Friday, October 2, 2015
Dear Reader,
Rabbis are often in the news for regrettable reasons, but today we're offering you a crop of stories exploring important issues of spiritual leadership.
A Riverdale synagogue has hired its second rabba, or female rabbi, which affirms its position at the forefront of "Open Orthodoxy" but also puts it more at odds with mainstream Orthodoxy's rabbinical body.
New York
Riverdale Synagogue Appoints Second Woman As Rabba
Move at HIR seems to renege on Rabbi Avi Weiss’ promise; drives further wedge between centrist and ‘open’ Orthodoxy.
Hannah Dreyfus
Staff Writer
Rabba Anat Sharbat holds a doctorate in Talmud from Bar-Ilan University. Courtesy of HIR
They are the new Rabbanut, so to speak.
While Rabba Sara Hurwitz of Riverdale’s Hebrew Institute (HIR) made headlines in 2010 as America’s first Orthodox “Rabba,” the negotiated title for female rabbi, she now has company.
In its newsletter last week, the 600-family Orthodox congregation in the Bronx welcomed the newly appointed Rabba Dr. Anat Sharbat, the second woman to assume the role in the congregation. In her part-time capacity, Rabba Sharbat, who holds a doctorate in Talmud from Bar-Ilan University, will be assuming all pastoral responsibilities, including counseling, lecturing, and presiding at lifecycle events. She could not be reached for comment.
Though the appointment met with a unanimous vote of approval from the synagogue’s board of trustees (with three abstentions), the move seems to renege on a prior agreement made between Rabbi Avi Weiss, rabbi emeritus of HIR, and the Rabbinical Council of America(RCA), the largest coalition of Orthodox rabbis, that Rabba Hurwitz would be the one and only “rabba.” Subsequently the term “maharat” was used, a Hebrew acronym for “leader of Jewish law, spirituality and Torah.”
In 2010, Rabbi Weiss, then a member of the RCA, backtracked from his near-ordination of female rabbis under extreme pressure from the Orthodox right, agreeing instead to the rabba designation. At the time, the RCA expressed satisfaction at the controversy’s resolution and support for “appropriate” leadership roles for women.
Rabbi Weiss has since resigned from the RCA, citing the council’s refusal to accept graduates of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT), a more liberal rabbinical school that he founded, into its ranks. The leadership at HIR stressed that the agreement made between Rabbi Weiss and the RCA “was made under extreme duress” and remains completely independent of the synagogue.
Still, though the current leadership of HIR is under no obligation to honor Rabbi Weiss’ promise, the latest appointment signals an ongoing divide between different flanks of Orthodoxy, specifically with regard to the roles of women.
Rabbi Mark Dratch, executive vice president of the RCA, said he is “very concerned” about the divide, though he declined to comment directly on Rabba Sharbat’s appointment, citing Rabbi Weiss’ lapsed RCA membership. The synagogue maintains its status as an Orthodox Union-affiliated synagogue, though the OU declined to comment on the appointment.
“The growing tensions and unilateral moves have served to divide us in ways that are not healthy, helpful or good for the Orthodox community,” Rabbi Dratch told The Jewish Week via email. He noted that every “communal decision” must strike a balance among tradition, the needs of individuals, and the “integrity of the larger community as a whole.”
Rabbi Steven Exler, senior rabbi at HIR, expressed delight about Rabba Sharbat’s appointment, and stressed that the move had “overwhelming” support from the synagogue’s executive committee and board of trustees. (Rabbi Exler, a graduate at YCT, is not a member of the RCA.)
“We truly feel that the title Rabba, in our Bayit, represents Rabba Anat’s full rabbinic leadership in a woman’s voice,” he wrote to The Jewish Week in an email. “We would be honored if other synagogues felt similarly and chose to use this title for their female clergy as well.”
While the appointment met with little internal resistance this time around, it is believed that some members left the shul in 2010 when Rabbi Weiss first pushed for Rabba Hurwitz’s spot. A member of HIR, commenting off the record so as to avoid the politics of the situation, said that the congregants who left felt Rabbi Weiss’ decision was “authoritarian” and placed the progressive value of “feminism” over “democracy and transparency.”
“Many left over how Avi handled it, as much as over the halachic issue,” the person said.
Still, in the five years since Rabba Hurwitz’s controversial appointment, Orthodox feminism has made great strides. Yeshivat Maharat, founded in 2009 by Rabbi Weiss as the first Orthodox institution to ordain women as full spiritual leaders, successfully placed all of its 11 graduates at congregations around the United States, Canada and Israel. Though most assume the title Maharat, several others join Rabba Hurwitz in assuming the title Rabba.
“Five years ago, we took a big step in advancing women’s spiritual leadership. Like every big step, it came with risks,” HIR’s president, David Braunstein, told The Jewish Week via email, reflecting on the fierce backlash the shul incurred after Rabba Hurwitz’s 2010 appointment. “Looking back, it was definitely the right step for us. Our shul is healthier than ever.” He noted that membership is up 20 percent since 2010.
Sharon Weiss-Greenberg, executive director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA), described a “cross-pollination” effect between women ordained here and in Israel. Though Yeshivat Maharat remains the only orthodox institution in North America to ordain women, several institutions in Israel are appointing women to positions of religious authority.
“The more that individuals and communities experience what it is like to learn from women, the more they realize what had previously been missing,” said Weiss-Greenberg. “We’ve been missing out on the intelligence, passion and talent of half of our community for too long.”
editor@jewishweek.orgThe Reconstructionist Movement is grappling with some tension as well; the movement has decided to ordain rabbis who have non-Jewish partners, but some disagree with the move.New York
Smallest Movement Takes Big Step Toward Inclusion
Reconstructionists split on decision to admit and ordain intermarried rabbis.
Lisa Hostein
Special To The Jewish Week
The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in suburban Philadelphia. Courtesy of RRC
The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College’s historic decision to admit and graduate rabbinical students involved in interfaith relationships is stirring considerable debate within the Reconstructionist movement itself.
The much-anticipated policy change by the seminary’s faculty, which was voted on the day before Yom Kippur and announced on Wednesday, makes the movement the first stream of Judaism to officially permit clergy involved in relationships with a non-Jewish partner.
Reconstructionist rabbis in the field are split on the issue, with some thrilled at the outcome and others deeply distraught. Among the opponents, some are reluctant to publicly criticize the move on the record, others are voicing outright dismay and still others are reassessing their own and/or their congregation’s future relationship with the movement.
More than one rabbi voiced a reaction similar to a congregational rabbi who asked not to be named: “It’s a decision I would rather have not been made. I don’t think it’s a good decision for our movement or for the Jewish people,” the rabbi said.
Sandra Lawson, one of several current RRC students involved in an interfaith relationship — and one who will be most directly affected by the new policy — had a predictably different view. She said she was “excited that the school made the decision it did.”
“I believe it’s a move in the right direction,” said Lawson, who married her non-Jewish partner, Susan Hurrey, in August. Speaking via Facebook from Israel, where she arrived this week to spend a semester, Lawson, an African-American who converted to Judaism, added: “As far as our marriage goes, it just means that if Susan converts, it will be when she is ready and not by someone else’s timeline.”
The new rabbi at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism in Manhattan, which was founded by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, expressed an ambivalence similar to many Reconstructionist rabbis in the field.
Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Herrmann, who began her term in July, lauded the process that reached out to those beyond the college, but said it was a “tough call. I can really see both sides of the issue and both viewpoints have a lot of validity.”
She said she wanted to honor the “important role that interfaith families have in our community” and she believes that particularly among rabbis doing social justice or pastoral work outside the congregational setting, whom they marry is irrelevant to the work they are doing.
“Why bar people who would be very talented rabbis and pastors if they are doing good work in the world?” she wondered.
Rabbi Deborah Waxman, president of RRC, insisted that after a long and arduous process within the movement she has headed since January 2014, the decision to revoke the RRC policy banning the admission and ordination of students involved in interfaith relationships is the right move at the right time.
“We are proud to be the first to act in this way, and we don’t think we will be the last,” she said in a phone interview soon after announcing the decision Wednesday morning.
“We see the value of these inter-partnered Jews” and believe that “some of them will make outstanding rabbis.”
“We no longer want to prevent very wonderful and engaged Jewish leaders from becoming rabbis,” Rabbi Waxman said, asserting that intermarried Jews have already become “extraordinary” lay leaders in Reconstructionist congregations. “We believe that rabbis can be among those leaders.”
“The issue of Jews intermarrying is no longer something we want to fight or police,” she added. “We want to welcome Jews and the people who love us to join us in the very difficult project of bringing meaning, justice, and hope into our world.”
The Reform movement considered a similar move in 2014, but after an extensive exploration of the issue, decided not to change its policy barring the admission and ordination of students involved in interfaith relationships.
Rabbi Aaron Panken, president of the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion since June 2014, said there was extensive opposition to changing the policy, particularly among the HUC faculty and current Reform rabbis who argued that rabbinic leadership should be held to a different standard than the rest of the community, even in the Reform movement, which in many ways has led the way in outreach to interfaith families.
But in an interview over the summer, he left open the possibility that this position might change over time in the country’s largest stream of Judaism.
****
The controversial decision, made by just 16 voting faculty members of the Reconstructionist movement’s seminary, comes at a time of growing fiscal and sociological pressures. RRC merged with the congregational arm of the Reconstructionist movement in 2012 to address some of those economic pressures. The seminary’s enrollment and applicant pool has been shrinking — just eight students graduated this year, the same number as the newest class. The low numbers are threatening the school’s financial well-being and possibly even its accreditation. Opening the doors wider, the thinking goes, would bring in more applicants.
Rabbi Waxman said the decision was driven by “a commitment to principles and a vision for the future” rather than by the dwindling numbers. But she acknowledged that the school could benefit.
Jews under the age of 40, regardless of their relationship status, she said, “see the existence of this policy as deeply problematic and chauvinistic.”
She said she expects there will be an appreciation of the policy change among younger Jews and hopes that “among them, some will be interested in becoming rabbis.”
RRC has long been known as a welcoming institution for gay and lesbian students. It was the first movement to accept openly gay students in the mid-1980s, with the Reform seminary following soon after and the Conservative movement doing so only in the past several years.
The RRC faculty first voted to change its so-called Non-Jewish Partner policy in December 2013 without the knowledge of the rest of the movement, prompting considerable dissent. Rabbis and congregations argued that such a dramatic change in policy demanded a wider discussion.
RRC officials responded by opening up the process in advance of a second faculty vote, which is required of all policy changes. They sought input from — and dialogue with — the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association membership and asked their 100-plus congregations to engage their communities in a discussion and present a consensus position. Only 30 congregations complied with the request.
In a letter that went out to some 15,000 constituents and community leaders on Wednesday, Rabbi Waxman emphasized that along with the revocation of the Non-Jewish Partner policy, the college has “strengthened our admissions standards on reviewing an applicant’s commitment to Jewish continuity in their personal, familial and communal life.”
While Rabbi Waxman portrayed this addition as a compromise position, addressing concerns she had heard expressed, Rabbi Lester Bronstein, the spiritual leader of Bet Am Shalom in White Plains, said of all the compromise positions on the table, he thinks the one chosen was the most problematic.
This choice is “intrusive on the personhood of any of the candidates,” Rabbi Bronstein told The Jewish Week on Wednesday. It says you “can marry whoever you want but we’re going to police the vitality of your Jewish practice at home.”
Rabbi Bronstein, who has been outspoken in his opposition to a policy change and was instrumental in demanding that the process be open to the wider movement, went even further in expressing his disappointment.
“In response to this announcement, our board will appoint a committee to create a process where we, as a congregation, will engage in serious study, reflection, and discussion regarding our relationship to this policy change and to our movement,” a draft of the letter to his congregation said.
“There are no foregone conclusions as a result of this announcement, and our leadership and clergy remain committed to engaging in the process along with you, the members of our congregation.”
The new head of the movement’s Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association said she has already been inundated with emails this week, with some of her group’s 350 members applauding and others denouncing the decision.
The RRA members, only a minority of whom serves in congregations, are very diverse, said Rabbi Elyse Wechterman, who assumed her new role at the beginning of September. “We are not saying this is the greatest thing since sliced bread nor the worst thing to befall the Jewish people. Our rabbis are all over the place, and we are grateful the movement can have this diversity.”
At the same time, she acknowledged that some rabbis were likely to withdraw their membership, though she did not yet have the numbers to verify that.
Rabbi Mychal Copeland, who was a student at RRC in what she called a somewhat “closeted” interfaith relationship with a woman whom she has since married, is definitely not in that group. She said she is “thrilled” by the decision.
“There’s a powerful message for people who want to become rabbis, that they can be models, that their relationship isn’t a liability,” said Copeland, who now serves as the director of Interfaith Family in San Francisco, a group that helps engage interfaith families in Jewish life. This sends a message that if someone in an interfaith relationship can be a rabbinic leader, it means you can “have a rich Jewish life without the judgment and stigma that has come with it. This may even be the way to speak to a new generation.”
For her part, RRC president Waxman declined to reveal the breakdown of the RRC faculty vote — and all faculty members appeared to be under strict instructions not to discuss it. She said those involved were well aware of the gravity of this decision.
“No one in the process takes this historic decision lightly. We do feel that it reflects some of the realities in Jewish communities today,” Rabbi Waxman said. “Reconstructionism has always been predicated upon changing as Jews and Judaism change, even when these changes are emotionally challenging.”
Lisa Hostein is a former editor in chief of JTA and of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.What is spiritual leadership, anyway? One writer argues that rabbis need to go above and beyond common courtesy, and they don't do so enough.
Opinion
And As The Rebbe Apologized …
Joseph C. Kaplan
Joseph C. Kaplan
My email inbox and Facebook news feed were inundated in recent days with a link to an article in Tablet, “The Traveler’s Prayer” by Miriam Mandel Levi, which I strongly recommend. This thoughtful and moving essay by a ba’alat teshuva [returnee to the faith] of 25 years living in the environs of Jerusalem, concerns – spoiler alert from here on in – the author’s recent experience of being stuck in a parking lot for more than 30 minutes because the exit was blocked by two cars whose owners were nowhere to be found. When they finally appeared, one was a Ger chasid and the other the driver of the Ger Rebbe accompanied by the Rebbe himself.
The reader feels the author’s frustration as she experiences being locked in the lot, unable to take care of her errands and beat the afternoon traffic out of Jerusalem. Frustration turns to anger as the first chasid rudely ignores the author, then chastises her. And anger then morphs into incomprehension at the actions, actually non-actions, of the Ger Rebbe when the author, loudly expressing her pent-up anger, is barred by the Rebbe’s chasidim from directly confronting him. Ms. Levi, defeated and humiliated, returns to her car and inches out of the lot and down the block in a convoy headed by the Rebbe’s car.
And then the denouement. As the author sits in her car, a chasid runs down the block, motions for her to lower her window and conveys this message from the Rebbe: “He [realizes] he delayed you. He wasn’t aware that his driver had blocked the exit to the parking lot. He apologizes and asks your forgiveness.” Ms. Levi, understanding that the Rebbe was “the one person . . . behaving in the way we were supposed to, with sensitivity and compassion, in the image of God,” was mollified and replies to the Rebbe’s emissary “Thank you; please tell the Rebbe that I forgive him.”
A perfect Yom Kippur story (and it was on Yom Kippur that I read it); a story of sin, repentance, apology, and acceptance – the main themes of Yom Kippur – all nicely rolled up into one.
And yet. After heaving a sigh of relief of not being disappointed by the actions of an important Jewish leader, I thought of the many stories, obituaries and eulogies I heard over the years about various gedolim (great rabbinic figures) whose care and concern for all were, we were told, legendary. One learned the names of his yeshiva’s maintenance staff and always greeted workers kindly by name; one never failed to say a warm thank you to the toll collector as his driver crossed the bridge. Admirable traits and actions, indeed.
And yet. As I grew older, I began to realize that these actions and traits, as worthy as they were, were not those of leaders or great people. While certainly kind and polite, they were human traits, the ones my parents taught me and I tried to pass down to my children; they were values shared by decent people of all cultures and religions; they were simply the ways civilized human beings interact with their fellows. Nothing special reserved for leaders and role models.
So I tried to imagine what a true leader would have done in that dusty Jerusalem parking lot. Wouldn’t he (and since we’re talking about a Rebbe, it’s a he) have exited his car and, notwithstanding his community’s reluctance to engage in mixed gender encounters, expressed his apology publicly, personally and directly? Just imagine the impact that this, perhaps small, gesture would have made both on his chasidim, including those who would later hear about it. Just imagine how email inboxes and news feeds would have been inundated by the tale of a Rebbe apologizing for a mistake directly to a woman, in the public arena.
Leadership is an amorphous quality and has many definitions. The late Michael Hammer, a dear friend, once told me that the difference between a manager and a leader is that a manager gets you to do what he wants you to do, and a leader gets you to want what he wants. Having an emissary convey an apology was certainly the right thing to do and meets general standards of civil behavior. However, going against one’s societal norms to publicly apologize for an error and seek forgiveness could have done so much more: It could have had the ability to make the Rebbe’s chasidim want to do the right thing and act in a civilized manner.
Ms. Levi’s poignant story had a satisfactory ending. It could, however, have had an uplifting and inspiring one.
Joseph Kaplan, an attorney, lives in Teaneck, NJ.
Read more at http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial-opinion/opinion/and-rebbe-apologized#JQUjxUtV3m4shdVe.99Shabbat Shalom,
Helen Chernikoff
Web Director
THE ARTS
When 'Family Artifacts' Divide A Family
And As The Rebbe Apologized …
Joseph C. Kaplan
Joseph C. Kaplan
My email inbox and Facebook news feed were inundated in recent days with a link to an article in Tablet, “The Traveler’s Prayer” by Miriam Mandel Levi, which I strongly recommend. This thoughtful and moving essay by a ba’alat teshuva [returnee to the faith] of 25 years living in the environs of Jerusalem, concerns – spoiler alert from here on in – the author’s recent experience of being stuck in a parking lot for more than 30 minutes because the exit was blocked by two cars whose owners were nowhere to be found. When they finally appeared, one was a Ger chasid and the other the driver of the Ger Rebbe accompanied by the Rebbe himself.
The reader feels the author’s frustration as she experiences being locked in the lot, unable to take care of her errands and beat the afternoon traffic out of Jerusalem. Frustration turns to anger as the first chasid rudely ignores the author, then chastises her. And anger then morphs into incomprehension at the actions, actually non-actions, of the Ger Rebbe when the author, loudly expressing her pent-up anger, is barred by the Rebbe’s chasidim from directly confronting him. Ms. Levi, defeated and humiliated, returns to her car and inches out of the lot and down the block in a convoy headed by the Rebbe’s car.
And then the denouement. As the author sits in her car, a chasid runs down the block, motions for her to lower her window and conveys this message from the Rebbe: “He [realizes] he delayed you. He wasn’t aware that his driver had blocked the exit to the parking lot. He apologizes and asks your forgiveness.” Ms. Levi, understanding that the Rebbe was “the one person . . . behaving in the way we were supposed to, with sensitivity and compassion, in the image of God,” was mollified and replies to the Rebbe’s emissary “Thank you; please tell the Rebbe that I forgive him.”
A perfect Yom Kippur story (and it was on Yom Kippur that I read it); a story of sin, repentance, apology, and acceptance – the main themes of Yom Kippur – all nicely rolled up into one.
And yet. After heaving a sigh of relief of not being disappointed by the actions of an important Jewish leader, I thought of the many stories, obituaries and eulogies I heard over the years about various gedolim (great rabbinic figures) whose care and concern for all were, we were told, legendary. One learned the names of his yeshiva’s maintenance staff and always greeted workers kindly by name; one never failed to say a warm thank you to the toll collector as his driver crossed the bridge. Admirable traits and actions, indeed.
And yet. As I grew older, I began to realize that these actions and traits, as worthy as they were, were not those of leaders or great people. While certainly kind and polite, they were human traits, the ones my parents taught me and I tried to pass down to my children; they were values shared by decent people of all cultures and religions; they were simply the ways civilized human beings interact with their fellows. Nothing special reserved for leaders and role models.
So I tried to imagine what a true leader would have done in that dusty Jerusalem parking lot. Wouldn’t he (and since we’re talking about a Rebbe, it’s a he) have exited his car and, notwithstanding his community’s reluctance to engage in mixed gender encounters, expressed his apology publicly, personally and directly? Just imagine the impact that this, perhaps small, gesture would have made both on his chasidim, including those who would later hear about it. Just imagine how email inboxes and news feeds would have been inundated by the tale of a Rebbe apologizing for a mistake directly to a woman, in the public arena.
Leadership is an amorphous quality and has many definitions. The late Michael Hammer, a dear friend, once told me that the difference between a manager and a leader is that a manager gets you to do what he wants you to do, and a leader gets you to want what he wants. Having an emissary convey an apology was certainly the right thing to do and meets general standards of civil behavior. However, going against one’s societal norms to publicly apologize for an error and seek forgiveness could have done so much more: It could have had the ability to make the Rebbe’s chasidim want to do the right thing and act in a civilized manner.
Ms. Levi’s poignant story had a satisfactory ending. It could, however, have had an uplifting and inspiring one.
Joseph Kaplan, an attorney, lives in Teaneck, NJ.
Read more at http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial-opinion/opinion/and-rebbe-apologized#JQUjxUtV3m4shdVe.99Shabbat Shalom,
Helen Chernikoff
Web Director
THE ARTS
When 'Family Artifacts' Divide A Family
Based on a survivor’s experiences in forced labor camps, ‘Letters to Sala’ explores how one clan deals with its back pages.
Read more at http://www.thejewishweek.com/arts/theater/when-family-artifacts-divide-family#9P9DGLQyvrf4CzTY.99
Ted MerwinSpecial To The Jewish Week
Auschwitz-Birkenau. Majdanek. Treblinka. Bergen-Belsen. Sobibor. When we think of the Holocaust, the names of a handful of death camps spring immediately to mind - names that we recite ritually on Yom Kippur and on Yom HaShoah.
Read More
Auschwitz-Birkenau. Majdanek. Treblinka. Bergen-Belsen. Sobibor. When we think of the Holocaust, the names of a handful of death camps spring immediately to mind — names that we recite ritually on Yom Kippur and on Yom HaShoah. But, as new research over the past decade has shown, there were more than 30 times as many forced labor camps as extermination camps, and the experience of their prisoners is still, for the most part, yet to be told.This makes “Letters to Sala,” the Off-Broadway play by Arlene Hutton that opens next week, all the more significant. Based on a trove of more than 300 letters, postcards, photographs and other documents sent to Sala Garncarz, who survived seven Nazi work camps before coming to America, the play goes back and forth in time between Sala’s wartime experiences and her family’s internal struggle about whether or not to make the letters public. Directed by Eric Nightengale, it starts performances this weekend in Midtown.
Born into a large family in the Polish coal-mining province of Upper Silesia, Sala Garncarz’s life changed forever with the German invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. When her older sister, Raizel (Lila Donnolo) was ordered to report to the Geppersdorf labor camp in Germany, Sala (Britian Seibert) offered to take her place. The camp, one of dozens that were operated by Nazi leader Albrecht Schmelt on the borders of Germany and Czechoslovakia, was supplied with a constant flow of new workers by Moshe Merin, head of the Judenrat (Jewish civilian government) at Sosnowiec; he also helped the Nazis cull the infirm, elderly, and children for extermination.
But while Schmelt allowed the flow of mail, he provided starvation-level rations and housed the Jews in unheated, overcrowded barracks that caused many to fall ill and to be sent to death camps. In the latter half of 1942, Sala was transferred five times among Schmelt’s camps, each time preserving the letters that she had been sent by her family and friends, including Ala Gertner (Anne Bates), who was ultimately hanged for her role in the Sonderkommando armed uprising at Auschwitz. Liberated by the Russians on May 8, 1945, Sala met her husband, a corporal from New York named Sidney Kirschner (Steven Russo) at a Rosh HaShanah gathering in the Bavarian village of Ansbach.
Flash forward to 1991, when 67-year-old Sala (Anita Keal), on the verge of triple bypass surgery, suddenly presented her daughter Ann Kirschner (Alice Jankell) with the box from her childhood Spill and Spell word game; it was now filled with letters in Polish, Yiddish and German that she had never mentioned. (As Kirschner told The Jewish Week in an interview, “My mother was concerned that she wouldn’t survive the surgery and that I would find the box and see old pieces of paper written in languages that I couldn’t read — that I would discard what had been unbelievably life-affirming and precious to her.”)
But when she decided to make them public, Kirschner met with unexpected opposition from her own daughters, Caroline (Laura Kamin) and Elisabeth (Kate McGonigle), who felt that their grandmother’s story should be kept private. Kirschner ultimately published most of the letters in 2006 as “Letters to Sala: A Young Woman’s Life in Nazi Labor Camps” (New York Public Library), reprinted the following year as “Sala’s Gift: My Mother’s Holocaust Story” (Free Press). The letters, which were donated to the New York Public Library, were exhibited in the spring of 2006 and later toured the United States and Poland. In 2007 they were exhibited in the U.S. Senate rotunda.
Hutton was enlisted to write the play by the late Lawrence Sacharow, an Off-Broadway director who pioneered memoir and interview-based “biographical” theater. Hutton had scored successes with “As it Is in Heaven,” about the Shakers, and “The Nibroc Trilogy,” three plays about a young Southern couple before, during and after the Second World War. “Because I’m not Jewish,” Hutton said, “Larry said that I wouldn’t have a lot of baggage in writing the play.” She sees the theme as universal in scope, reflecting that “it’s about how we deal with our family’s history and what family artifacts mean to us.”
Anita Keal, who has just been tapped to play old Sala (replacing Kathryn Kates, who herself replaced Lynn Cohen), is Jewish and does feel a strong personal connection to the play. As a child in Philadelphia, she remembers her parents helping to bring relatives to this country to escape the Nazis. “Some of them got here,” she recalled, and, “although they had been bankers in Europe, were reduced to peddling ribbons to survive.” She and her husband recently visited Theresienstadt, where they saw a crayon drawing by a child that stated the child’s birth date. “It was my birth date as well,” Keal said. “It made me wonder what right I have to be alive.” She calls the play “exquisitely written and very complex — a crazy, wonderful rollercoaster ride.”
Debórah Dwork is the Rose Professor of Holocaust History and director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. Along with Robert Jan van Pelt, she contributed an essay to Kirschner’s original book that set forth the historical context of the letters. Dwork noted that it was only two years ago, with the publication of a New York Times article, “The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking,” by Eric Lichtblau (author of “The Nazis Next Door,” about Nazis hiding in America), that it became widely known that there were 42,500 ghettos and camps — a much higher figure than what most historians had believed — that the Third Reich built throughout Europe. They included 30,000 slave labor camps, 1,150 Jewish ghettos and 500 brothels filled with sex slaves.
“Over the past decade,” Dwork told The Jewish Week, “our understanding of ghettos and camps has widened. Schmelt didn’t care if his workers, who numbered in the hundreds of thousands, went back and forth to their homes or sent money — the paltry sums that the Jews earned — to their families. People labored in camps for a period of time and then went home. They remained tied to civilian life.”
Marisa Fox-Bevilacqua is making a film, “By a Thread,” about her mother’s experience working for four-and-a-half years in a textile factory that was part of a Schmelt camp in Gabersdorf (then in Czechoslovakia, now in Austrian territory) that spun thread for Nazi uniforms. Kirschner’s book, she said, “put the light bulb into my head.” She compared the situation of Jewish girls in Nazi-occupied Europe to that of the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram last year. “Most accounts of the Holocaust are male narratives,” she observed, “that don’t speak to the experience of what the vast majority of girls and women went through.” Even the story in Anne Frank’s diary, which ended before her life did, she insisted, “doesn’t reflect the real story of the Holocaust — it’s about a sainted virgin who was hiding in an attic.”
Fox-Bevilacqua looks forward to meeting Sala, who is still alive. “I’m sure that she and my mother knew a lot of the same women. Her story was my mother’s story, too.”
“Letters to Sala” runs through Oct. 18 at the TBG Theatre, 312 W. 36th St. For tickets, $18, and schedule information, visit letterstosalany.com.FOOD & WINE
Join The Club
Joshua E. London and Lou Marmon
Jewish Week Online Columnists
For those who enjoy wine on a regular basis, belonging to a wine club is an excellent way to keep an adequate supply on hand. Many wineries run them. The wines are customarily selected especially for subscribers and provide discounts, early releases, special events and often a variety or blend that may not be available to the general public.
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Join The Club
Joshua E. London And Lou Marmon Jewish Week Online Columnists
For those who enjoy wine on a regular basis, belonging to a wine club is an excellent way to keep an adequate supply on hand. Many wineries run them. The wines are customarily selected especially for subscribers and provide discounts, early releases, special events and often a variety or blend that may not be available to the general public. For the much more limited kosher market, private wine clubs are currently run out of California by the Hagafen Cellars in Napa, the Covenant Winery in Berkeley and the Herzog Wine Cellars in Oxnard. They are all outstanding producers of kosher wine with worthwhile wine clubs.
We recently enjoyed a wonderful example of a wine-club exclusive bottling of kosher wine with the Herzog Limited Edition Lodi Zinfandel 2003. Recently opened, it displayed rich and spicy red fruit aromas and a balanced structure that belied its age. It was still fruity and showed the characteristic dark and red fruit flavors, pepper, anise and spiciness with hints of oak in the unexpectedly lengthy finish. Certainly mellower than younger Zins and also lacking any burn despite its 14.5 percent alcohol, it was a delightful surprise and further evidence that consumers can truly benefit when the winemaker delivers a distinctive selection.
LENSSukkot Comes To Israel, And France
Steve Lipman
Special To The Jewish Week
In modern-day Israel, as in the ancient Promised Land, Sukkot is a major pilgrimage festival. In the old days, the Holy Temples in Jerusalem, where various sacrifices were offered, were the core of the pilgrims' journeys; today, the entire land of Israel celebrates Sukkot.
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In modern-day Israel, as in the ancient Promised Land, Sukkot is a major pilgrimage festival. In the old days, the Holy Temples in Jerusalem, where various sacrifices were offered, were the core of the pilgrims’ journeys; today, the entire land of Israel celebrates Sukkot.
The harvest festival, which began this week, is evident everywhere, from the huts that are built on balconies and in courtyards and in any available space, to the massive blessing-of-the-Cohanim ceremony at the Western Wall, above. And from a cultural festival in Acre among old Crusader buildings, to the Tamar Festival near the Dead Sea that features popular Israeli bands.
For traditional Jews, Sukkot starts with the purchase of lulav and etrog sets that are on sale in stores and street-side tables in every city.
For members of the small Samaritan sect, a highlight is the annual pilgrimage to Mount Gerizim, the group’s holy site near Nablus on the West Bank.
For thousands of visiting Christians, Sukkot means the Feast of Tabernacles march through the streets of Jerusalem, top right, organized by the International Christian Embassy.
For other Israelis and visitors, the week of Sukkot offers concerts and music festivals; a Hot Air Balloon Festival at Gilboa; trips to national parks and museums and beaches; a biking festival in Tel Aviv; a dance festival in Mitzpe Ramon; a film festival in Haifa; and the country’s largest sukkah near Jerusalem’s City Hall.
Outside of Israel, Sukkot also has developed some distinctive forms of expression, including a sukkah-upon-a-flatbed-truck in Paris, bottom right.
steve@jewishweek.orgFeatured on NYBLUEPRINT.COM
The Girls Behind "Girls" Start A Newsletter
Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner's new digital venture
Maya Klausner, Editor
Lenny is a great name among the Jews. Lenny Kravitz, Lenny Brunce, Lenny's the New York City sandwich institution - rarely does the moniker deliver a disappointing result. Now as the title of Lena Dunham's most recent creative project, the majestic Lenny drives yet another Jewish super identity.
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Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner's new digital venture
Maya Klausner
Editor
Television
Lenny is a great name among the Jews. Lenny Kravitz, Lenny Brunce, Lenny’s the New York City sandwich institution — rarely does the moniker deliver a disappointing result. Now as the title of Lena Dunham’s most recent creative project, the majestic Lenny drives yet another Jewish super identity.
A portmanteau of Dunham’s and her partner Jenni Konner’s first names, Lenny serves as the title of their feminist newsletter, which released its first issue on September 29. The co-creators of “Girls”, who are both Jewish, chose the name for their new venture because “we love old Jewish men,” Konner told CNNMoney, according to JTA.
At the top of the clean, mostly black and white site, which boasts a playful mock-artsy photograph of Dunham and Konner in Cosby-esque sweaters, the tag reads “feminism, style, health, politics, friendship and everything else from Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner.”
The boundless “and everything else” might raise a dubious eyebrow from readers in its all-encompassing, somewhat pretentious ambiguity, if the voice that powered it wasn’t one of the most influential mouthpieces of the millennial generation.
Describing the newsletter’s target demographic as millennial women and men, Dunham told Buzzfeed that their ideal readers are, “an army of like-minded intellectually curious women and the people who love them, who want to bring change but also want to know, like, where to buy the best tube top for summer that isn’t going to cost your entire paycheck,” according to JTA.
While Dunham and Co. may have immunity among their loyal fans who are treading the murky waters of post-collegiate, pre-real life purgatory, members of the Jewish community, both young and old, have found some of her previous antics less than adorable. Flashback to her New Yorker piece, “Dog or Jewish Boyfriend? A Quiz,” which was ill-received by ADL head Abe Foxman, and many others who found it insensitive and to some degree, anti-Semitic.
As of now, aside from its name, Lenny has not overtly explored any Jewish content, unless you register the mere creation of a platform that enables a flowing dialogue of thoughts and ideas to be inherently Jewish: Talmud anyone?
In Letter No. 1, Dunham interviews Hillary Clinton. No big deal. The Girls star manages to interview the first lady and Democratic presidential candidate in a way that makes the reader feel like they were both in pajamas eating popcorn. They discuss civil rights, feminism, student loans and police problems, but in Dunham’s words, “by far our most important question” is the inquiry of a shoulder-less, black Donna Karan dress.
The dress, which is a vintage throwback to 1993 when Clinton wore it for one of her and President Clinton’s first big events at the White House, sparked a bit of controversy for the first lady, “But I do love to fool around with fashion and have some fun with it. And so I wore this, and a lot of political pundits : “What is the meaning of this?” and everything. I thought it would be fun! You’ve got to still have fun in all of these different roles that you’re in or I’m in or anybody is in their life,” said Clinton.
Dunham pushed for a recycling of the ensemble, “It’s extremely chic. I think you should bust it back out … For a potential inauguration,” said Dunham.
In addition to high profile, in depth interviews, the newsletter will include, fiction, personal essays and whatever else Konner and Dunham deem fit for Lenny and its readers.
At a time when online print, with all its benefits and advantages, faces a slew of demons, such as the gushing geyser of unfiltered content provided by the solipsist mentality of the digital age, a straightforward, relatively unadorned, blog-like format from two such accomplished and successful minds strikes an ironic chord.
Which might just be exactly the point.
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Can Bibi Repair Rift With Obama?
I've been unable to find another instance when an American political party allied itself so closely with a friendly foreign government for the purpose of defeating the policy of an American administration.
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Douglas BloomfieldI've been unable to find another instance when an American political party allied itself so closely with a friendly foreign government for the purpose of defeating the policy of an American administration.
There has been no more outspoken foe of the Iran nuclear deal backed by the Obama administration than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, nor has there ever been a leader of an American ally who has plunged so deeply and so blatantly into domestic partisan American politics.
Netanyahu's failed effort, in partnership with Congressional Republicans and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) did irreparable damage to the longstanding tradition of bipartisan support for Israel and drove a huge wedge into the heart of the American Jewish community. The PM's charge that the Iran pact was a mortal threat to the Jewish state was not shared by many in his own security establishment nor the majority of American Jews.
The Netanyahu-Republican alliance isn't new. It dates back to the Clinton administration when Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud opposition, and House Republican leader and later speaker Newt Gingrich worked closely to foil the peace policies of Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. A common denominator is Ron Dermer, a Gingrich aide in the 1990s and now Netanyahu's ambassador to Washington.
Republicans unanimously opposed the Iran deal, something more attributable to political loathing for the Democratic president than careful analysis of the agreement and any viable alternative.
This GOP-Netanyahu alliance is not because Republicans love Israel more than Democrats do, though that is a lurking danger. Reliable polls show rank and file American Jews support the deal, unlike mega-wealthy contributors, AIPAC and other major organizations and their leaders.
Most Jewish members of Congress voted FOR the agreement, however.
Netanyahu's battle has opened up deep divisions within the Jewish community that could take years to heal, if that.
He will have a chance to begin the repairs when he meets with the President at the White House on November 9, but the omens are not good. After the Oval Office meeting he will be honored by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank that has been harshly critical of the Obama administration, where he can be expected to continue his attacks on the Iran deal to much applause. It is easy to see how many in Washington would see the event and the timing as another of Dermer's little partisan games to poke a finger in Obama's eye.
Netanyahu, after waging a bitter, divisive and losing war against Obama's nuclear agreement for months, finds himself in a greatly weakened position not only with this White House but also with the Democratic Party, African Americans and a huge chunk of the Jewish community that supported the agreement and was deeply troubled by the battle he waged. Republicans may not be that delighted with him either because he failed in his assignment to deliver the Jewish vote.
JTA reports that Congressional Democrats are "no longer eager to return calls from the Israeli embassy."
AIPAC is in a similar bind. Despite spending over $20 million – by its own boasts -- it sacrificed its reputation for bipartisanship and failed to produce the votes Netanyahu and its GOP allies expected.
Both Israel and AIPAC have a lot of fence mending to do on both sides of the aisle and at the grass roots.
Click here to write a letter to the editor of The Jewish WeekThe New Normal
Honoring Rabbi Lynne Landsberg, Disability Activist
Last July, Rabbi Lynne Landsberg, Senior Disability Advisor for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism was presented the first Thornburgh Family Award.
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Shelly Christensen
Last July, Rabbi Lynne Landsberg, Senior Disability Advisor for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism was presented the first Thornburgh Family Award. Established by the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) this year during the 25th anniversary year of the ADA, the Thornburgh Family Award recognizes a religious leader who exemplifies the spirit of the ADA. The award is named after U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, who helped negotiate the ADA with Congress, and Ginny Thornburgh, a long-time advocate for people with disabilities nationally and globally who specializes in inclusion in religious communities. Dick and Ginny are the parents of a son, Peter, a man of faith, who has intellectual and physical disabilities.
Rabbi Landsberg has been a leading voice on disability rights in Washington DC and throughout the country for decades. First, in her role as Associate Director of the RAC, Rabbi Landsberg along with Rabbi David Saperstein, lobbied for the passage of the ADA twenty-five years ago. Then, after surviving a traumatic brain injury in 1999, she returned to the RAC as the Senior Advisor on Disability Rights in order to strengthen the Reform Movement’s advocacy for the civil and human rights of people with disabilities to ensure that all people have equal access to religious and civic life. She co-founded the Jewish Disability Network, a coalition of national Jewish movements and organizations advocating for civil and human rights for people with disabilities. She also founded and co-chairs the Central Conference of American Rabbis’ (CCAR) "Committee on Disability Awareness and Inclusion." She co-founded Hineinu: Jewish Community for People of All Abilities, a historic and innovative collaboration of the Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, and Reform Jewish Movements, as well as Chabad, through which disability professionals share resources, support, and direction in order to increase disability inclusion in Jewish life for people of all abilities.
Rabbi Landsberg's honoring was as part of the Interfaith Disability Advocacy Coalition (IDAC) of the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) program, "From Access to Belonging: An Interfaith Service Celebrating the Progress and Promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act." People of all faiths and all abilities came together at First Trinity Lutheran Church in Washington DC to commemorate the achievements mandated by this landmark legislation.
The Interfaith Disability Advocacy Coalition is a diverse, nonpartisan coalition of 33 national religious organizations from the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh traditions whose core spiritual values affirm the rights and dignity of people with disabilities.
In her acceptance speech Rabbi Landsberg recalled, “A number of religious groups tirelessly advocated for the ADA. However, after its passage, I was surprised to learn that due to pressure from other religious groups, whatever their reasons, houses of worship were, in fact, exempt from and therefore did not have to comply with significant portions of the ADA. Ultimately, because all of our religious groups, both pro and con, did not have the law looking over our shoulders, our congregations were all very slow to make necessary changes both physical and emotional.”
She continued,“The ADA mandates access to public buildings but it cannot mandate access to the human heart. As is often said, ‘Before ramping buildings, you have to ramp attitudes.’”
She added, “Let us vow to raise the consciousness of houses of worship wherever they are so when they meet such a child or an adult or a family, they already have their hearts and arms wide open evidenced by the fact that they have fully accessible buildings, programs and educational opportunities open to all, inclusive social events and more. Our message must be that people of faith who happen to have a disability want to worship in community and contribute their all as full human beings. They want and deserve to belong.”
In a nod to congregational hiring policies, she added that some people with disabilities go on to seminary. “They want and deserve to be hired to lead our congregations. Houses of worship must consider hiring people with disabilities for open positions that match their talents. Inclusion begins at home.”
Shelly Christensen, MA literally wrote the book on inclusion of people with disabilities, the Jewish Community Guide to Inclusion of People with Disabilities. Shelly’s work as founder and Executive Director of Inclusion Innovations, where she provides training, organizational and community development, and strategic planning so Jewish organizations and communities around the world can become more welcoming and inclusive, is the standard in the field of sacred community inclusion. She is co-founder of the Jewish Leadership Institute on Disabilities and Inclusion. Shelly and her husband Rick are the parents of three children, one of whom has a disability.
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