first response.)
More than 40 people usually show up for these
nightly national gabfests timed to distract those on the East Coast
from the first half hour of Jay Leno. I've come to enjoy the hour
I spend there, though it does remind me of the year I spent as a high
school substitute teacher. You have to keep the kids in line.
I keep the topics upbeat but religiously generic.
This is not because chat room attendees are agnostics or disinterested
in spiritual affairs. Quite the contrary. They are all devout, all
definite, all completely self-assured. They will defend until the
rooster crows a point of view, whether about God, or kashrut or
anything else, including the absence of Israelis in the ice dancing
competition at Nagano.
I steer the group away from issues of contemporary
religious politics, but rarely succeed for long. Jew fighting Jew
is catnip; some can't resist.
It was different months ago. When I first began
hosting the chats, the custom of a nightly topic was honored more
in the breech. For a few weeks my chats were filled with scary anti-Semites
shouting (all caps is a shout) HEIL HITLER. Boy, were we Jews polite
to each other then!
But these days, since I've learned how to use
my Tough Jewish Broad power to take control of a room (I cry to the
nearest AOL official who ejects them forcibly), the anti-Semites are
gone. And I've learned that, left to themselves, without a common
enemy, a room full of Jewish strangers will quickly deteriorate into
bitter intramural battles over "Who is a Jew?"
Really. Every single week I have to break up
verbal fist fights between otherwise educated men and women over some
minor issue of tradition or biblical hiccup. The words that we use
toward each other's conversions (- "You're treif,"
someone called out), our husbands and lovers, our children, would
make your kindergarten teacher send the provocateurs to the corner
for a time-out. Every subject &emdash; whether it's the conduct of
today's Jewish teens, the problems of singles or the course of Middle
East peace, is attributed by some to the Reform policy of "patrilineal
descent" or the Orthodox rabbis in Israel calling liberal Jews
"criminals."
Not everyone of course is clambering for a
duel, but if there's one thing about chats, they're no holds barred.
Most of my guests usually stand silent (maybe they are on the West
Coast where they can watch "Friends" yet still keep one
eye cocked on the computer screen), but I know they are out there.
In chat rooms, you know who is with you because the screen name is
listed on a roster in the right hand corner.
They are there in more than name only: It sounds
eerie, but though I can't see them, I always feel their eyes peeled
on me. Chat room participants are activists by nature, and nuanced
listeners. They are ready to pounce on a factual misstatement ("Your
statistical pool is too small," said "LegalStats" the
other day, when we discussed the topic of Jewish singles), and to
take umbrage at some perceived slight or innuendo.
In a chat room, punctuation is the emotional
coin of the realm. We express ourselves with colons, semi-colons,
commas and parentheses. My guests often hear heavy breathing in the
drop of a comma or a missing ;-) (chat room code for "smile.")
At the same time we love to laugh. Chat room activists love a good
joke - "lol" means "laugh out loud", though my
friend Allen thought it meant "lots of love" and got scared
away. A chat room can be as riotous as a Borscht Belt evening with
[the late] Henny Youngman. You should hear 40 people going "lol"
"lol" "lol!!!!!!!" - at a punch line.
Beyond being hall monitor, a chat room host
is a position of power, the sole power to TYPE IN CAPITAL LETTERS.
"THAT'S IT," I'll say, "NO TALK ABOUT THE NEEMAN COMMISSION
FOR 10 MINUTES." Using my moniker, Wmnsvoice, I type away frantically,
trying to keep the Lower Cases from killing each other. In the anarchy
of the chat room, CAPITAL LETTERS CARRY SEX APPEAL.
And that's how I met Emes. The Lewinsky conversation
was almost over, but the heat was still high: my computer monitor
was filled with screen names talking excitedly back and forth about
what it might mean to the world that the White House intern was Jewish,
and whether assmilation and intermarriage were somehow to blame. About
10 minutes to the hour, I began to speak privately with those who
were about to leave. I ask if they have other subjects for future
weeks.
Emes, in a surprise move, asked about me. Did
I have children? I said I was raising a daughter. Emes spoke of sons,
the same age. We sympathized about the teenage years. I said I was
alone. Emes too was alone.
I felt the strange stirrings people often talk
about in chat rooms but I have never known. You meet a stranger across
a crowded chat room. And somehow you know... So this is why millions
come on line, I thought. I started to ask Emes where he lived, you
know, small talk. I wondered how tall he was.
"My husband just moved out," she
said.
Good thing no one could see me laugh. lol.
lol. lol!!!!
Marlene Adler
Marks is a columnist for the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. She hosts
the America On Line chat Thursdays at11 p.m. EST. Her email address
is wmnsvoice@aol.com
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