The New York Jewish Week: Connection the World to Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinions for Wednesday, 3 September 2014|
Dear Reader,
Cornell University, which has a branch of its medical school in Qatar, is
under pressure from some Jewish groups to cut its ties with the
Persian Gulf country that has emerged as the chief funder of Hamas. Staff
Writer Stewart Ain has the story.
NEW YORK
Cornell’s Ties To Qatar Getting Fresh Scrutiny
Some Jewish leaders urge closure of medical campus in country that funds Hamas; Ivy school stands by partnership.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
The Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar Class of 2012. Weill-cornell.edu.
Cornell University is being called upon to close its medical campus in Qatar, an Arab country in the Persian Gulf that is the chief financier of Hamas, which just waged a 50-day war against Israel.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, called the university’s continued presence in Qatar “outrageous.”
Cornell, an Ivy League institution in upstate Ithaca, opened a branch of its Cornell Weill Medical College in Qatar in 2002 in partnership with the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, a nonprofit organization created by the Qatari government.
“What Cornell should say is, ‘We repudiate anyone who funds a terrorist organization,’” Rabbi Hier told The Jewish Week.
The Zionist Organization of America was equally emphatic about Cornell’s ties to Qatar, calling on it and other American universities, cultural institutions and think tanks to “end or suspend tHier programs in Qatar.”
And ZOA went a step further, calling upon the State Department to declare Qatar a state sponsor of terrorism unless it cuts its financial and other material support to Hamas.
“Designation of Qatar as a state sponsor of terrorism would also enable Israeli and Arab victims of Hamas’ rocket attacks, executionsand forced service as ‘human shields’ (or tHier surviving families) to sue Qatar in the United States and potentially recover some of the oil- and natural gas-rich nation’s assets,” the ZOA said in a press release.
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, took a more nuanced approach, calling upon Cornell to re-evaluate its association with Qatar now that it is openly a state supporter of terrorism.
“The Middle East is a very, very fluid place and things are continuously in flux from good to bad and bad to good,” he told The Jewish Week. “It is incumbent on universities to continuously examine and re-examine tHier host country to see whether the conditions, the promises, the environment has changed to the point where this is not a place where we want our students to mature. Qatar is at that point.”
But Cornell said in a statement that it believes its presence in Qatar “is the best way to promote understanding.” It said its “collaborations across the globe” fulfills its 150-year mission of “teaching, discovery and engagement” and that the Middle East is home to people who deserve “access to top quality education, health care and life-enhancing technologies.”
The statement from Joel Malina, Cornell’s vice president for university relations, said the university’s academic collaborations are formed “without regard to politics or religion.” It said Cornell is not a government, is apolitical, and collaborates with “academic and educational entities that share in our mission of helping communities and individuals to expand horizons and improve lives.”
“We are committed to fulfilling our agreements with the Qatar Foundation and our other global partners, while ensuring that we remain true to our core values as an institution focused on the betterment of humanity,” Malina added.
Some political analysts point out that the U.S. has extensive dealings with Qatar that are vital to American security and that to believe the U.S. would declare Qatar a state sponsor of terrorism is naïve.
In fact, the Washington Post reported last week that American warplanes attacking ISIS troops in Iraq are primarily coming from three major American bases in the Persian Gulf — the al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and bases in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
These three bases have reportedly housed the bulk of American forces in the Middle East since the U.S. withdrew from Iraq and several large bases there in 2011. The base in Qatar is said to be the most strategically important, serving as home to the Air Force’s command center for all air operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan and housing 9,000 American troops and support personnel. In December, the U.S. signed a 10-year lease extension for the base.
Severing U.S. relations with Qatar would also mean the cancelation of the $11 billion arms sale the U.S. signed with Qatar in July. The deal calls for the U.S. to sell Qatar dozens of Apache helicopters, hundreds of Patriot missiles and anti-tank rockets.
Analysts noted also that Qatar helped negotiate the release last month of American journalist Peter Theo Curtis after nearly two years as a captive of al Qaida-linked terrorists in Syria.
But there are reports that Qatar may be pushing the line too far in its bid to play both sides of the fence. Rabbi Hier believes that Qatar’s actions are designed to prevent a terrorist attack on its own soil and Mordechai Kedar, a professor of Arabic studies at Bar-Ilan University, said “it was recently revealed that Qatar also supports ISIS.”
The Qatari Foreign Ministry denied the charge after a German minister, Gerd Mueller, said Qatar is both financing and arming ISIS. Mueller apologized, but the Washington Post said some in Washington have questioned whether the Qataris “have accumulated outsize influence because of tHier military cooperation.”
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said as much to Charlie Rose on his PBS program in June. Cheney said Qatar is using the U.S. military base and its great wealth as a leverage to, “in effect, get away with the kind of activity they do with respect to supporting the more radical elements of the jihadi movement.”
Qatar is reportedly the richest country in the world, with an average per-capita income in excess of $100,000, unemployment at just .5 percent and GDP growth of 6.6 percent. It has so much money that it is reportedly spending $200 billion to build stadiums and the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup.
Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University, said it is Qatar’s wealth that is keeping many people from speaking out.
“Silence has been bought and that is just a part of life,” he said. “If they were consistent morally and politically, they would have nothing to do with university operations in a country like Qatar. But everything has a price and this is the reality.”
Asked about the university’s financial relationship with Qatar, whether the board of trustees was reviewing the matter and whether any students had expressed concern,
John Carberry, Cornell’s director of media relations, said in an email: “We will have no additional comment on this issue at this time.”
But in 2001 when the university disclosed plans to open the campus in Qatar, it said the Qatar Foundation promised to spend $750 million on the school over 11 years, including a fee to Cornell. In return, Cornell promised to grant graduates the same diploma it awards graduates here.
The opening was not without controversy. Trustees, student groups and faculty members expressed fear that Israelis and Jewish students might not have an equal opportunity for an education there. Some pointed out that for many years Qatar barred Israelis from entering the country.
But the university said that was not an issue because a non-discrimination clause was inserted into the agreement that established the campus. In addition, it said there were guarantees to preserve Cornell’s principles of academic freedom and autonomy for physicians and scientists.
And Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., told Cornell’s student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun, that Qatar had established normal diplomatic relations with Israel.
“Qatar is certainly a worthy and safe nation for Cornell to locate a branch of its medical college in,” Rabinovich told the newspaper. “If the location were to be Iraq or Iran, countries that exploit terrorism, that would be a very controversial decision.”
But in an email Tuesday, Rabinovich said all of that has changed.
“Qatar 2014 is not Qatar 2001,” he wrote. “At that time, there was an Israeli diplomatic mission in Qatar and Qatar played a much more positive role in the region, including with regard to Israel. It has since adopted a much more complex foreign policy. It still hosts a huge U.S. military base, but also plays games with Iran, supports the Muslim Brotherhood, and at the same time is not always negative on Israel. … They play complex games.”
He added that rather than choosing to “boycott or abandon” Qatar, Cornell and other Western institutions should “use tHier influence in order to support U.S. and Saudi efforts to bring Qatar back to the mainstream of Middle Eastern politics.”
stewart@jewishweek.org
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From Israel, our correspondent Josh Mitnick describes the prospects for a new
diplomatic initiative,
with an alliance between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, in the wake of
the Gaza war.
ISRAEL NEWS
Chasing The Diplomatic Horizon
In wake of Gaza war, is there a new opening?
Joshua Mitnick
Israel Correspondent
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: New anti-Hamas alliance? GEtty Imag
Tel Aviv — Seven weeks of war have left behind large swathes of Gaza City destroyed and thousand of Palestinian casualties. In Israel, dozens of soldiers died, thousands of residents fled their homes and polls show that Israelis believe that the cease-fire reached last week will eventually give way to a new war.
But now that the guns have gone silent for a week, diplomacy is taking center stage.
In the coming weeks, Israeli and Hamas negotiators will be returning to Cairo in an effort to reach a long-term truce agreement. At the same time, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Liberation Organization has hinted about two conflicting paths: returning to peace talks with Israel and ratcheting up international pressure on Israel through the United Nations.
Through it all, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly mentioned over the last several weeks that the war had created new “diplomatic possibilities” thanks to a regional coalition that had been formed against Hamas consisting of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Most observers seem to think that Netanyahu is focused on leveraging that coalition to keep Hamas isolated in Gaza by obstructing its efforts to rearm through tight monitoring systems and blocking trade through Hamas’ network of tunnels.
But could those diplomatic possibilities include the renewal of peace talks with Abbas?
Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., said it very well could, provided that the Palestinian president distances himself from Hamas. Just a few months ago, Netanyahu suspended peace talks with the Palestinians because of Abbas’ decision to form what was dubbed a “reconciliation” government with Hamas.
But since the end of the war, the Palestinian president has come out against Hamas. In criticism that echoed Israel’s statements that Hamas had gained none of its demands as part of the cease-fire and that the terror group essentially accepted the original cease-fire proposal from the beginning of the war despite thousands of deaths and Palestinians wounded.
“There seems to be some indications that President Abbas seems to be looking askance at Hamas,” Shoval said. “We have to see what the attitudes of the PA will be in fulfilling their tasks in Gaza. That will have an impact on renewing the negotiations, which we want. The prime minister said we want to renew negotiations, but we want to do this without any encumbrance with Hamas.”
Indeed, such a peace process might be on more solid footing if Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia were actively included to support Abbas. A negotiated settlement could boost the Palestinian leader while weakening Hamas.
However, the fallout from the Gaza war has had the opposite effect on Palestinian public opinion, with a surge in support for Hamas and waning of support for Abbas. Concerned about appearing feckless amid the war, the Palestinian president’s latest signals regarding stirring United Nations pressure on Israel and approaching the International Criminal Court to press war crimes accusations could be an attempt to show to the Palestinians that he is fighting the Israelis diplomatically.
Despite those signals, dovish members of Netanyahu’s cabinet have said in recent weeks that the post-war diplomacy and arrangements for Gaza should strengthen Abbas at the expense of Hamas; those include deploying forces loyal to Abbas at the Egyptian border and routing reconstruction efforts through the Palestinian Authority.
But others in the Israeli cabinet remain dubious about the potential for cooperation with Abbas in Gaza. “I’m not enthusiastic about it,” said Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz. “Even if Abu Mazen [Abbas’ nom de guerre] will send 300 soldiers, armed policemen to the border crossings, those 300 people will be intimidated by Hamas. So what?”
Indeed, the majority of ministers in Netanyahu’s cabinet would likely oppose the concessions necessary to re-energize a peace process. And earlier this week, the government appeared to take a step further from talks by announcing the nationalization of about 1,000 acres of West Bank land — a signal of plans to expand settlement activity in the Gush Etzion settlement block southwest of Jerusalem.
A statement from the Defense Ministry’s coordinator of government activities in the territories said the move was linked to a two-and-a-half month offensive in the West Bank following the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teens hitchhiking home from a yeshiva.
“Three teenagers were murdered there,” said Ze’ev Elkin, a parliament member who heads the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, in a Monday interview with Israel Radio. “The classic Zionist way has always been to say: You are trying to get rid of us? We will build.”
The move stirred up a howl of international protest from the European Union, Great Britain and the U.S. On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki released a statement that the U.S. is “deeply concerned” about the land move because “the steps are contrary to Israel’s stated goal of negotiating a permanent status agreement with the Palestinians.”
An editorial in the liberal Haaretz newspaper was scathing, saying the land nationalization “empties Netanyahu’s slogans of content. … Netanyahu proves every time the claims of the Palestinians that Israel has no interest whatsoever in a two-state solution.”
Dani Dayan, a former chairman of the Yesha Council of Jewish settlements, said anyone who believes the prime minister was hinting about peace talks with the Palestinians suffers from a case of wishful thinking.
“There is a Pavlovian reaction: People think that ‘diplomatic horizon’ means negotiations with the Palestinians,” said Dayan. “My interpretation is that he was talking about warmer relations with certain Arab countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I don’t think there is any chance of renewing negotiations. There is no possibility of reaching an agreement with Abu Mazen.”
Despite the opportunities for diplomacy, the results of the Gaza war may have made it more difficult practically to re-engage in negotiations. The battle with Hamas has reminded Israelis of the risks that come with pulling Israel’s army out of the West Bank, and hardliners such as Dayan are now predicting that Israel will face attack from tunnels underneath the Green Line.
Anat Kurz, an expert on Israeli-Palestinian relations at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said it will take more political will to create a real diplomatic horizon on peace talks. She said the Israeli public will be more skeptical about withdrawals, while Abbas is likely to raise his price for returning to the negotiating table.
“Theoretically, there’s a possibility to revive the peace process. It’s a matter of political will and courage. It will be even harder now to convince the Israeli voter to take the necessary risks in the West Bank, understandably,” Kurz said. “Abbas is expecting no less, and maybe more than what he expected out of the negotiations before the war, when we were still dealing with the [U.S. Secretary of State John] Kerry process. It’s because of his efforts to calm tensions [in the West Bank]. He really did, and he really paid the price.”
Kurz said she is not optimistic. “The diplomatic horizon is so far away. When you look at it from Israel, you keep on walking and it keeps moving farther and farther from you.”
editor@jewishweek.org
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My column features Rabbi Andy Bachman, the popular progressive rabbi who is leaving his post at Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn next year. His key message for his last High Holy Day sermons may surprise his liberal congregation.
Between the Lines - Gary Rosenblatt
Popular Rabbi's Parting Shot
Andy Bachman's last High Holy Days message will chasten progressives who oversimplify Middle East.
When I asked Rabbi Andy Bachman what he plans to speak about in his sermons during this, his last, Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur services as senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim, I thought he would bring up the importance of closing the gap between the wealthy and the needy in this country.
After all, the 51-year-old rabbi built a reputation at the Park Slope, Brooklyn synagogue as a strong voice for progressive Judaism, giving secular Jews a sense of meaning through social justice and communal causes beyond ancient rituals and prayers. Over his nine-year tenure, membership doubled to 1,000 families. Last March, when he surprised his congregation with the news of his plan to step down from his pulpit in June 2015, Rabbi Bachman explained that he felt the need to devote his full-time energies to alleviating poverty in our society.
But when I posed the question about his theme for the High Holy Days later this month, his one-word response came without hesitation.
“Israel,” he said.
“My message will be, ‘Don’t abandon Israel.’”
Shaken by witnessing the effects of the Gaza war while visiting Jerusalem this summer, the rabbi said he plans to press home the point that the Mideast is an increasingly dangerous region with direct implications for us here in America.
Citing the rise of ISIS and Islamic militants in Syria, Gaza and Lebanon, he asserted that the violent aggression is “all interconnected” and that “Israel is at the front lines of a conflict that will affect us for the next 100 years, so we’d better get used to it.”
Critical, at times, of Jewish groups that advocated either widening the war or making deep concessions, he said he will “poke some holes on both sides. But I want to criticize the left internally,” he added, troubled by leaders who spent more time criticizing than defending Israel during the recent Gaza fighting.
Though he is a member of J Street and Rabbis for Human Rights, he said that dovish Jewish groups have “worthy values, but too often they don’t take into consideration how tough and complicated the world is.”
In a sense, “the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ no longer apply” when it comes to Israel, according to the rabbi. It’s more about being a realist, recognizing the country’s very real security concerns while resisting what he sees as “the erosion of civil structures” in a society moving rightward.
“Who speaks for the center of American Jewry?” he wondered aloud, crediting AIPAC for “doing an amazing job of advocating for the government of Israel’s position” but noting that the pro-Israel lobby “is not about convening nuanced conversation on Israel and its policies.” That’s something that interests him as a worthy cause he may want to be involved in the future.
Rabbi Bachman is a longtime supporter of Yad b’Yad, the only bilingual Hebrew and Arabic school in Jerusalem. Having visited there recently he came away impressed that he could not tell which students were Jewish and which were Arab. He supports other programs as well that foster Jewish-Arab cooperation in Israel, whose society has “too great an emphasis on difference,” he said.
He thinks diaspora Jewry has “far less clout than we think” on Israeli politics, and that “the most impact we could have would be a mass aliyah of religiously pluralist Jews.” But he knows that is not likely, in part because most American Jews are not sufficiently devoted to live in an Israel that he says is far less multicultural than the U.S.
Personally, he would prefer to make aliyah now. What holds him back, he said, are the obligations of his family life, with a wife with a career and children in their teens. “As a student of history,” he said, “I am fascinated by the miracle of Jewish history and I wonder what it will all end up looking like.” Beyond his rabbinate, he plans to keep working toward ensuring a more open Israeli society.
“If I’m not moving there I have to find ways to stay in the game,” he said, with the goal of “creating new institutions.”
Among the projects Rabbi Bachman expressed an interest in launching is a post-high school gap year program in Israel for large numbers of American Jewish teens, recognizing the success of the Orthodox community in strengthening Jewish identity for their children through yeshiva programs in Israel. He is concerned about diminishing ties to Israel for non-Orthodox Jews here.
In the Aug. 1 entry of his thoughtful, often lyrical blog, “Water Over Rocks,” he wrote from Israel:
“I worry about American Jewry on this trip more than I ever have. I worry about their increasing alienation from the notion of a Jewish people, each of us inherently obligated to one another despite our differences; I worry about our understandable abhorrence of the killing of innocents that too quickly shifts to blame, guilt and distance from Israel … and I worry about a kind of liberal American Jewish hopelessness toward the Jewish national project, the dystopian other-expression of the very spirit that created this improbable, historically miraculous, wildly creative yet weighted, complex, imperfect nation.”
In our interview, he asked aloud, “What will it mean for American Jewry if the next leader of Israel will be a [Naftali] Bennett or [Avigdor] Lieberman,” right-wing cabinet members who advocate tougher policies regarding the Palestinians and “who don’t speak for most diaspora Jews?”
“Part of the exhaustion of liberal rabbis,” he noted, “is that it takes so much to move the needle” in terms of encouraging congregants to become more engaged, either in Israel advocacy or active Jewish life at home.
As for the future direction of American Jewry, which Rabbi Bachman calls “a huge challenge,” he says he is both “hopeful and despairing.”
There has never been “a more open time than now, with gays and lesbians ordained, women Orthodox rabbis,” (some would dispute that description) “and the Conservative movement slowly accepting non-Jews as members,” he said.
“Those are signs of great hope. But what frightens me is the allure of universal culture and multiple identities, with Jewish identity moving lower down on the priority list,” particularly among young people. That translates into “a smaller voice” to address “the lessons of Jewish history and values that assured our survival” for centuries.
Rabbi Bachman emphasized that though he will be leaving the pulpit, “I’m still a rabbi and I’m not done agitating.” It’s just that his focus will be on helping the broader community in “alleviating human suffering,” with an emphasis on areas like poverty, homelessness and gun control, rather than confining his energy to the Jewish community.
He hasn’t decided yet on a specific post.
Though he acknowledges he was “never motivated to bring God down to people,” and would sometimes tell his associate rabbis to “take your foot off the gas” when it comes to direct mentions of the Lord, Rabbi Bachman says he is not leaving his pulpit because of any personal crisis of faith, as some have speculated.
“I still pray and feel connected; I am a profound believer. And I want to deepen my commitment to my spirituality and to Jewish study,” he said. He also plans to continue to teach and to write. He is working on a book on what it means to be a Jew in the 21st century.
Rabbi Bachman’s career record suggests a degree of restlessness. “I need to change every seven years or so,” he said, having worked in politics in his native Wisconsin and as a Hillel rabbi at New York University before coming to Beth Elohim. But along the way he has learned that “as impatient as you may be, change comes slowly.” (Thus the title of his blog, “Water Over Rocks.”)
He is ready for the next chapter, well aware that he may be letting down many congregants who were devoted to his rabbinic style, which he described as “bringing secular Jews back into Jewish peoplehood,” and ensuring the continuation of Jewish heritage and tradition. But he believes he can be an example, to them and others, of someone who serves God by caring for as many of God’s people as possible.
Gary@jewishweek.org
Gary Rosenblatt has been the editor and publisher of The Jewish Week for 20 years and has written more than 1,000 "Between The Lines" columns since 1993. Now a collection of 80 of those columns, ranging from Mideast analysis to childhood remembrances as "the Jewish rabbi's son" in Annapolis, Md., is available. Click here for details.
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Also this issue, Rabbi David Ingber on his thoughts about God; a new product offers a boost
for short Jewish men; Prof. Jack Wertheimer on how to talk about the Gaza
war in schools; Erica Brown on the prophetic message of
philosopher Eric Hoffer regarding Israel's fate; and our Fall Arts Preview has the
inside scoop on new plays, films, music, visual arts and books.
THE JW Q&A
Moving Past ‘Post-Traumatic God Disorder’
Rabbi Alfredo Borodowsk
Rabbi David Ingber: “It is innately human to seek.”
Editor’s Note: David Ingber is spiritual leader of Romemu, a popular congregation on the Upper West Side whose motto is “Judaism for the body, mind and spirit.” Rabbi Ingber grew up in a Modern Orthodox home and attended a number of yeshivas. His long and diverse spiritual search led to his ordination by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the founder of Renewal Judaism.
Alfredo Borodowski, who received his doctorate in Jewish philosophy from the Jewish Theological Seminary, is rabbi of Congregation Sulam Yaakov in Larchmont.
Q: Why there are so many spiritual seekers?
A: I think that we are all seeking, and if we stop seeking it is only a matter of time until we feel empty. There is something innately human about seeking. The mystics in the Jewish tradition make a claim that the healthiest state of human beings is in their yearning. It is a bit of a frustrating posture but it is a healthy state to be in — wanting more and more of God, wanting more and more spirituality, wanting more and more connection.
Why is God seemingly so difficult to be found? Is God hiding? Are we blind?
God isn’t hiding and we are not blind, but often institutions refuse to serve God as part of their meal. They think that people have been so wounded, so hurt, and so scarred by experiences with Judaism, and especially relationships with God, that they have what I call “post- traumatic God disorder.” So most of our institutions create programs around God. We offer everything but God because God is very touchy, scary, intense, personal and intimate. We can all get on board with such safe topics as Torah and Tikkun Olam, but a direct conversation with God, which is an absolutely core component of what is to be a human being, is institutionally avoided.
Then why do Jews have such a complicated relationship with God? We were God’s first love but we seem to need marriage counseling.
We have been burned, we’ve been scarred, and we’ve been wounded. It’s hard to imagine a people who have been more persecuted and who have had greater faith in a protective Divine presence. So to some degree in the aftermath of the Holocaust we are uncomfortable with the theology of God’s intimacy. We are also uncomfortable with what we perceive to be Christian language such as “love.” Though the love of God is absolutely part of our tradition we have unfortunately relinquished it from the Jewish conversation.
But are you finding at your congregation that there are many people looking to reignite the connection with God?
Absolutely. And not only that, I think Romemu is making a claim that God won’t go away; it doesn’t help us to imagine that something can fill the God void. We need to have safe spaces where God is present and we are evoking the Divine and allowing people to heal their tarnished and torn relationship with the Divine, whether by substituting the Divine with a new image, or by being angry with God, or by refusing to pray. We need to create a space where we don’t avoid the conversation with God because some people will be uncomfortable, but we actually allow it to rise up, allow the healing to take place..
Can you then be Jewish without being Godly?
The problem is that reasons such as “you should be Jewish because if not nobody else will,” or because you otherwise would be insulting the memory of those who died in the Holocaust, are strong and significant — but they are insufficient. At some point the inner spiritual yearning calls you. That thirst can be only quenched by the nutrients of a 2,000-year-old spiritual tradition.
How do you relate to the sometimes ruthless and violent God of the Bible?
Thankfully, I don’t go to the Bible for my theology. Thankfully, I believe that men wrote the Bible, and as such I believe that God has been evolving. The God of the Bible is interested in sacrifices, the God of the First and Second Temple is interested in animals, the God of Isaiah is interested in the heart, the God of the rabbis is interested in sacred time and deeds, and the God of the chasidic masters is interested in sacred intention and interiority. All are important stepping-stones in the evolution of our tradition, in the evolution of God.
For the full conversation, visit www.thejewishweek.com.
Alfredo Borodowski, David Ingber, Renewal Judaism
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NEW YORK
Shoes By Jews: New Boost for Jewish Men
The newly launched company offers Men of the Tribe a few extra inches.
Hannah Dreyfus
 Staff Writer
Shawn Michael, founder of Shoes By Jews, a shoe company intended to give Jewish men a height boost. ShoesByJe
Are shoe lifts the new toupees?
Shawn Michael, 33, founder of the company Shoes by Jews, thinks so. It all began when the he and a couple of friends walked into a bar several years ago.
“There we were, a group of young Jewish men, just talking and having a good time when we realized that we were all shorter than everyone else there!” said Michael, from Los Angeles during a recent phone interview. “We realized Jewish men were at a serious disadvantage, and started brainstorming ideas for a solution. One guy jokingly mentioned better shoes — shoes for Jews.”
Thus, the idea for the company was launched. The online company began selling its carefully crafted product last week: shoes for men, each with a cushioned pad that makes the wearer appear 2.3 to 3 inches taller. Manufactured in China, shoes have already been shipped to customers in New York, California and the U.K., and there are hopes that New York stores will pick up the product. The company would not release a sales-estimate.
The name of the company was subsequently tweaked to be Shoes By Jews, rather than Shoes for Jews, so as not to be exclusionary.
“Our product produces the perfect combination of ‘holy crap, is this for real?’ and ‘I need those!’” said Michael, who had an online marketing company before launching Shoes By Jews. “This technology is going to change lives.”
Change lives it will. According to statistics gathered by the University of Florida, for every inch of height over the average, an employee can expect to earn an extra $789 per year. The popular dating website OkCupid attests that men are universally prone to adding 2 inches to their online dating profiles, and 71 percent of women say the “perfect” height for a man is over 6 feet.
For Jewish men, those measurements are scaled down. According to statistics gathered by the “Jewish Encyclopedia” (now online), Jewish men are on average 1 to 3 centimeters shorter than non-Jews.
To be sure, products in the past that have attempted to give short men an extra boost. Tallmenshoes.com sells dozens of different styles that promise to give men an extra 3 to 5 inches. Still, Michael maintains that these previous products have too much clunk, and are frankly too obvious.
“If you’re wearing the extra inches, you don’t want people to know,” said Michael, who is himself a dedicated patron of the product. At 5-foot-8, the special cushion inserts give him just enough height so that his girlfriend can wear heels without shame.
“You can either throw out all your wife’s heels or buy these shoes,” he said. “Which do you think will go more smoothly?”
The shoes come in four styles: the “lady killers,” the “wedding crashers,” the “casual billionaire” and “gentleman’s choice.”
The company’s promotional video, which playfully features men stating they’ve added three inches to their (long pause) height, guarantees customers that these shoes will provide “more support than a Jewish mother.”
“Us Jews have been making quality products for centuries: pyramids, bagels, Natalie Portman, lox and cream cheese, guilt, the original nose of Jennifer Aniston, and Hollywood,” the video continues.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/7TaV6vC1rEM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Still, what happens when the shoes come off?
“First impressions are most important,” said Rachael King, head of communications for the company and Michael’s girlfriend. “When meeting a potential partner, that’s when height matters most. Once you’ve spent time with them and like them as a person, the woman won’t mind if he’s a couple inches shorter.”
Plus, once the man is taking off his shoes, it’s a good sign anyways. “If he’s taking off his shoes, then she’s taking off her heels and you’re doing pretty well,” said King, laughing.
When it comes to Jewish matchmaking, height plays a weighty role. Laurel Shoshani, professional matchmaker for the online Jewish dating site Saw You At Sinai, said that height is among the top five factors that determine compatibility (other factors include religious orientation, ethnicity and occupation). A significant difference in height (mainly, if the man is shorter) can deter individuals from accepting the match.
“There does seem to be in inordinate focus on height,” said Shoshani. “I tell women it’s a mistake to take height too much into consideration — I try and stress to the members that height is only one factor, and you should view another person as a whole package.”
Still, she agreed that these shoes might be helpful for a first date. “Some men need some more confidence,” she said. “But at some point early on, he better tell her. We can’t have someone get married and then realize their partner is 3 inches shorter!”
Jewish singles are not the only ones sensitive to height difference. Despite the company name, King was careful to clarify that the product is not only for Jews.
“We’re not Shoes for Jews,” she said. “We’re Shoes by Jews. All men in need of a boost are free to partake.”
Will there br a product for women in need of a boost? King said it was a definite possibility.
“Women would love these — you can add inches but still look casual. And you don’t have to deal with the pain of heels,” she said.
For both genders, interviews are an ideal time to don the magic shoes, Michael suggested.
“If I go to an interview, I might be asked are you wearing those shoes? Maybe I am, maybe I’m not,” he said. “Men need their beauty secrets, too.”
hannah@jewishweek.org
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OPINION
How To Talk To About Gaza War In Schools
Jack Wertheimer
Special to The Jewish Week
Jack Wertheimer
With the new school year upon us, Jewish educational leaders are scrambling to prepare their teachers to discuss this summer’s Gaza War. The most pressing challenge is to design age-appropriate conversations: At which grade level might classroom discussions include potentially frightening topics, such as the wounding of non-combatants, kidnapping of young Israelis and Israel that has erupted in many parts of the world?
These questions are difficult enough, but are especially freighted with anxiety because they hold the potential to revive stereotypes of Israel that North American Jewish schools have been trying to counter. When Israel was forced to wage three major wars during its first quarter century, its image as an embattled enclave overshadowed everything else about its existence.
In recent decades, though, Jewish schools have endeavored to present a more rounded picture of Israeli life. Without denying the existential challenges facing the Jewish state, teachers have drawn attention to the rich tapestry of Israeli culture — its diverse inhabitants, culinary treats and eclectic music, for example — and, of course, its technological wizardry. School trips to Israel have highlighted the country’s natural beauty and its enjoyable recreational scene, even while exploring the strong connections between the land and the Jewish religion. Educators are understandably loath to resurrect the earlier imagery that simplistically portrayed Israel as a country permanently on war footing.
Responses to the Gaza war require North American Jewish schools to address a second topic that had been pushed to the background in recent years — anti-Semitism. Students in all likelihood are not oblivious of the virulent hostility to Israel and Jews surfacing in the media and on the web. It’s not clear how prepared schools are to address this issue. In reaction to the overemphasis on the Holocaust the 1960s through the 1980s, the pendulum of American Jewish fashion has swung away from discourse about anti-Semitism. Now, with the blatantly negative media coverage of Israel’s prosecution of the war and the resurgence of anti-Semitism around the globe, the subject warrants considerably more attention.
The dilemma facing schools in addressing the new anti-Semitism is how to avoid reviving what historian Salo Baron once described as “the lachrymose [tearful] conception of Jewish history.” The saga of the Jews is about a great deal more than persecution. Yet with the barely concealed animosity toward Jews evident in some quarters here in America and abroad, alas, the need to teach young people about the insidious nature of anti-Semitism has become pertinent again.
As they formulate a school response to the war, educators might consider three important lessons derived from “Hearts and Minds,” a recent report on Israel education in North American Jewish schools:
First, one size does not fit all students. Classrooms this month will contain some students who are largely ignorant about the Gaza war and others who have been exposed to it up close. Students who spent part of the summer in Israel undoubtedly will attest to what it was like to run to bomb shelters or sense the fear aroused in Israel’s populace by Hamas tunnels. Teachers will face the daunting task of bridging differences in what students heard from their parents and absorbed elsewhere about the war. The diversity of students and their families adds a considerable measure of complexity to an already challenging situation. All of this places a great responsibility upon teachers to prepare differentiated responses to a broad range of students.
Second, when teaching about Israel, it is imperative to work with students’ minds as well as their hearts. Jewish schools have focused their attention especially on the latter, an understandable approach with younger children. But by their middle school and high school years, students deserve to be exposed not only to the joyous dimensions of the Jewish state, but also to the complexities within Israeli society and outside of it in the tough neighborhood of the Middle East.
And third, teaching about other Jewish communities — their achievements and challenges — does not detract from a connection to Israel but strengthens the ties of students to the Jewish people and also Israel. In some parts of the world, notably in several European countries, Jewish communities are under siege. American Jewish students should not be shielded from these ugly realities. This is the time to teach students about the interconnectedness of all Jews, a lesson that will also strengthen their engagement with Israel and its people.
The Gaza war presents Jewish schools with a teachable moment, a time to explore with their students (in an age-appropriate manner) the asymmetrical struggle in which Israel is engaged and the surge in hatred confronting Jews — including children — in many parts of the world.
Jack Wertheimer, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, co-authored “Hearts and Minds: Israel in North American Jewish Day Schools,” published last spring by the Avi Chai Foundation.
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JEW BY VOICE
Alone Again
Israel makes moral errors, but that doesn't explain why irrational hatred of Israel and our people goes unchallenged.
Erica Brown
Special To The Jewish Week
Erica Brown
‘The Jews are alone in the world.” I never believed this statement growing up. It was paranoia, the mark of Jews who saw anti-Semitism in every rejection, denial or disagreement — personal or national. But I have learned otherwise this summer of our discontent, bent over American newspapers in the morning and listening to news broadcasts throughout the day. Remember Cynthia Ozick’s article in Commentary, “All the World Wants the Jews Dead?” I bristled then. I am confused now.
The words of Bilaam in Numbers ring in my ears: “…they are a people that shall dwell alone, and shall not be counted among other nations” (23:9). From his high perch, Bilaam looked down upon the Jews and saw their isolation from others. The apartness or otherness of the Jews can and has been a source of distinctiveness. It can also be a mark of anguished solitude.
“The Jews are alone in the world,” said the philosopher Eric Hoffer, not in 2014 but in 1968, a year after Israel’s dazzling victory in the ’67 war. Hoffer was a moral and social philosopher who wrote many influential books and won a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983 just months before he died. He wrote extensively on the human condition. When my friend, Rev. Reeder Herrick, passed on Hoffer’s remarks about Israel, I felt myself in the presence of a prophet.
“The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews,” said Hoffer, the prophet-philosopher. There is painful injustice in the double standard. In our grander moments, we tell ourselves that we are judged harshly by the world because “we answer to a Higher Authority.” This is too kind. If we are alone, we are not held up to a higher standard among nations, just an impossible one.
How else should we view the appointment of anti-Israel William Schabas to head the UN commission investigating alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza, the biased reporting of papers we trusted, the damning placards of British protestors calling Israelis child murderers when Hamas uses children as human shields and executes people without due process. Israel makes moral errors. But Israel’s Supreme Court punishes its own citizens as part of the fiber of a democratic society. Vigilante justice does not go unchallenged. But roiling, irrational hatred of Israel and our people does go unchallenged. Still.
“If Israel survives it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources.” Israel as a state was only 20 years old when Hoffer wrote this. He could not assume that Israel would endure forever because it had just finished its teenage years. Now heading deeper into retirement age, Israel is hardly more secure in its place in the world. I assume Israel will always exist because I do not know a world without it, nor will I entertain any other reality, despite the noise of anti-Semitism. We have our own country: Israel. Israel has its own army. Israel has powerful allies. Jews worldwide are committed to Israel’s enduring existence.
And yet, we have not tackled Hoffer’s proposition sufficiently. He contends that we will only exist because of Jewish efforts and resources at a time when many Jews feel uncomfortable talking about Israel, when Shabbat table conversations blow up because of political differences, when many rabbis fear to take a stand on Israel from the pulpit.
“We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us.” How did Hoffer know that this would be true almost 50 years after he said it? Despite all of its external pressures, Israel is still serving as our global refuge, gathering diaspora Jews under its sheltering protection, allowing us to walk with our heads high. Ask Jews who arrived there this summer from Ukraine, or the 400 French Jews who arrived one day in July to rocket fire. Natan Sharansky put it best: “More and more people are asking whether Jews have a future in France, but no one doubts that French Jews have a future in Israel.”
“I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us,” Hoffer intoned. When we become a society that tolerates hatred for the sake of an uncritical liberalism, then terrorism has found a breeding ground, both inviting and shallow.
I recently attended a wedding where the rabbi paused and invited the happy group to mourn the losses in Israel; the nation called “struggle with God” — after the biblical Jacob — was struggling again. The elderly woman next to me turned to her neighbor with a loud whisper, “Maybe the country should just change its name already?”
Israel is not changing its name nor is it cowering in the face of existential threats or name-calling. We who share the name Israel as a nation there and in the diaspora will stay above the fray. If we must be alone — at least for a while — then we shall. It will be the world’s loss.
Erica Brown’s most recent book is “Happier Endings: A Meditation on Life and Death” (Simon and Schuster). Subscribe to her weekly Internet essays at ericabrown.com.
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Enjoy the read, and come hear Rabbi David Wolpe in conversation with Abigail Pogrebin on his provocative new book on King David, Sept. 16, 7 p.m. at Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center, 10 E. 66th Street. For reservations, click here.
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