The (New York) Jewish Week . . . Connecting the World to Jewish
News, Culture, Features, and Opinions – Friday, 10 January 2014
Dear Reader,
We've got a bunch of treats on the website today.
From Studio JW, an interview with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach that
touches on such subjects as Iran, sexy rabbis and fear of intimacy. Too much
information? You decide.
FEATURED VIDEO
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
<iframe width="560" height="315"
src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9Zo6Fa2IIzo" frameborder="0"
allowfullscreen></iframe>
Heather Robinson of The Jewish Week and NYBlueprint speaks to
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach about Iran's nuclear program, Miley Cyrus, attention vs.
interest, fear of intimacy, sexy rabbis and more. Too much information? You
decide.
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If you think chocolate chip cookies have nothing new to offer
you, check Amy Spiro's "Nosh Pit" column for a secret ingredient that
will elevate the classic.
Classic Cookie, Secret Ingredient
A 'magic' addition to chocolate chip cookies brings them to a
whole new level.
Amy Spiro
Online Jewish Week Columnist
Yuk!
Okay
Good
Great
Awesome
Your rating: None Average: 5 (1 vote)
Chopping your own chocolate will result in little slivers
dispersed throughout the cookie. Amy Spiro
Practically everybody has a recipe for chocolate cookies.
Depending on your preferences, chewy or crispy, thin or thick, big chunks of
chocolate or little slivers dispersed throughout, there's a tried and tested
favorite for everyone. But I'm bettingmost people haven't tried this version,
with a secret ingredients transforms things completely.
The ingredient? Molasses. The first time I ever used molasses in
baking I was pretty hesitant; when I opened the bottle the whiff I got smelled
almost like soy sauce. But once baked it's almost a magic ingredient, adding an
incredible amount of chew to cookies (like this Ginger Molasses Cookie) and a
depth of flavor with some deep caramel notes that will keep your guests
guessing what's inside.
Amy Spiro is a journalist and writer based in Jerusalem. She is
a graduate of the Jerusalem Culinary Institute's baking and pastry track, a
regular writer for The Jerusalem Post and blogs at bakingandmistaking.com. She
also holds a BA in Journalism and Politics from NYU.
Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks/225g) butter or margarine, melted
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup dark molasses
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups chocolate chips or chunks (or finely chopped chocolate)
Recipe Steps:
Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3-4
minutes. Add in the molasses, eggs and vanilla and beat until all the ingredients
are well combined.
Mix in the flour, salt and baking soda then stir in the
chocolate until just mixed. Scoop about 1 tablespoon of dough out on to a
parchment-paper lined baking sheet, giving plenty of space in between since
these will flatten out quite a lot.
Bake on 350 F for 8 to 10 minutes until just golden brown. Let
cool on the pan for 4 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
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Also, lots of food for thought this Shabbat about the widening
split between the Israeli rabbinate and American Jews -- not just Reform and
Conservative, but now Orthodox, too. We have reflections on the latest from a
Reform rabbi who says "Welcome to my world," and Gary Rosenblatt's
take on the issue, too.
OPINION
Welcome To Our World: The Rabbinate Rejects Orthodox Jews, Too
Rabbi Steven A. Fox
It was inevitable. Once they came after Reform, Conservative and
other progressive Jews, it was only a matter of time until the Chief Rabbinate
turned on other Orthodox Jews.
In October, the Chief Rabbinate informed Rabbi Avi Weiss that
his letters regarding Jewishness and personal status would no longer be
accepted. Rabbi Weiss then published a blog calling for the end of the Chief
Rabbinate. This week the office of the Chief Rabbinate issued its reasons for
the decision, the first time such reasons have ever been published.
Rabbi Avi Weiss’s commitment to Halachah, combined with his
clear-eyed understanding of the world in which we live today and the need to
prepare contemporary Orthodox rabbis for this reality, make him one of the
great Jewish leaders of our time. (The same can be said for his successor,
Rabbi Asher Lopatin.)
In publishing its reason – that Rabbi Weiss shows insufficient
commitment to Jewish Law – the Chief Rabbinate presents a pre-text, not text.
Yet again they have:
1. Proven that the Chief Rabbinate is interested in protecting
its own status, powerand privilege, far more than it is interested bringing
people into Jewish life.
2. Perpetrated a fundamental abuse of human rights in Israel
where, because of the Chief Rabbinate, Jews are denied their right of free
expression and their right to live Jewishly.
3. Affirmed through their actions that the Chief Rabbinate
disenfranchises the vast majority of the Jewish people and its rabbis.
The Chief Rabbinate’s unilateral and unchecked control over
Jewish life in the State of Israel, with its cascading impact on Diaspora
Jewry, needs to end.
While I continue to feel badly for Rabbi Weiss, I also need to
say, “welcome to our world.”
For generations, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel has discriminated
against Reform, Conservative and other progressive Jews and their rabbis. It is
important to note, we are the largest contingent of Jews throughout the world.
The Chief Rabbinate tries to delegitimize our status as rabbis, and to deny
Judaism to the Jews we lead to Jewish life through marriage, conversion and
B’nai Mitzvah. The Chief Rabbinate seeks over and over to maintain its power
and control over financial resources in Israel.
Issue by issue, we need to wrest control away from those who
declare themselves to be Chief of Jewish life and to narrow their influence to
being Chief of A Small Circle of Orthodox life. We need to expand the rights of
all Jews to marry, convert, pray at the Western Wall and share in the State’s
financial support of religious life.
Rabbi Weiss said it perfectly: “The time has come... to
pronounce in clear terms that the Chief Rabbinate will no longer have a
monopoly on the religious dictates of the State... As the motto goes, power
corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Amen.
Rabbi Steven Fox is the Chief Executive of the Central
Conference of American Rabbis, the Rabbinic leadership organization of Reform
Judaism with 2000 rabbis leading 1.5 million Jews in synagogues, organizations,
military and other community settings.
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GARY ROSENBLATT
Time To Stand Up To The Rabbinate
Rabbi Avi Weiss not only diaspora rabbi Israel rejected; why
isn't the RCA speaking out?
Gary Rosenblatt
Natan Sharansky, the iconic hero of the Soviet Jewry movement
and chairman of the executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel, this week
characterized the Israeli Chief Rabbinate’s questioning of Rabbi Avi Weiss’s
rabbinic credentials as “absurd.”
Sharansky said that the “commitment and integrity” of Rabbi
Weiss, the longtime spiritual leader of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale and a
leading figure in the Modern Orthodox community, are “beyond reproach,” noting
that “by his teachings and his personal example he has inspired and raised
generations of Jews… with a deep commitment to the Jewish people and the State
of Israel.”
Rabbi Weiss has been in the spotlight since his name was made
public several months as being deemed unqualified by the Chief Rabbinate to
verify the Jewishness of a young couple planning to marry in Israel.
In fact, though, a number of other American Orthodox rabbis,
including Yeshiva University graduates, congregational rabbis of Orthodox Union
(OU) synagogues and members of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), have
had letters attesting to the Jewishness of couples seeking to be married in
Israel rejected by the Chief Rabbinate. In effect, the rabbis were told they
were not qualified to determine who among their congregants and constituents
was indeed Jewish.
Rabbi Weiss was the only one willing to go public — the others
preferred anonymity — and that complicated the situation. That’s because Rabbi
Weiss is a lightning rod of sorts. His outspoken views and actions in regard to
women’s ordination and his brand of Open Orthodoxy at the yeshiva he founded,
have made him a controversial figure within the RCA, where some colleagues are
urging the leadership to come to his defense and others call for his dismissal.
Now another North American Orthodox rabbi with none of
controversial baggage of Rabbi Weiss has come forward and expressed indignation
that he, too, was found to be unacceptable to the Chief Rabbinate for the
purpose of verifying that a young couple he knows well is indeed Jewish.
“I’m outraged that I would be disqualified,” Rabbi Scot Berman
told me this week. He received his ordination from the Hebrew Theological
College (known as “Skokie yeshiva”) in Chicago and has had a three-decade
history as a Jewish educator in Orthodox schools.
Rabbi Berman has been a principal and administrator at several
Orthodox day schools, including the Rabbi David Silver Academy in Harrisburg,
PA, the Ida Crown Academy in Chicago, the Kushner Academy in Livingston, NJ,
and the Yeshivat Ohr Chaim Bnei Akiva school in Toronto, where he now lives.
The Chief Rabbinate said he lacked the tools and skills of a
congregational rabbi.
Their decision “is indicative of the Chief Rabbinate’s lack of
understanding of the Jewish community in North America,” said Rabbi Berman.
“What tools do shul rabbis have more than school principals who are embedded
[in the community] and keenly aware of the constituents with whom they work?”
Rabbi Berman, a member of the RCA, said he shared the news of
the Chief Rabbinate’s decision about him with the group’s leaders and
colleagues during a meeting in Toronto last month. “No one responded verbally,”
he said.
He chose to step up now, in part, so that the community could
understand that the issue is about far more than Rabbi Weiss, who is initiating
a lawsuit against the Chief Rabbinate for questioning his credibility as an
Orthodox rabbi. (Rabbi Berman does not plan to take such action at this time.)
To be clear, this issue is not just about Rabbi Weiss and it’s
not just about Orthodox politics. It’s about how Israel’s two new chief rabbis,
Ashkenazi David Lau and Sephardic Yitzchak Yosef, elected to 10-year terms this
summer amidst hope they would present a more benign face to Jews in Israel and
the diaspora, are instead continuing their predecessors’ deeply disturbing
trend to monopolize and centralize rabbinic authority, limiting the autonomy of
Orthodox rabbis in the diaspora. And that is bad for Jews everywhere, splitting
us further apart as a people.
It is high time to speak out against this power grab on the part
of the Chief Rabbinate — and the passive response of the RCA, which has more
than 1,000 members in the U.S. and Canada. Despite its size, the RCA seems to
be cooperating in diminishing its own influence for fear of losing status with
a Chief Rabbinate few here or in Israel respect. And with good reason.
Over the last several decades the Chief Rabbinate has become
increasingly haredi in practice and narrow in scope, more eager to protect its
authority than to take a welcoming attitude toward an Israeli society
increasingly distanced from Judaism.
The rabbinate controls personal status in the state — marriage,
divorce, burial and conversion. Increasing numbers of Israelis have opted to
marry outside the country, often in Cyprus, to avoid an Orthodox ceremony. And
while there are hundreds of thousands of Russians with Jewish relatives living
in Israel, many of whom may want to become Jewish, the rabbinate has made the
process increasingly difficult, insisting on observance of all of the mitzvot
to qualify.
Several years ago the previous chief rabbis, Sephardi Shlomo
Amar and Ashkenazi Yona Metzger (who was arrested in November for fraud and
taking bribes), took control of Orthodox conversions in the U.S. Until then the
RCA had its own policy guidelines; its conversions, conducted by rabbis who
knew well the men and women with whom they studied and guided during the
process, were recognized in Israel. But the Chief Rabbinate moved to limit the
role of congregational rabbis and established a policy where only a select
number of bet dins could conduct conversions.
The RCA acquiesced rather than insist that its congregational
rabbis were best qualified to see the procedure to its fruition.
Some observers say the rabbinical group here lacked confidence
to stand up to the Israeli chief rabbis, who could have cut them out of the
process altogether. Others say a few RCA insiders enjoyed being the exclusive
North American conduits to the Israeli rabbinate.
Last October, Israel Correspondent Michele Chabin broke the
story in The Jewish Week about Rabbi Weiss’s letter for a young couple being
rejected by the Chief Rabbinate. But weeks earlier, such groups as ITIM, an
Israeli organization that helps people navigate the bureaucracy of the Chief
Rabbinate and government agencies dealing with marriage, divorce, conversion and
burial, and Tzohar, a group of religious Zionist rabbis in Israel dedicated to
making weddings and other Jewish rituals more appealing to society, pressed the
Chief Rabbinate on its decision-making methods. They wanted the chief rabbis to
explain how they determine which of the thousands of Orthodox rabbis in the
diaspora are approved for ritual participation and which are not.
The Chief Rabbinate acknowledged that it has no systematic means
of determining the credentials of diaspora rabbis so it relies on the advice of
a few trusted colleagues, some of whom are members of the RCA. It’s hard to
believe that this primitive method, prone to rumor, gossip and personal bias —
and administered by only one, mid-level, non-English-speaking official in the
Chief Rabbinate office — is employed by an agency of the government of Israel
in dealing with thousands of diaspora rabbis for official matters of personal
status.
“It’s completely arbitrary,” says Rabbi Seth Farber, the
director of ITIM, which has proposed to the Chief Rabbinate that it recognize
all members in good standing of Orthodox rabbinic institutions in the diaspora
that are at least 10 years old and have at least 50 members.
In that way, he points out, the decision of who is Jewish would
be decentralized and made within the various diaspora communities who know
their constituents best. “It’s a matter of trust” between the Israeli Chief
Rabbinate and the qualified local rabbis, Rabbi Farber says.
“If there is no mutual trust…” He left the sentence unfinished
but the message was clear.
Meanwhile, the RCA is trying to tamp down the public attention
and work out an agreement that would recognize its members as legitimate in the
eyes of the Chief Rabbinate.
But along with other major Orthodox institutions, such as
Yeshiva University and the OU, whose rabbinic constituents have been snubbed by
the Chief Rabbinate, the RCA has left Rabbi Weiss — and Rabbi Berman — out to
dry. Only this week did the organization come out with a brief, painstakingly
neutral statement on the controversy. It notes the group’s “cherished”
relationship with the Chief Rabbinate and expresses the hope of resolving
matters “in ways that will avoid the problems and embarrassments of these past
few weeks.”
The real embarrassment, though, is that the RCA cherishes a
relationship with a religious body that has veered from its sacred mission,
choosing to detach itself from, rather than embrace, the majority of the Jewish
people.
Gary@jewishweek.org
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Have a wonderful weekend!
Best,
Helen Chernikoff
Web Editor
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"Passing the Torch of Immortality"
The Elixir of Immortality
is a mesmerizing debut novel, by Gabi Gleichmann, spanning a thousand
years of European and Jewish history seen through the members of the Spinoza
family. This book blends truth and fiction through comic, imaginative,
scandalous, and tragic tales that prove "the only thing that can possibly
give human beings immortality on this earth: our ability to remember."
Read excerpt here:
Those who have read this far in my family narrative will recall
that in the year 1158 a rumor spread, reaching far beyond the boundaries of
Portugal, that the royal physician Baruch de Espinosa, whose potions could
transform spent old men into raging stallions capable of achieving ten or¬gasms
a day, possessed a supernatural power that banished illness and had by careful
cultivation produced a medicinal plant that frightened away death.
Eternal life, no less a mystery than love itself, has never
ceased to fascinate and confuse humanity. Many doubt its very existence. I
therefore intend to reveal to you the great secret, although in fact I am
formally forbidden to do so.
No Spinoza has ever revealed it to anyone—not to a wife, not to
his friends, not to his king or his lord—other than his eldest son. Because
Moses, the greatest prophet of the Jews, warned Baruch that the secret had to
be safeguarded by his children and his children’s children for a thousand
years, and as long as his descendants fulfilled their obliga¬tions, they would
wander with righteous mien among the peoples of the earth and the Lord would
watch over them. But should any one of them fail to carry out the Lord’s will,
their generations would be obliterated from the earth.
I have no children and no one to whom I can entrust the great
secret. I am the last of the Spinozas. Soon I will die. I have nothing to lose,
for with my passing our family will disappear from the earth anyway, and I have
no intention of taking anything with me to the grave.
My great-uncle taught me most of what I know about the lives of
my ancestors. But not even he was initiated in the great secret. It was
revealed to me when I read the phi¬losopher Benjamin Spinoza’s book The Elixir
of Immortal¬ity, which I inherited from my grandfather. The book has been in
our family’s possession for more than three hundred years and no outsider has
ever been permitted to read it. I myself began the study of it all too late in
life.
Benjamin Spinoza describes the secret plant that holds death at
bay. I cite here the philosopher’s words, as carefully chosen as the jewels in
the setting of a ring, precisely as they were written:
The secret plant—Baruch de Espinosa called it “Rai¬mundo” in
honor of his deceased friend—is produced by taking citronella, chamomile, St.
John’s wort, snow¬drops, and similar species and grafting these as close as
possible to one another along the root of a Zamia acuminata. The site of the
grafts is to be carefully watered once every third day with a potion compounded
of the liver of a guinea pig, the urine of a lemur, the mixture of Mith¬ridates
(consisting of wild thyme, coriander, anis, fen¬nel, and rue), along with
theriac (a compound of poppy seed and drimia maritima, known as sea onion).
The new plants never live longer than eight months and cannot be
transplanted or propagated.
The plant is dried in the sun for a month, following which a
tincture is prepared by soaking the dried leaves for thirty days in a medium
containing alcohol. The tincture should be agitated twice each day at intervals
of exactly twelve hours. At the conclusion of the month the tincture is
filtered through a thick cloth and left to settle for eighteen hours.
Seven drops of this preparation will hold Death at bay and give
eternal life.
One day when he realized that he was no longer fully in
possession of all his faculties and knew that he had lit¬tle time left before
he would meet his maker, Baruch in¬structed his eldest son, Simon, in the
secrets of cultivating the Raimundo plant and preparing the secret tincture.
First, however, Simon had to take a solemn vow never to reveal the secret to
anyone other than his eldest son and in no circumstances to prepare the potion
himself or ingest a single drop.
“I created the Raimundo plant because it was my wish that my
king should live and reign forever over the country,” Baruch explained to him.
“Afonso Henriques was a powerful man, one whose stern gaze terrified everyone
it transfixed. He hated disobedience more than anything in the world. If he
discovered one of his subjects was violating his rules and breaking his
commandments, he sent that person straight off to the torture chamber and his
zealous executioners. No one lasted longer than three days with those wicked
men and their special gifts in devising prolonged and agonizing executions.
Everyone lived in abject terror of the king and he knew it. But he was like a
father to me and he was vigi¬lant with his protection. That caused resentment
among the nobles of the court. They were so consumed with envy that they spread
slanders about me—they claimed I was some sort of lord of black magic, good for
nothing but poison¬ing people. I have always been weak and inoffensive, both in
heart and spirit, and since I was the only Jew at court, my position was
anything but secure. The nobles of the court presented themselves as honorable,
but many were as treacherous as vipers. They amused themselves by sneering at
me and speaking ill of me behind my back. After Afonso Henriques died, I
thought my days at the court were num¬bered. You must understand that my
principal concern in creating the Raimundo plant was for myself and for my
fam¬ily; I wanted the elderly king to live forever. But on the day that I was
preparing to administer seven drops of it to him, I suddenly had second
thoughts. It was as if something had exploded within me. The king had started
to show signs of senility and he was behaving atrociously. That day he be¬came
annoyed at a servant who had spilled a couple of drops of wine on the table.
Cursing under his breath, he picked up a dagger, struck the man, and gouged out
his right eye. I will never forget the servant’s scream of pain, his distorted
face, and the blood running down it. I tried to help the poor man, but the king
wouldn’t allow it. He smiled, derisive and scornful. It was impossible to save
the man’s eye. Then and there, I suddenly realized how repellent I found the
thought of an increasingly confused Afonso Henriques who would be eternally
punishing imagined enemies, torturing his loyal followers, and having them
beheaded. At that moment, I also realized that there is no greater curse on
earth than eternal life. Believe me: The setting of the sun lends weight,
beauty, and grandeur to our days. Life is short and that is our creator’s
single greatest gift to us. His other gift is death, for which we should be
humbly grateful.”
Simon listened with a grave expression on his face and wondered
if he had really grasped the meaning of that last remark in his father’s long
exposition. He couldn’t see how one could possibly feel grateful for having
inevitably to leave a world that seemed so splendid. But his respect for his
fa¬ther prevented him from following that thought any further. All he could say
was, “Father, you can live as long as you wish; all you have to do is take the
Raimundo remedy.”
“Simon, when one perceives that memory and mind are fading, it
is time to make a conscious choice and surrender to death. Remember, once one
reaches a certain advanced age it is only the fear of death, not the desire for
life, that keeps one imprisoned within one’s body.”
“I hear your words, Father,” Simon answered. “But don’t be
offended if I fail to understand everything. Why are you telling me all this
and entrusting the secret of the elixir to me and my descendants if it should
never be used? Wouldn’t it have been better to keep the recipe secret by
destroying it?”
“When I was young,” Baruch replied, “I once met an old man—I
believe to this day that he was our great prophet Moses—who thundered a
prophecy at me. If I obeyed the commandments engraved on his stone tablets,
discovered the great secret, and safeguarded it, my children and my children’s
children would go forth, heads high, for a thou¬sand years. That meant we are
destined to be the guardians of the secret of immortality. But if any one of us
fails to comply with his commandment, our line will end there.”
Baruch paused for a moment and then said emphatically, “You must
always be on your guard. Many are obsessed with the dream of eternal life and
are ready to do anything to secure the great secret. They will not hesitate to
murder you to obtain it.”
Simon listened attentively. He asked no more questions. He
promised again never to taste of the potion, to safeguard the secret, and
eventually to confide it to his eldest son.
The knowledge of the Raimundo plant and of the elixir of
immortality was scrupulously preserved by four genera¬tions of the eldest sons
of the Espinosas.
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Blogs
THE POLITICAL INSIDER | THE ROSENBLOG | THE NEW NORMAL | A
COMIC'S JOURNEY | WELL VERSED
THE NEW NORMAL
A Graduate Student Earns Her Doctorate, And Thanks The Parents
Who Inspired Her
Helen Chernikoff
Yesterday, I defended my dissertation, which explored the role
of religion on the daily livesof Jewish parents of children with autism. I am
grateful both to the people who supported me through the years – my family,
friends, classmates and professors – and also to the parents who participated
in my research.
Mothers and fathers of children with and without autism took
time out of their busy and stressful lives to complete my online surveys and to
do a phone interview for up to two hours. The parents of children with autism
face so many challenges, yet they shared their stories with me. Their positive
energy and strength amazed me.
At times when I find myself stressed out, I stop and think about
these moms and dads and how they manage everything. They cope with financial
challenges and family disruptions and fight ceaselessly on behalf of their
child.
Many of them simply want their family and child to be accepted
by others. Others want the opportunity to provide their family and child with
the chance to engage in Jewish traditions and practices. Some of the things
most of us take for granted are challenges for these families. Yet they stay
positive, maintain their Jewish background to the extent that is possible and
learn to appreciate every moment. These parents are role models. They enjoy and
appreciate life every day.
I hope that I have done justice in describing their lives. I
plan to publish portions of my dissertation in different research scientific
journals and hope that it will inspire other researchers and clinicians. These
parents need interventions and resources that will help them provide their
child with the best religious and secular experiences.
Dr. Frances Victory received her PhD in Developmental Psychology
at CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. Her thesis was titled,
"Exploring the Role of Perceived Religiosity on Daily Life, Coping, and
Parenting for Jewish Parents of Children with Autism." You can reach her
at victory.frances@gmail.com
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WELL VERSED
Devarim At Downton
Emily Snyder
Like many New Yorkers looking to escape the cold, I settled down
the other night with my hottest cuppa tea and delved into the world of Downton
Abbey.
A world full of good old English values, a world where the
introduction of a modern electric mixing bowl is greeted with alarm—and a world
that would likely go into an apoplectic shock at the very thought of peyot and
phylacteries.
While Downton has covered many important issues, including the
strife between classes, the “Irish problem,” the criminalization of
homosexuality, and the crumbling of an empire, it has yet to encounter
England’s history of anti-Semitism.
There was some hope in Season 2, for a dash of yiddishkeit when
it was revealed that the American-born Lady Grantham’s maiden name was
“Levinson.” But as the seasons
progressed, it became clear that Mrs. Patmore wouldn’t be serving challah any
time soon.
Imagine my surprise, therefore, when only 40 minutes into the
first episode of Season 4, Lady Violet—that venerable bastion of quips and
quotes, played to perfection by Dame Maggie Smith—suddenly quoted the biblical
Moses.
Speaking to her granddaughter, Lady Mary, still suffering from
the loss of her husband, Lady Violet said:
“Mary, you've gone through hideous time. But now you must
remember your son. He needs you very much.
The fact is, you have a straightforward choice before you: you must
choose either death or life."
“And you think I should choose life,” Mary concluded.
This theme continued through the remaining episode—and seems, in
fact, to be the theme of the whole series. “I put before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse. Choose life
so that your descendants might live.”
Every piece of art is a reflection of the artist. Therefore,
while questions of the British attitude towards class, female inheritance and
Catholicism will be doubtless remain of interest to series creator Julian
Fellowes, explicit questions of Jewish-English relations may remain as distant
from Downton as Lady Violet and the servant’s hall.
But for a moment — there was almost davening at Downton.
Downton Abbey, Season 4 plays on Masterpiece, Sundays at 9 PM,
now through February 23rd on PBS.
Emily C. A. Snyder is an internationally published and produced
playwright, whose work has been seen from Christchurch, New Zealand to Dublin,
Ireland. Her five-act iambic pentameter
play, Cupid and Psyche ~ A New Play in Blank Verse will be produced
off-Broadway for Valentine's 2014. She
is a member of the staff of The Jewish Week.
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Food & Wine
Nigel Savage reflected on and celebrated the Jewish food
movement at Hazon's conference. Yossi Hoffman
Hazon Conference Dispatch
Is the 'New Jewish Food Movement' still new, and a movement?
Natasha Rosenstock Nadel - Special To The Jewish Week
Just as hip chefs love to subvert classic dishes, so did the
participants at this week's Hazon Food Conference take a careful look at the
"New Jewish Food Movement" that the conference helped birth and has
supported over the seven years of its existence.
Maybe the movement shouldn't be perpetually new, suggested one
speaker at the three-day gathering at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat
Center in Connecticut, adding that maybe it's not really a movement, either.
“The food movement needs to grow up and have its bar mitzvah,”
said Rabbi Noah Farkas, congregational rabbi for Valley Beth Shalom in Encino,
CA and founder of Netiya, a large interfaith network working for food justice.
Trained as a community organizer at the Jewish Theological Seminary, he is in
the trenches building community gardens and feeding the poor and says, “We’re a
collection of people who love food, but you can’t call yourself a movement
until you act collectively. My challenge for the next seven years is that we do
this and that we become involved with other communities too, actually moving
the needle and changing the systems instead of creating alternative systems.”
But the three-day event, which started on Dec. 29 and culminated
in a New Year's Eve party, allowed for celebration alongside the reflection.
“Seven years ago we said there is something going on here and we
have to name it to catalyze it. We typed it in ‘Jewish Food Movement’ and there
were zero hits on Google," said Nigel Savage, founder and president of
Hazon. Today, the same search generates 110,000 results.
“Obviously, Hazon hasn’t done 110,000 things in the last seven
years. Many people have," Savage said. "But there is a movement; and
there is a growing interfaith food movement. I honor each one of us. The topic
is so huge that the goal of creating sustainable food systems is literally a
messianic goal. It’s not that we get somewhere and everything is fine.”
In the coming years, Hazon aims to plant 18,000 fruit trees;
make food festivals as common as film festivals; bring Jewish food education to
every community; expand kashrut within Jewish institutions to include food
policy and help Israeli sustainable food communities share the secrets of their
success with Americans, Savage said.
“I don’t come from a place where I’ve thought about food justice
and where my food has come from," said Itta Werdiger-Roth, neo-chasidic
hipster and co-owner of what the New York Daily News says “may be the world’s
coolest kosher restaurant," Mason and Mug. "I wouldn’t have those
thoughts now if you guys didn’t have them 20 years ago or seven years ago. In
the next seven years it’s important that these issues become more mainstream.
My family is constantly making fun of me for what I do and don’t want to eat or
why or what I don’t want my kids to have. Maybe in seven years I can make fun
of them.”
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