Monday, December 30, 2013

The (New York) Jewish Week . . . Connecting the World to Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinions – Monday, 30 December 2013

The (New York) Jewish Week . . . Connecting the World to Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinions – Monday, 30 December 2013
News and Features
It's Time For Us To Say 'Thank You' by Jeffrey K. Salkin
Last week, it was the appalling news that the American Studies Association had voted to boycott Israeli universities. The academic world did not stay silent. To date, 25 American universities have refused to join the ASA boycott. In many cases, they have also issued strongly worded protests against the Association's actions. Here are the names of the presidents or chancellors of each university, along with their contact information.
We are a community that seems to go from crisis to crisis, and a part of our communal psyche seems to almost relish it. Whether it’s the Pew Report, or our fears about Iran, or an anti-Semitic attack, it gets our Jewish juices flowing. Last week, it was the appalling news that the American Studies Association had voted to boycott Israeli universities. We screamed. We wrote impassioned op-ed pieces. Like leftover latkes, we sizzled in the oil of our collective disappointment at the brazen cooperation of a piece of America’s intellectual elite in the willful academic ghettoization of the Jewish state.
And we were right to have done so.
However, something was happening behind our backs – something by no means insidious, but, rather, redemptive.
The academic world did not stay silent. Quite the contrary. To date, 25 American universities have refused to join the ASA boycott. In many cases, they have also issued strongly worded protests against the Association’s actions.
Here are the names of the presidents or chancellors of each university, along with their contact information. Because it is not enough to scream gevalt when we have been wounded. We also have to call out “thank you” to those who are our friends, to those who stood up for truth, to those who have refused to have their educational institutions seduced by all too common siren song of anti-Israeli behavior. We need to thank those institutions, especially if we are alumni of them, and/or our children or grandchildren attend them. Because the best way to induce people to continue doing good is to thank them for what they have already done.
Take a look at the list. Yes -- some, even many, of those institutions of higher learning have significant Jewish populations. Some of the officials are Jewish. But that cannot begin to tell the whole story.
A larger story exists in the geographic diversity of the universities’ locations. Moreover, we don’t know how many Jewish students are enrolled at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. Perhaps more than we think. But Willamette is not exactly located in one of the queen cities of the American diaspora.
And that is, precisely, the point. There’s an old Jewish joke. A pair of Jews is walking in a dangerous neighborhood late at night. Suddenly, they hear footsteps behind them. One says to the other: “We had better be careful. There are two of them, and we’re alone.”
As it turns out, we are not alone. Not even close.
This is the mitzvah of hakarat ha-tov – recognizing the good. Thank these university officials for their universities’ courage in standing up to the American Studies Association. Thank them for their commitment to truth and to intellectual honesty. Thank them for the generosity of spirit that they demonstrated towards the State of Israel. Get your children and grandchildren to write as well – especially if they are students at those universities.
Now that the winter solstice has passed, the days are getting longer again.
There is more light than we could have imagined.
Boston University. Dr. Robert A. Brown, President. John and Kathryn Silber Administrative Center, 1 Silber Way (8th Floor), Boston, MA. 02215. president@bu.edu
Brandeis University. Fred Laurence, President. Office of the President, Irving Enclave 113, MS 100, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453 Office of the President
Brown University. Christina Paxson, President. Office of the President, Brown University, Box 1860, 1 Prospect Street, Providence, RI 02912
Cornell University. David J. Skorton, President. Office of the President, 300 Day Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853. president@cornell.edu
Dickinson College. Nancy A. Roseman, President. Dickinson College, Post Office Box 1773, Carlisle, PA 17013. presofc@dickinson.edu
Duke University. Richard A. Brodhead, President. Office of the President, Duke University, 207 Allen Building, Box 90001, Durham, NC 27708-0001.  president@duke.edu
George Washington University. Steven Knapp, President. Rice Hall, 2121 I Street, NW, Suite 801, Washington, DC 20052
Harvard University. Dr. Drew Faust, President. Office of the President, Harvard University, Massachusetts Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138 president@harvard.edu
Indiana University. Michael A. McRobbie, President. Office of the President, Indiana University, Bryan Hall 200, 107 S. Indiana Ave., Bloomington, IN 47405
Kenyon College. Sean M. Decatur, President. Office of the PresidentRansom HallKenyon CollegeGambier, Ohio 43022-962. president@kenyon.edu
Michigan State University. Lou Anna K. Simon, President. Office of the President, Michigan State University, 426 Auditorium Road, Hannah Administration Building, Room 450, East Lansing, MI 48824-1046. presmail@msu.edu
New York University. John Sexton, President. Office of the President, New York University, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012 john.sexton@nyu.edu
Northwestern University. Morton Shapiro, President. 2-130 Rebecca Crown Center, 633 Clark Street, Evanston, Illinois 60208. nu-president@northwestern.edu
Princeton University. Christopher L. Eisgruber, President. Office of the President, 1 Nassau Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
Tufts University. Anthony P. Monaco, President. Office of the PresidentTufts UniversityBallou Hall, 2nd Floor, Medford, MA 02155. amonaco@tufts.edu
Tulane University. Scott S. Cowen, President. Tulane University, 218 Gibson Hall, 6823 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70118-5684
University of California-Irvine. Michael V. Drake, MD, Chancellor. University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697 chancellor@uci.edu
University of California-San Diego. Praddep K. Khosia, chancellor-elect. Office of the Chancellor, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive # 0005, La Jolla, California 92093-0005. chancellor@ucsd.edu
University of Kansas. Bernadette Gray-Little, Chancellor. Chancellor's Office, University of Kansas, 230 Strong Hall, Lawrence, KS 66045-7518. chancellor@ku.edu
University of Maryland. Wallace D. Loh, President. University of Maryland, 1101 Main Administration Building, College Park, MD  20742-6105 president@umd.edu
University of Pennsylvania. Amy Gutmann, President. Office of the President,
University of Pennsylvania, 1 College Hall, Room 100Philadelphia, PA 19104-6380. presweb@pobox.upenn.edu
University of Pittsburgh. Mark Nordenberg, Chancellor. University of Pittsburgh, 107 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260
University of Texas-Austin. William Powers, Jr., President. Office of the President, 110 Inner Campus Drive, Stop G3400, Austin, TX. 78712-3400
Washington University in St. Louis. Mark Stephen Wrighton, Chancellor. Campus Box 1192, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130 wrighton@wustl.edu
Wesleyan University. Michael S. Roth, President. 229 High Street, Middletown, CT. 06459. presoffice@wesleyan.edu
Willamette University. Stephen E. Thorsett, President. 900 State Street, Salem, Oregon 97301 president@willamette.edu
Yale University. Peter Salovey, President. President's Office, Yale University, PO Box 208229, New Haven, CT 06520-8229 presidents.office@yale.edu
Jeffrey K. Salkin is the rabbi of Temple Beth Am in Bayonne, NJ. He is the author of numerous books on religion and Jewish identity, including Righteous Gentiles In The Hebrew Bible: Models For Sacred Relationships (Jewish Lights).
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Gilad Shalit Appeals For Pollard's Release
Former captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit wrote an open letter calling on all Israelis to demand that the United States free Jonathan Pollard.
Israeli officials have said that the revelation over the weekend that the United States spied on at least two sitting Israeli prime ministers opens the door for Israel to demand the release of Pollard, who has served 29 years of a life sentence in a U.S. prison for spying for Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel has constantly pressed the United States to free Pollard and does not need a special event in order to do so.
“After Israel has released terrorists with blood on their hands as a gesture to the Palestinians, a return gesture is all that is being requested,” Shalit said in his open letter, published on Ynet.
Shalit appears to be reacting to reports, including one by Israel’s Channel 2, that Israel is linking a Pollard release to the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and will ask that Pollard’s release be linked to Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners. The third group of prisoners is scheduled to take place at the end of the week.
“I believe, and I think that, like myself, all of the people of Israel believe that the prime minister’s request for such a simple gesture, the release of Jonathan Pollard, is owed to us by right, and is not a favor,” Shalit wrote. ”Please, everyone, join me, in a clear demand to our friends, the Americans: W have already freed scores of murderous terrorists with blood on their hands at your request – now it is your turn to make a gesture to us! It may even save Pollard’s life.”
Shalit was freed in October 2011 after being held captive by Hamas in Gaza for five years. His release was part of a prisoner swap in which more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners were released.
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A Jewish, Gay Voice Of Weimar Germany And Beyond by Sharon Anstey
Charlotte Wolff died in 1986 and today is little known beyond an esoteric reading public. Plunkett Lake Press has just released an electronic edition of her autobiography, “Hindsight,” first published in 1980.
Wolff led a remarkable life. As a student, she studied philosophy with both Husserl and Heidegger. Multi-faceted, she published poetry but ultimately she chose to study medicine and practiced as a physician in Berlin in the 1920s, attending to working class women.
She began to study the hand and this niche led her to cross paths with distinguished international artists, writers and painters including Andre Breton, Balthus, Walter Benjamin, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley and Man Ray, who photographed her in 1935.
From childhood, she was attracted to women; as she entered adulthood, the Berlin of the Weimar Republic was the perfect milieu in which to express and discover erotic love. The Weimar idyll ended brutally -- unlike many other German Jews, Wolff was quick to recognize the need to flee Germany.
“My language was German,” she writes, adding, “I did not know then that there was a difference between German Gentiles and German Jews.” Her innocence shattered, she left for Paris where she spent a number of years before moving to London where she lived until her death, shortly before her 89th birthday.
Wolff was unable to practice as a physician for decades and as a psychotherapist turned her attention to more extensive research in chirology (hand reading) and sexology.
Judaism did not inform her daily life and in later life, her closest relationships tended to be with Quakers or devout Christians. Yet she lived her life as a Jew. “I was an international Jew for good, whether I was a stateless person or a citizen of another country,” she writes.
While institutionalized religion was not for Wolff, she describes how when confronted by anti-Semitism in England, in a moment of acute stress, “I shall never forget how suddenly I prayed and gave this problem over to whatever power there might be to take it on. I said in my prayer: I am committing this to a ‘higher court’. From that day onwards I was free.”
She was drawn to the prophets who inspired her poetry and to the Jews of Spain who gave her “a sense of pride, glamour and awe.” Maimonides particularly fired her imagination. “I worshipped his image as a disciple worships his teacher, and made him the model for my own aspirations.”
The book ends with her return to Berlin in the late 1970s where she was feted by younger generations of German feminists and gay women.
Sharon Anstey is a business consultant and writer in New York.
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New York Times Polls Hungarians On Anti-Semitism 
The New York Times is conducting a survey of Hungarian Jews to help deepen its coverage of anti-Semitism in that country.
The survey, published online Tuesday, asks respondents whether they experienced anti-Semitism and considered emigrating as a result, among other questions.
“An openly anti-Semitic political party has gained power in Hungary’s Parliament in recent years, fueling fears that the Eastern European nation is experiencing a rise in anti-Jewish sentiment,” the paper wrote in an introduction to the online survey form.
“The Times will be taking a deep look at anti-Semitism in Hungary this coming year. As we report on this issue, we are hoping to hear from Hungarian Jews on their experiences,” the paper wrote.
Questions include: “What if anything are authorities in your community doing to curb or encourage anti-Semitism?” And: “What if anything are authorities in your community doing to curb or encourage anti-Semitism?”
Ninety percent of 517 Hungarian respondents to an EU survey on anti-Semitism conducted last year said anti-Semitism was either a “fairly big problem” or a “very big problem.”
Hungary, which is believed to have 100,000 Jews, also led in the number of Jews who said they had considered emigrating because of anti-Semitism, with 48 percent of Hungarian respondents replying in the affirmative, compared to 18 percent in Britain and a 29-percent average overall.
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Musings
Two Lofty Principles by Rabbi David Wolpe
When the Torah reading is completed in most synagogues, the scroll is held aloft and the congregation chants, “This is the Torah that Moses placed before the children of Israel” (Deuteronomy 4:44). Ashkenazim add “at the Lord’s bidding through Moses” (Numbers 9:23). In Sephardic synagogues, the scroll is generally raised before, not after, the reading.
In one case, the tradition shows an affirmation of reverence for what one is about to hear. In the other, there is a confirmation of the sacredness of what one has just heard. Each has its point, and its adherents.
The attitude with which one approaches things in this world — work, relationships, study, anything — conditions the way one will react. If we are prepped with purpose, we are far more likely to relish and to succeed. It is nonetheless true that we cannot substitute preparation for experience. We need to listen, to undergo the transformation that only comes with actual participation. To hold the Torah aloft at the beginning is the right way to be ready for the reading; to hold it aloft at the end is the right way to react to the reading.
This is a characteristic Jewish solution: there are two important principles, each with its adherents and each practiced in different communities. All is literally L’hagdil Torah ul’ha’adirah, to glorify and magnify the Torah.
Rabbi David Wolpe is spiritual leader of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter: @RabbiWolpe.
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Matchmaker
How Yakira Met Michael by Leah Hakimian, Jewish Week Correspondent
Yakira Wiesel was the only girl on the crowded rooftop of a rickety bus. She was in Nepal, on a nine-hour ride, heading toward the Frozen Lake Trek. She heard some of the guys speaking Hebrew, which was comforting for a 20- year-old Israeli girl. When the bus began to shake, she turned to one of them and asked: “Can I lean on you?” Michael Azulay, who was 23 at the time, was happy to oblige. He recalls: “I immediately felt an attraction.”
Michael and Yakira had actually seen each other the Shabbat before, but “seeing is not meeting.” Many young Israelis do see each other traveling in Nepal off the beaten track. A trip to the Far East, following their stint in the army or national service, is a rite of passage for them.
When she first came to Nepal, Yakira volunteered with Tevel B’Tzedek, a nonprofit mission to help alleviate poverty. By the spring of 2011, when she met Michael, she was ready for a new adventure.
Once again Michael was happy to oblige. They traveled for about six weeks together with other Israelis. “I want to emphasize that we were not a couple,” says Yakira. “But it is true that we flirted with each other.”
They were getting ready to go on an Everest trek, when a friend raised the question: “Why aren’t you two a couple?” Yakira found the courage to ask Michael: “Are we a couple?” Michael responded: Do you want us to be a couple?
They were together for the rest of their travels.
When they returned to Israel in July, it wasn’t clear what would happen next. Did they just have a “shipboard romance” destined to end when the vacation was over? Some friends and family thought so, and some even hoped so because Yakira and Michael seemed so very different.
Yakira was third generation from Chicago, Illinois. Her family made aliyah when she was a young child, and she was raised in both worlds – American and Israeli. Michael was born in Israel to Israeli parents of Moroccan descent.
Some of the family was concerned that they were not yet on a career path. Still, Yakira was accepted at Hebrew University and would study communications. They weren’t too worried.
Most problematic was the religious issue – Yakira was from an Orthodox home, went to religious schools, did Sherut Leumi (national service), and was Torah observant.  Michael was from a secular home in Herzliya.
Many religious girls would never consider dating a non-religious guy. “They think before they fall in love,” says Yakira.  Michael and I fell in love, and then we had to deal with it. But it is definitely worth it. Michael is so very sweet.”
“We deal with it by working really hard,” says Yakira. ‘We each have our boundaries,” she emphasizes.  And Michael adds: “Most importantly, we have respect for each other’s beliefs.”
They love hiking together. One evening in June 2012, as they were walking along a cliff, Yakira looked down to the beach and saw the marriage proposal set up by Michael’s friends. She happily accepted.
They planned a wedding with something for everyone – religious, secular, Israelis, American, Moroccan, friends and family. Michael and Yakira like to make people happy. They are inspired by Yakira’s great-grandparents who recently celebrated their 74th wedding anniversary.  
Yakira and Michael were married on September 4, 2012. Mazal tov.
Dr. Leah Hakimian currently researches the question: How Jewish couples meet and marry.  In the 90’s she founded two nonprofit Jewish matchmaking programs, and continues to champion the role of community in helping singles meet. She resides in Jerusalem and Great Neck, New York.
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