Dear Reader,
The most widely read article on our website this week is about a program, started by YU students but not sanctioned but the university, that creates safe spaces on campus for LGBTQ Orthodox students. Reporter Hannah Dreyfus has the story.
NEW YORK
‘Safe Spaces’ For Orthodox LGBTQ Students Spreads On Campus
Program that began at YU gets new grant and intercampus launch.
Hannah Dreyfus
Staff Writer
Jewish college students gather for LGBTQ “safe space” seminar, a series of training sessions for campus leaders.
Rachael Fried, a 27-year-old graduate of Stern College, spent years formulating one three-word bombshell of a sentence: I am gay.“Just being able to say it to myself, let alone others, took years,” said Fried, former student council president at Stern and current graduate student at Parsons The New School for Design. She wore a knee-length pencil skirt, button-down top, cardigan and colorful scarf, long hair falling down her back.
“I’m pretty religious, and I’m pretty gay,” Fried joked. “My story, though, is not an extraordinary one. I was a typical Stern student leader.”
Fried spoke out publicly for the first time on a recent Friday at the second session of Merchav Batuach, a recently launched “safe space” seminar for Orthodox college students. Founded in December by Stern senior Dasha Sominski, the project, which offers language sensitivity training and networking opportunities for gay students and their allies, is poised to expand. Campus chapters at Barnard, Columbia, NYU, Yale and Queens College are scheduled to open in the fall.
“I heard about the project though social media, and realized it would be a perfect fit for our campus,” said Sophia Adler, a sophomore at Queens College who hopes to launch the training sessions there this fall. The significant Orthodox population at Queens makes it an ideal location for the initiative, she said.
The project’s expansion follows President Barack Obama’s call last week to end reparative therapies aimed at “converting” gay, lesbian and transgender youth, a method endorsed in certain Orthodox circles. JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing), a New Jersey-based organization that promotes reparative therapy, has protested past attempts to prohibit such therapies.
Unlike the reparative therapy model, Merchav Batuach hopes to promote a model of acceptance. The project, sponsored by Eshel, a nonprofit founded in 2013 to support gay Orthodox adults and their families, received $15,000 from the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York last month; that grant followed on the heels of a $10,000 grant from UJA-Federation of New York in January, according to Eshel’s executive director, Miryam Kabakov.
The recent training session, which attracted about 30 students, included “coming out” role play, in which two students improvised the scene of a student telling his college dorm counselor that he’s attracted to men. After a round of applause, viewers critiqued the scene for instances of insensitivity and brainstormed ways to respond effectively in a real-life situations.
“I came today to find out how to respond when a friend tells me she’s gay,” said Leora Veit, 22, a graduate of Stern College. Veit said that in the past few months, she’d discovered that several of her friends weren’t straight — “they opened up to me because they felt comfortable, and I found myself feeling flustered,” she said. “Learning how to respond was a skill I needed to learn.”
Over the past several years, LGBTQ awareness within the Orthodox community has been increasing, though slowly, given the stance of Jewish law toward homosexuality. (In a much-publicized incident, a 2009 panel on homosexuality in the Orthodox community, hosted by Yeshiva University’s social work school, led to strong blowback from university officials.) JQY, an organization founded in 2001 to promote understanding for young gay Jews, today serves over 600 LGBTQ Orthodox young adults across New York. Keshet, a national grassroots organization, provides inclusion training for LGBTQ individuals and provides families with resources and guidance. For the third year, Eshel is hosting an annual weekend retreats for parents of LGBTQ youth — this month’s retreat will host about 50 parents from Orthodox and charedi backgrounds.
Isabel Singer, a junior at Yale University, invited Sominski to speak at the New Haven campus’ Hillel in the fall.
“Being gay and Orthodox is not rectifiable in certain ways,” said Singer, who considers herself queer, “but making social space for these Jews is always possible.” Though Singer used to be Orthodox, she now considers herself an egalitarian Jew. “For me, being queer was a large piece of why I moved away from Orthodoxy,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean Orthodoxy can’t embrace those who are queer.”
“The progress is astounding,” said Fried, who said she waited until after college to come out to her peers because she feared being stigmatized. “In my time at YU, an anonymous article in the student newspaper was a big deal. Now, students are coming to seminars like this.”
Though Fried originally wanted to remain anonymous, she changed her mind after speaking at the recent seminar, which was held at the Forward’s office in Lower Manhattan. “I so badly want others to have the role model I wish I had,” she said.
Despite support among the student body (several articles in the student newspapers have been written about the initiative), a YU spokesperson said there is “no formal relationship between the program and the university.” Merchav Batuach does not receive university funding, and seminars must take place off-campus.
“To say I’m particularly welcome or appreciated on campus would be taking it too far,” said Sominski, who openly identifies as queer. Though certain staff members have expressed support for the endeavor, administrators maintain a strict distance, she said.
Still, support from peers is more important, according to Sominksi. “Last time, I personally recruited most of the people who came,” she said, referring to the first Marchav Batuach seminar, in December. “This time around, I didn’t know most of the people there. Students are coming on their own.”
“Merchav Batuach seems like a place that is educating people on how to be a supportive friend,” said Channa Silverman, 22. A junior at Stern, Silverman is Chabad and married — at the seminar, she covered her hair with a colorful scarf. “I consider myself someone who friends can talk to about all sorts of things,” she said. “This is one subject where I needed an education.”
The three-hour seminar is tailored to Orthodox students who have had little or no exposure to these issues, explained Eshel’s Kabakov, herself a gay Orthodox Jew and a Stern graduate. In one interactive exercise, students were asked to match relevant terms with their definitions — the list included “androgynous,” “biphobia,” “homophobia” and “gender binary.” One student asked Sominski for the definition of an “ally,” the term used to describe supporters of gay rights.
“We start with the basics,” said Kabakov, who said most in attendance never formally discussed these topics before. “There are no dumb questions, and no assumptions of knowledge.”
Another exercise challenged students to describe a date, without using heteronormative pronouns. Students stumbled over their words, laughing, and kept trying.
“The first place to make space for LGBTQ youth is in our words,” said Kabakov, who said the activity highlighted the prevalence of heterosexual presumptions in casual conversation.
Though most of the students were from Yeshiva University, representatives from other universities attended. Talia Lakritz, a junior at Barnard, hopes to facilitate the seminar among Columbia students.
“Language sensitivity is part of being Jewish,” said Lakritz, referring to the stringent Jewish laws against evil gossip, or lashon hara. “That translates to LBGTQ issues also.”
Though many Orthodox gay young adults are feeling more comfortable coming out to peers, coming out to their parents remains difficult.
One gay YU student, who wished to remain anonymous for privacy reasons, said his parents are still “grappling with the ramifications” of his identity. Though he came out to his parents at age 14, his mother still “isn’t ready to give up her vision of a perfect Jewish family.”
“From as far back as I can remember, I’ve lived with two truths,” he said. “I’m Jewish, and I’m gay. Both are absolute.” Though he said his parents respect his authenticity, there’s a point after which they won’t support his choices.
“It’s OK, I’m strong. But I want to help others who aren’t as far along,” he said. Despite his resilience, he often wonders about his future in the Orthodox community.
“It’s hard to feel alone. But when I come here, I realize I’m not alone,” he said, blinking hard. “This redefines not being alone.”
editor@jewishweek.org
We also broke the story this week about the Met Council's new CEO. The scandal-plaguedanti-poverty agency is not merging, but will instead move forward with a leader from Touro College.NEW YORK
Met Council Reverses Course On Merger
Embattled agency will stay independent as it taps new CEO from Touro College.
Amy Sara Clark
Staff Writer
Alan Schoor will take over the helm at Met Council in mid-May.
Less than three months after announcing it was considering merging with another organization to streamline costs, the embattled Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty has reversed course and will remain independent, The Jewish Week has learned.The agency confirmed the move Tuesday as the scandal-plagued social service provider tapped a new CEO to restore public confidence.
“After months of discussions with UJA-Federation and others, it became clear that Met Council’s role in New York City — as a coordinating council of Jewish Community Councils and as an independent leader in direct anti-poverty service provision — is unique, and that remaining as an independent organization is the best way to serve the growing needs of New York City’s Jewish community,” Met Council’s chief of staff, Eric Munson, said in a written statement. (Met Council is a UJA-Federation of New York beneficiary.)
The agency’s new executive director and CEO — who steps into the top post just a few months after the collapse of another major social service agency, FEGS, is Alan Schoor.
Schoor, who has served for eight years as senior vice president of operations at Touro College, replaces David Frankel who announced in August that he would step down as soon as a replacement was found. Schoor will take the Met Council helm in mid-May.
Frankel took over in August of 2013 after the organization’s longtime executive director, William Rapfogel, was fired on allegations that he was stealing millions from the organization as part of an insurance overpayment scam. In April of 2014 he pleaded guilty to stealing $9 million during the two decades he was with the organization and is now serving a 3 1/3 to 10 years in prison.
Schoor, 68, comes to the role after three decades in city administration and non-profit management, including 10 years as an assistant and deputy commissioner of general services for the City of New York and 12 years as chief business andadministrative officer and deputy executive director at the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services.
“I have been involved in Jewish communal work in the last 20 years and that is my passion,” Schoor told The Jewish Week in an interview Tuesday. “As I watched the events unfold at Met Council ... I thought that my skill set would be of help to reposition the agency and move it forward. ... So I decided to throw my hat in the ring and see whether I could help out.”
Schoor said his top priorities will be to stabilize the agency’s finances, create a transparent culture and consider expanding services that help people get themselves out of poverty, such as job-training programs.
But in the interview he focused on transparency. “Clearly, based on past issues, we need to convince the donors as well as city officials and the departments that fund us that we are a reliable, credible, conscientious agency,” he said. “We’re a not-for-profit. We are keepers of other people’s money, government money and we need to make sure we are doing everything according to the rules.”
The decision to hire Schoor comes in sharp contrast with reports in August that the Met Council was strongly considering Rabbi Moshe Wiener, longtime head of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island, an organization in Met Council’s network. Met Council officials declined to comment on why that hire never came to fruition, but Paul Light, a professor at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, said it makes sense to bring in someone from the outside.
“You’ve got to get the message out that this is a new era for an organization and you’re going to do things differently. That you’re going to be astutely transparent,” he said.
“You sometimes have people in house who are absolutely terrific, they would make a great CEO and you would love to reward them,” he added, “but the particular circumstance of the departure of the moment is that you have to have someone from the outside just to show that this a different era.”
“There’s nothing like an outsider to make that point,” he said.
Rabbi Yeruchim Silber, executive director of the Borough Park Jewish Community Council, which also works closely with the Met Council, called Schoor “a really good choice,” saying that while he had a strong background in Jewish communal service, he was also “a person who can come in with fresh eyes.”
“He’s a very capable person,” he said. “Everyone has been shaken in the last couple of years and people need to know that there’s a strong person at the helm.”
editor@jewishweek.org
And on our Food & Wine section, meet a former finance guy whose Jewish sensibility helped him find his true calling, in fungi. From Wall Street, Alan Kaufman became amushroom farmer beloved by gourmet chefs. With recipe for krupnik, a barley-shroom soup perfect for these early spring evenings.A Finance Guy Finds His Calling In Fungi
Alan Kaufman's journey from Wall Street to mushrooms.
Nirit YadinSpecial To The Jewish Week
Many a Jew believes he was chosen. Alan Kaufman does, too – but by mushrooms.
A former Wall Street executive, he left finance after twenty-five years to start a mushroom farm with his wife, Julie. Today, he’s the rock star of edible fungi, growing mushrooms that blow your mind with flavor, not hallucinogenic properties. Today, he and Julie are hard pressed to meet demand from top chefs and hard-core foodies who line up to pay a premium for mushrooms from his Shibumi Farm in Princeton, N.J.
“I didn’t discover mushrooms, mushrooms chose me,” he says.
Alan grew up in Roesdale, Queens, the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany. They were Reform, German-style, and on the less observant side for the neighborhood.
But he went to Hebrew school, even voluntarily, and he says it was his Jewish sensibility that that started the journey from Wall Street to mushrooms.
“Being Jewish is a kind of warmth, a sense of caring for family and the world,” he says. “It’s also about challenging the status quo, asking quintessential questions, and loving to learn.”
During his years on the Street he started to study Jewish philosophy, and that led him to Buddhism. He now considers himself a Ju-Bu, or someone who has a Jewish background and affiliation who also practicesBuddhist meditation and spirituality. That’s where the mushrooms come in.
“Growing mushrooms is like a Zen practice,” he says. “It requires observation, patience, an empty mind, and an acceptance of the uncertainty or the incompleteness inherent in nature. I give my mushrooms a place to grow and thrive and stay out of the way.”
The first time I tasted Shibumi Farm's mushrooms I thought that they were not the best mushrooms I’ve ever had, but the best steak. They had the same well-rounded, umami-rich flavor of a steak. The same supple, chewy texture. And on top of that they had that alluring, intense quality of a wild mushroom.
Nationally known chefs like Josh Thomsen of Agricola, also in Princeton, and Will Mooney of The Brothers Moon in Hopewell are equally enamored of Alan's mushrooms, and put their money where their mouth is. Mooney calls him a "mushroom whisperer," and says the mushrooms are a "chef's dream" to work with.
Developing a mushroom farm, just like a meditation practice, takes time. It took Kaufman seven years to get his maitake right, something he calls ‘cracking the code.’”
“[It’s] about developing a relationship with the mushroom and knowing what it needs to thrive,” he says. “It’s about fine-tuning the mushroom's environment to let it reveal its best qualities. About knowing the appropriate nutrients, the variation in temperatures and humidity. About knowing how to fine tune the light.”
"It’s about being completely in tune with the mushroom’s inner process,” Julie chimed in. “Be the mushroom.”
This is what he means when he says mushrooms chose him. Growing them sounds like solving a math problem or reading a poem. For some people, the words and numbers reveal their inner process more easily than to others.
This vocation piqued Alan’s interest in alternative agriculture. Several consulting assignments in developing countries soon followed. He got involved in a program called “Mushrooms with a Mission.” His mission was to set up mushroom farms in the Quang Tri province in Vietnam—an area still littered with minefields. Mushroom cultivation would provide a steady flow of income for families of land mine survivors.
Many of those families are headed by disabled women. Mushrooms are an ideal source of income: They are easy to grow, thrive on practically anything and have a high market value. Mushrooms made a real impact improving the livelihood of many Vietnamese families. In fact, they made such an impact that the families could afford to clear the land mines.
This experience led Alan to envision ways in which mushrooms help caring for the world. They can turn waste into high-quality food. They can create “closed loop” self-sufficient ecosystems. And they are good at cleaning up the messes we humans create.
"Alan Kaufman of Shibumi doesn't just grow the most flavorful shitake, oyster, maitake and portobello mushrooms. He is also a visionary and an educator, preaching the power of mushrooms to improve personal and environmental health," said Thomsen, adding that Alan is Agricola's sole mushroom provider.
Alan’s not the only fungus evangelist. He’s an acolyte of Paul Stamets, author of Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, who makes a living finding fungal solutions to hunger, pollutants and diseases.
“The future belongs to mushrooms,” Stamets says.
Alan’s future certainly does.
“Mushrooms reveal easily,” Alan said. “But only enough to keep me engaged. It took seven years of experimenting to get the mushroom to the quality it is now. I could spend another fifty years improving from there.”
Click here for more amazing mushroom facts, and here for a mushroom-barley soup recipe perfect for these early spring days.
Nirit Yadin is a food writer, marketer and teacher. Find her at her website. A Gorgeous Fungus Among Us
The sweetness of root vegetables is a great match for the earthy wild flavor of the mushrooms.
Yield:
2-4 servingsActive Time:
30 minTotal Time:
1 hr 30 minHideIngredients
For the soup
1 parsnip, peeled
1 small celery root (celeriac) peeled and cut into large chunks
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 onions, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 lb. mixed exotic mushrooms + at least 1 cup maitake brushed clean and cut into large chunks
1/2 cup white wine or dry sherry
5 cups mushroom broth (see recipe below)
½ cup pearled barley, rinsed
2 medium red or Yukon potatoes, diced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
For garnish, lemon zest, chopped parsley or chives and sour cream or thick yogurt
For the mushroom broth
3 ounces dried mushrooms like chanterelle, cremini, morel or whatever you like
HideSteps
Soak the 3 ounces of dried mushrooms in 5 cups hot water until soft, or for no more than 20 minutes.
Remove mushrooms from the soaking liquid with a slotted spoon, reserving the liquid.
Strain the liquid through a fine-mesh sieve, leaving any dirt behind. Slice the mushrooms and set aside.
Pulse parsnip, celeriac, and carrots in afood processor until chopped or use a box grater.
In a stock pot, sauté onion in oil until translucent, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and thyme and sauté 2-3 minutes.
Add the fresh mushrooms and those that you’ve rehydrated and sliced to the pot and sauté for 2-3 minutes. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Add the chopped vegetable mixture and sauté for 2-3 minutes. Add the wine and let it boil down for a couple of minutes. Add mushroom broth. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes. Add barley and potatoes and return to a boil.
Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes,skimming the foam from time to time.
Leave covered for 15 minutes before serving orrefrigerate overnight. Serve hot with a generous dollop of sour cream or thick yogurt, chopped herbs and lemon zest.
Have a wonderful Shabbat, everybody,
Helen Chernikoff
Web Director
THE ARTS
A Stage For Compassion
Ted Merwin
Special To The Jewish WeekOften maligned as a singular stereotype in pop culture, in real life the Jewish mother comes in all shapes, sizes and personalities. In Deb Margolin’s new solo work, “8 Stops,” the performance artist copes with her own potentially fatal illness, her son’s terror of death and her sudden impulse to provide succor to a Scottish immigrant boy she meets on the subway. The play opens this week in the West Village and runs until the last weekend of April — just two weeks before Mother’s Day.
Along with Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw, Margolin founded Split Britches, an influential feminist theater company, in the 1980s. She is the author of many plays, including “O Wholly Night and Other Jewish Solecisms” about a Jewish woman waiting for the Messiah, and “Imagining Madoff” about a fictional encounter between the disgraced investor and his victims. Margolin revised that last one after one of its characters, Elie Wiesel, who lost his life savings to Madoff, threatened a lawsuit.
Directed by Jay Wahl, “8 Stops” takes place in Margolin’s hometown of Montvale, N.J., which she satirizes as a “rich Republican hamlet” in which she feels intensely out of place. One side of the set represents a cozy child’s room dominated by a sheltering tree, while the other side is arranged like a hospital room with an IV pole sprouting intravenous tubes.
In the course of the play, Margolin moves between these two spaces; she begins by describing her son’s panic attacks, in which he imagined being dead but still aware — “eternal consciousness with no company and no sensation.” Then she limns her own struggle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma as a prelude to telling about the boy on the subway whose new stepmother seems hostile to him; the boy, she thinks, looks to Margolin to save him before the ride ends.
In an interview, Margolin told The Jewish Week that despite its ostensibly serious subject, “8 Stops” is a “laugh riot,” a “comedy of the grief of endless compassion.” The playwright noted that she uses theater as a way to “make a random group of people into a generous citizenship of witnesses.”
During the play’s run last April in Philadelphia, Margolin’s own mother passed away. “Now it’s her yahrtzeit,” Margolin said. The play, she reflected, “is a tribute to her, and to motherhood in general — a way of loving that this piece aims to investigate, celebrate, and hold its breath in the middle of.”“8 Stops” runs through May 2 at the Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce St. Performance schedule varies; for information and tickets, $59, call OvationTix at (866) 811-4111 or visit cherrylanetheatre.org.
LENS
A Bike Ride Through History
Web Director
Deb Margolin in scene from her one-woman show, “8 Stops.” Raymond Reilly
A Stage For Compassion
Ted Merwin
Special To The Jewish WeekOften maligned as a singular stereotype in pop culture, in real life the Jewish mother comes in all shapes, sizes and personalities. In Deb Margolin’s new solo work, “8 Stops,” the performance artist copes with her own potentially fatal illness, her son’s terror of death and her sudden impulse to provide succor to a Scottish immigrant boy she meets on the subway. The play opens this week in the West Village and runs until the last weekend of April — just two weeks before Mother’s Day.
Along with Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw, Margolin founded Split Britches, an influential feminist theater company, in the 1980s. She is the author of many plays, including “O Wholly Night and Other Jewish Solecisms” about a Jewish woman waiting for the Messiah, and “Imagining Madoff” about a fictional encounter between the disgraced investor and his victims. Margolin revised that last one after one of its characters, Elie Wiesel, who lost his life savings to Madoff, threatened a lawsuit.
Directed by Jay Wahl, “8 Stops” takes place in Margolin’s hometown of Montvale, N.J., which she satirizes as a “rich Republican hamlet” in which she feels intensely out of place. One side of the set represents a cozy child’s room dominated by a sheltering tree, while the other side is arranged like a hospital room with an IV pole sprouting intravenous tubes.
In the course of the play, Margolin moves between these two spaces; she begins by describing her son’s panic attacks, in which he imagined being dead but still aware — “eternal consciousness with no company and no sensation.” Then she limns her own struggle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma as a prelude to telling about the boy on the subway whose new stepmother seems hostile to him; the boy, she thinks, looks to Margolin to save him before the ride ends.
In an interview, Margolin told The Jewish Week that despite its ostensibly serious subject, “8 Stops” is a “laugh riot,” a “comedy of the grief of endless compassion.” The playwright noted that she uses theater as a way to “make a random group of people into a generous citizenship of witnesses.”
During the play’s run last April in Philadelphia, Margolin’s own mother passed away. “Now it’s her yahrtzeit,” Margolin said. The play, she reflected, “is a tribute to her, and to motherhood in general — a way of loving that this piece aims to investigate, celebrate, and hold its breath in the middle of.”“8 Stops” runs through May 2 at the Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce St. Performance schedule varies; for information and tickets, $59, call OvationTix at (866) 811-4111 or visit cherrylanetheatre.org.
A Bike Ride Through History
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
For some elderly Polish Jews, a bike ride from Auschwitz to Krakow that began last year ended last month in Israel.The 30 Polish seniors, most of them Holocaust survivors, visited the Jewish state in March as guests of a trip financed by a 2014 “Ride for the Living” under the auspices of Krakow’s seven-year-old JCC (jcckrakow.org). Nearly 20 riders, some of them from abroad, took part in the 55-mile trek through the Polish countryside last spring, from the infamous death camp to the American-style JCC, which has become a symbol of new Jewish life in the country.
The leaders envisioned the ride as a consciousness raiser, about Poland’s ongoing Jewish revival, and as a fund-raiser, to pay for the aging Polish Jews’ weeklong trip to Israel this year. Many of the participants in the trip, members of the JCC’s Senior Club, set foot in Israel for the first time; for others, it was a last chance.
The now-annual bike ride takes place under the patronage of Michael Schudrich, Poland’s Long Island-born chief rabbi. It was inspired by Robert Desmond, a JCC member who had ridden his bicycle 1,350 miles from London to Auschwitz, stopping at World War liberation sites along the way. He decided that future bike rides should end in a place of life, not death.
Last year’s bikers joined Krakow’s small Jewish community for Shabbat, then took part in the annual 7@NiteFestival, a cultural celebration organized by the Joint Distribution Committee.
“As a Polish Jewish community leader, I see too often organized groups from the U.S. and abroad bypass the great renewal of Jewish life here,” says Jonathan Ornstein, the JCC’s executive director. “Ride for the Living will bring together people from around the world to celebrate Jewish life in Poland — a bright spot in a darkening Europe.”
Ornstein and Rabbi Avi Baumol, the chief rabbi’s rabbinic representative in Krakow, led the senior group’s visit to Israel.
The second Ride for the Living will be held on Friday, June 5.
steve@jewishweek.org
Sabbath Week
The Night That Changed Everything
Rabbi Charles Savenor
Special To The Jewish WeekCandlelighting, Readings:
Shabbat candles: 7:19 p.m.
Torah: Leviticus 9:1-11:47
Haftarah: II Samuel 6:1-7:17
Havdalah: 8:20 p.m.
A year before his bar mitzvah, my older brother, Arnie, confronted our parents about a glaring inconsistency. This conversation would ultimately change my family forever.
Like many families, our parents sent my older brothers to Hebrew School, Jewish camp and youth group. Arnie pointed out that while all of these Jewish experiences promote the value of an active Jewish life, including having Shabbat dinnerwith family and keeping kosher, our family did none of this.
Essentially, Arnie asked our parents about the value of his learning about a lifestyle that we seemingly had no intention of following.
This conversation concluded with a straightforward proposition: either let’s put some of what he was learning into practice, or stop making him attend classes and activities unaligned with our family values.
With little hesitation, my parents did the unexpected. They said: “Yes.”
My brother’s bold and sincere proposal activated within them a deep desire to take a spiritual step forward, and soon thereafter our family life began to change. We started turning Friday night into Shabbat, becoming regulars at Shabbat services and changing what we eat.
Only 5 years old at the time, I remember clearly the night our home became kosher. While I was perplexed by the scrubbing, boiling and unpacking of new dishes, what truly got my attention was when my parents started boxing up my favorite foods, especially Swanson’s TV dinners with those little apple pies.
Before I could even lodge a complaint, our non-Jewish neighbors showed up and quickly carted away these boxes filled with my favorite foods. It may be almost impossible for a child to understand that what was permitted just yesterday was prohibited today, so I just sat there and cried.
As the tears streamed down my cheeks, what was forefront in my mind was why it was so important to change what we eat, becoming kosher.
This week’s Torah portion, Shemini, directly addresses this question. It not only outlines the categories of permitted and forbidden foods, it also broadcasts clearly that these commandments are the cornerstone of a life of holiness.
That the laws of kashrut [Leviticus 11] follow an extended examination of the sanctification of the Mishkan (the Tabernacle, or Sanctuary), including the eating of sacrificial offerings at the Mishkan, invites us to reflect on the connection. Noticing this juxtaposition, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the 19th-century German sage, explains: “The preceding chapter teaches that the sanctification of life achieved by the Sanctuary culminates in the sanctification of physical pleasure.” In his eyes, a life of holiness is achieved through the food we consume, and our commitment to eating the prescribed food on the altar mirrors the spiritual necessity of consuming appropriate food at all times and in all places.
While kashrut is unarguably a pillar of Jewish life, this juxtaposition teaches us more than just about one commandment, but rather about the importance of life beyond the boundaries of the Mishkan. Explicit even within the commandment to build the Mishkan — “Build Me a Sanctuary so I will dwell among them” — is the notion that God can be with us wherever we are.
In light of the human necessity for sustenance, kashrut is the perfect commandment to represent Jewish life in its totality, as well as to reinforce that what was practiced in the Tabernacle (and later the Temple) needs to be aligned with what was practiced in the home.
The direct link between the communal center of holiness and the sacrosanct position of the Jewish home is reflected by the name given in rabbinic literature to the home. While the Temple is called the Beit HaMikdash, the house of holiness, the home receives the title of Mikdash Mi’at, the small sanctuary. The Jewish home, then and now, serves as an incubator of Jewish values, reinforced bite by bite at the family’s dinner table, compared to the altar by our sacred sources.
When my brother questioned our parents about the place of Judaism within our lives, many years ago, it became clear that what could have been construed as disrespectful was actually quite mature. His questions not only opened the door for our family to become more observant, but also changed our home forever into a Mikdash Mi’at, a small sanctuary.
What appeared to be the most perplexing and difficult night of my life many years ago when our home became kosher, turned out to be my earliest lesson in the purpose of Torah, the pursuit of holiness and power of the Jewish home.
It was actually the night that changed everything, and for this I will always be grateful.Rabbi Charles Savenor is the director of congregational education at Park Avenue Synagogue in New York.
BLOGS
WELL VERSED
Remembering Women Of The Holocaust
Gloria Kestenbaum
Courtesy Remember the Women Institute
The suffering of women, in particular, during the Holocaust, was for many years excluded from the general Holocaust narrative. Rochelle G. Saidel, founder of theRemember the Women Institute (RWI), has been instrumental in bringing the specific experience of women to the fore, especially insofar as the issue of sexual violation.
These efforts have been expended not as a contest of comparative suffering or to take away from the comprehensiveness of the Holocaust experience but because men and women suffered differently due to the disparities in their biology, cultural history and expectations. Pregnancy, rape, children and sterilization, not to mention the nakedness of women during the selection process, obviously have different resonances for men and women. As Saidel stated: “We are giving women their place in Holocaust history.”
With so many of these victims unable to tell their own story, RWI has made one of its goals to relay these experiences through music and the arts.Theatre has aspecial power to bring a story to life and RWI has created a resource handbook on “Women, Theatre, and the Holocaust,” which not only lists plays by and about women and the Holocaust but also offers teachers an outline for a study plan to use theatre as a tool to teach about women in the Holocaust.
On April 13, as part of a nationwide program of “Remembrance Readings” sponsored by the National Jewish Theater Foundation in commemoration of Yom HaShoah -- and to launch the online handbook -- a live theatre and musical performance was staged at the Center for Jewish History. Featured were three short dramatic presentations: “Gretel Bergmann,” a moving monologue, written and directed by Cynthia Cooper on the indignities suffered by the titular character, an Olympic high-jumps contender who was forced to return to Germany but banned from participating in the 1936 Olympics; a musical performance of an excerpt from “In the Underworld,” an operetta originally written by Germaine Tillion, in 1944 at Ravensbruck in order to entertain her fellowinmates (directed by Meghan Brodie); and "Wild Wind Blows" an excerpt from “Silence Not, A Love Story” by Cynthia Cooper.
The performance was co-sponsored by the American Jewish Historical Society and RWI. The three renditions were an appropriate trilogy for the gravity of the subject matter.
On June 3, 2015 at the Center for Jewish History, RWI and AJHS together with the Slovakian Consulate in New York and the Leo Baeck Institute, will premier a new movie about Havivia Reick, who was in the same British parachutist mission as Hannah Szenes, , “Return to a Burning House.”
What If Iran Doesn't Cheat?
Douglas Bloomfield
Bibi Netanyahu seems to be of two minds about the nuclear agreement being negotiated with the Iranians.Without knowing all the details because they remain to be worked out, he has already declared it a bad deal and he, his ambassador and AIPAC have been lobbying the Congress to block it.
Any deal with Tehran would be worthless, he argues persuasively, because Iranians are liars and cheats and won't keep their word.
But what if they do keep their word? That could be even worse, he seems to think.Ha'aretz reports the prime minister fears Iran will keep its commitments without violations.
Netanyahu told members of his security cabinet, according two unnamed "senior Israeli officials (often a euphemism for Netanyahu's aides)," that he feared the “Iranians will keep to every letter in the agreement if indeed one is signed at the end of June,” said Ha'aretz, and that would make renewed sanctions and long-term monitoring of Iranian nuclear facilities nearly impossible.
One official reported: “Netanyahu said at the meeting that it would be impossible to catch the Iranians cheating simply because they will not break the agreement.”
If the Iranians honor their commitments and behave for the next 10 to 15 years, when the agreements are expected expire and most sanctions are removed, the PM reportedly believes "it will be very difficult if not impossible to persuade the world powers to keep up their monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program, not to mention imposing new sanctions if concerns arise that Iran has gone back to developing a secret nuclear program for military purposes," according to Haaretz.
Netanyahu's strategy remains blocking the agreement. He has little hope that the Obama administration will produce results to his liking, so he is working closely with friends in the Congress, particularly the Republican leadership, to kill the deal.
Obama mentioned his frustration with Netanyahu in a press conference in Panama City, Panama, on Saturday."The prime minister of Israel is deeply opposed to it [the deal]," Obama said. "I think he's made that very clear. I have repeatedly asked -- what is the alternative that you present that you think makes it less likely for Iran to get a nuclear weapon? And I have yet to obtain a good answer on that."
The Jewish Week
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