Closer to Fine: COVID-19 Version

A little off my usual topic, but I cope with stress by writing song parodies. Enjoy Closer to Fine: COVID-19 version.

Listen to a Recoding by Sara Borer

Why Warren’s loss feels so personal to me

NYT

Cross-posted at daily Kos

It was hard to have Hilary Clinton, way more qualified, way more knowledgeable, way more decent, way more insert-pretty-much-any-adjective-you-would-want-in-a-president-here lose to Trump.

It is harder still to have Elizabeth Warren, who had almost none of whatever flaws you might ascribe to Clinton, lose.

It is not just that women have lost to men. It is that the women were more capable and had better policy.

I feel this loss as a feminist.

But I also I feel the loss as a person who appreciates deep and comprehensive thought. It hurts that my way of looking at the world is not one that is valued by others. It scares me too.

But especially I feel the loss as someone who identifies as both, as a smart woman. Because that is still something people find not “likeable” or “electable”. And that is hard to take.

However, I understand that that’s how democracy has to work.

I am hoping this post can be just a small moment to hold that hurt before we move on to the main task ahead.

The evidence of polygamy is in our genes?!? Poor Science writing and the danger of sociobiology

The Washington Post recently reported on a genetic study that found more genetic diversity in female ancestors than male ancestors. The article was headline:

The evidence of polygamy is in our genes

The article explains the finding:

In the genetic history of our species, the mamas outnumber the papas. A new study in Investigative Genetics reports that females have made a bigger contribution than men.

By studying the DNA of 623 males from 51 populations, the researchers found more genetic diversity in the DNA inherited from mothers than they did in the DNA inherited from fathers.

At first glance, these results could be taken to mean that there used to be more women than men. But if you know anything about history, it makes more sense to blame reproductive habits: In many cultures, more women reproduced than men.

And then it goes off the deep end of speculation via sociobiology (a field based on the assumption that social behavior has resulted from evolution and is sometimes used to justify such behaviours):

Polygamy —  the practice of one man marrying multiple women — was historically pretty common (and probably much more common than the opposite group marriage arrangement, polyandry). If most men have multiple wives, and the richest can support a whole bunch, that’s going to leave some men without reproductive partners. So even though an individual male might have had more offspring than most individual women, the gender as a whole was making fewer contributions to the gene pool.

How we get from the fact that more women reproduced than men to any information about marriage in prehistoric people is a bit beyond me. First, (and I know this may be a shock here) people can reproduce with out being married. In fact whole societies may have had no marriages at all and still produced the pattern of more females reproducing than men. It is not like we found a huge stack of marriage certificates from 10,000 years ago and saw individual men married to multiple wives. But if you are looking at reproduction as marriage (an unscientific approach perhaps biased by living in  today’s 1950s society), then you might miss a more obvious answer. (At least this is what I thought of).

Prehistoric women probably had enormously high rates of dying in childbirth (validated by many scientific studies). That alone could account for the effect of more women reproducing than men, if men took up new partners when their partners died.

But you won’t see that if you are looking to justify the cultural idea that men are polygamous but women aren’t polyandrous.

V’Tzivanu: Women, Tefillin, and Tzitzit: Bread and Butter, Challah and Tefillin, and the “New Jew”

READ the whole thing- it is worth it!

I have come to the conclusion that the rabbis exempted women from certain mitzvot to ensure that men are free to serve God through mitzvot, and that the mitzvot not lose their status and, therefore, their power to inspire awe. The impact of this exemption on women’s spirituality and ability to serve God was acceptable, in their view—if the question of women’s spirituality was even considered.

Today, however, women are equal citizens in secular society (at least officially) and are not expected to sacrifice their self-fulfillment for men. The rabbinic model of women’s exemption from mitzvot no longer makes sense. Even as I have come to value homemaking and other nurturing activities once considered more feminine (such as communal work), I am still not willing to consider them “women’s work.” To be full, balanced human beings we all need to be engaged in both the public and private spheres, in nurturing acts as well as acts of self-fulfillment. Men, therefore, should take challah and women should wrap tefillin, and vice versa. If we value both of these experiences, and if we see neither gender as subservient to the other, we should settle for nothing less.

via V’Tzivanu: Women, Tefillin, and Tzitzit: Bread and Butter, Challah and Tefillin, and the “New Jew”.

Let’s Get Real About Marriage and Parenting » Rabbis Without Borders – My Jewish Learning

Let’s Get Real About Marriage and Parenting » Rabbis Without Borders – My Jewish Learning.

 

Jane Eisner’s recent editorial Marriage Agenda brought back me to the 80s and 90s. As I finished high school, made my way through college and began graduate school, my elders were filled with advice about family planning. In the Jewish community, where concerns of assimilation reached a fever pitch, there was a very strong chorus that promoted marriage and childbearing. Eisner’s piece, which laments the high rates of intermarriage, the delaying of marriage, or even choosing not getting married sounded eerily like a retro recording of days gone by.

Kosher Restaurant Revolt Brews in Jerusalem – Forward.com

A dozen eateries in the holy city are brazenly claiming kosher credentials without the state rabbinate’s say-so. They are shifting the perennial controversy over state and religion in Israel from well-worn subjects, like Orthodoxy’s monopoly over marriage and divorce, to the rights over this single word, kosher.

via Kosher Restaurant Revolt Brews in Jerusalem – Forward.com.

These behaviours:

• Limiting to a very few suppliers

The rebellion began in the summer, after a small Indian vegan restaurant in the city center, Ichikidana, objected to new limitations imposed by the local rabbinate on where it could source its produce. There have long been rumors of corruption in Israel’s kashrut establishment, and restaurant owner Lahava Silliman believed that the demand on her to patronize only a small number of suppliers was intended to give certain businesses favored by the rabbinate extra trade. “It was very transparent to me,” she said.

 

• Unregulated prices for services

Sasson claims that when he was supervised, he received from his supervisor, or mashgiac, just a half-hour visit every two or three days. Silliman said that she paid a salary of 1,200 shekels a month ($300) plus benefits, and the inspector spent about 15 minutes a week on her premises.

 

• Crossing the line between verification and assuming cheating-Looking through the garbage!!

From my hours and hours of visiting stores, monitoring stores, spying on stores, stakeouts, picking through garbage, observing mashgichim, walking the shuk [market] and other areas in the center of Jerusalem

These are not what kashrut is supposed to be about and sound like a number of other things, none of them good.

Boutique Bar/Bat Mitzvah

This month’s Hadassah magazine covers the hot new trend of having a Storahtelling ‘Raising the Bar’ event instead of traditional bar or bat mitzvah. (also covered recently in The Jewish Week). As a measure of the coolness of these events,’Raising the Bar’ was one of the ten finalists for Jewcy’s Next Big Jewish Idea Contest.

What is Storahtelling and Raising the Bar?
Storahtelling involves creating a theatrical event out of the weekly Torah portion, usually with costumes, lighting, audience participation and script writing opportunities for the child and his or her family. Storahtelling has been around for 13 years under the leadership and branding of Amichai Lau-Lavie, its charismatic founder. In its original form it took the place of a dvar Torah (sermon) in a traditional service and often included some chanting of the Hebrew text interwoven with the dramatic presentation. In the current bar/bat mitzvah format, there is sometimes no Hebrew text (though a few have a traditional bar/t mitzvah as well though most read an aliyah), often no haftorah and very little of a traditional service, but there are new rituals created by the families, who are guided by the program’s tutors over a year-long process.The Jewish Week reports “Some kids have leyned Torah and Haftorah in typical bar/bat mitzvah fashion; others have dispensed with the Hebrew altogether. One girl is writing and performing a song about Miriam as part of her ceremony.” Most of the “Raising the Bar”events are private and take place outside of synagogues. Their video promo.

My Experience with StorahTelling: Part 1 2003
My personal experience of Storahtelling was in 2003, when my synagogue brought in the talented Lau-Lavie and some of his staff for the annual retreat. On Saturday morning
he gave dramatic, exciting, provocative and sometimes irreverent (though when the parsha is Sotah irreverence seems like a good response) translation/introductions to each aliyah. The team then dramatized sections of the story and led a brief animated discussion (brief compared to this shul’s usually long ones). Then on Saturday night (due to the proximity to Shavuot) the team read selections of the Book of Ruth in Hebrew and dramatized them well,with good actors, with costumes, lights and with humour in English.

My Experience with StorahTelling: Part 2 1983(?)
Being brought up in the alternative scene this type of activity was not actually new to me. When I was about 10 years old, our rabbi introduced the concept of bibliodrama (the term and concept were developed I think by Peter Pitzele in the 1980s) at a retreat (a coincidence? I think there is just the idea that people are more open to innovation at retreats). After our rabbi set the scene, she divided us up into different characters (the story was Joseph and his brothers) and gave us background and motivations and then had us act out the story. Then we discussed what we had learned about the text seeing it from our character’s point of view. It too replaced the dvar Torah in a traditional ( if you call what Reconstructionst do on their shul retreat traditional) service. Given the detail I remember almost 30 years later, it is evident that it made an impression on me. I thought it was innovative, and cool. Of course, I was 10.

My reaction to both these experiences was surprisingly similar given the differences in time, my age and the directors. I thought it was neat and interesting experience, one that really made the text come alive. But I also though that I wouldn’t want it to replace the dvar Torah more than a few times a year. I would miss the struggling with the texts and the insights and the discussions. (Yes even as a child I found divrei Torah riveting I was weird).

My Reactions
The Storahtelling ‘Raising the Bar’ website and the Haddasah article talk about how this is crafting a meaningful coming of age ceremony for the child and his or her family– more meaningful perhaps because it is accessible to the guests, is worked on with the immediate family, and avoids the tedious study of chanting and Hebrew school.

Community- I think an element that is missing in all this is that bar or bat mitzvah is not just a marking of a coming of age (as in the nutty film montage in Duddy Kravitz). It is a welcoming into the adult community of which the child now begins to become a part of. This role has privileges and responsibilities (the mitzvah part of the phrase bar/t mitzvah- which means commandment in Hebrew) with in that community. And though Storahtelling tries, by working with cohorts of kids and their families, I think it totally misses this aspect on focusing on entering a community. Hadassah magazine quotes Rabbi Mordechai Finley, “What makes a person Jewish is their connection to a community. It’s not about simply getting your needs met.” Even if it is an outreach program to those who don’t really have a Jewish community, then part of that outreach should be trying to create one for the participants or connect them to existing ones. Moreover, though community service projects are mentioned as part of the program, they are not emphasized much and happen after the event so that they are not seen as part of the learning experience. At least going from what is on the website, the direct connection between entering the community and one’s obligation to contribute to it is not made.

Also, though the cost of a Raising the Bar event is similar to the costs of family shul membership and Hebrew school (at least in New York- it doesn’t cost $7-10,000 here), synagogues make sure there is access to ceremonies for those who cannot pay.

Context- Similarly, how does this help connect the child to the Judaism they are going to live daily, weekly or seasonally. How does this place what they have learned in the context of their lives now and from now on?

Continuity– Part of the traditional speech by a rabbi or shul president to a bar or bat mitzvah kid is, “Great job- see you back on the bimah next week”. It is a bit of a joke, but also a recognition of the fact that the skills they have learned in Hebrew, in learning blessings and parts of the service, in chanting, in studying text and in presenting a dvar Torah, can be used in shul and in other Jewish contexts for the rest of their lives.

Yes, practicing is tedious and boring- but we do it for anything we want to be good at and think is worthwhile, from playing piano to playing soccer well.

And my final elitist comment: though the guided study might be at a high level discussion of the text and demonstrate different methods and approaches (I don’t know – so I’ll give the benefit of the doubt) the final products (as described) seem a bit heavy on drama and a bit low on intellectual exploration. It reminded me (in a very unfair comparison) of my daughter’s day school trip to Chabad’s Exodus Experience, lots of action but not the thought process I wanted.

The Wider Issues
I realize that these critiques can apply to other forms of Bar and Bat mitzvahs (two mentioned in the Haddasah article are the Trip to Israel and the Wilderness or Adventure bar/t mitzvah) as well as some synagogue bar/t mitzvah programs. (Though I can see if you davenned in the wood in a creative way monthly with a group, then maybe that would work). A supporter of the Storahtelling program, Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of CLAL ,quoted in Hadassah magazine says that “the idea that the synagogue provides a community is a myth.” The point of post is not to single out a specific program, except as an example of a trend that is far larger than one program. The point is really to use it as a jumping off point to discuss what bar/t mitzvah was, is and should be. And if shuls are not providing that, then what should change?

But Bubbe and Zaide Were Hippies

My first op-ed for the Forward. (But Bubbe and Zaide Were Hippies)

On a Friday night at shul, the children gathered to hear the rabbi tell an after-dinner story. His style was so engaging that they were riveted to the dialogue between a little boy and his Bubbie depicting how faith and song magically hid her from the Cossacks in the shtetl. Part of me settled comfortably in to the warmth and familiarity of the story, but part of me felt disconnected. My husband and I were expecting our first child, and I had just started to think of my own parents as a Bubbie and a Zaidy. But my parents were born in the 1940s in North America; they had never been to a shtetl. Looking at the very young children around the rabbi, and doing some quick arithmetic, I was sure that none of them had grandparents born in the shtetl either.

When I was a child I got the idea from many books and school and summer camp programs like ‘shtetl wedding’ that most Jewish grandparents came from the shtetl. My father even joked that when I was born, he was surprised that his parents, born in North America, didn’t develop Yiddish accents like his own grandparents and all the bubbies and zaidies he knew as a child. For a while I thought I was unusual, having four North-American-born grandparents (though the children of immigrants all). But this was more common than I thought. I estimate in my day school kindergarten class 28 years ago, only a slim majority of the grandparents came from Eastern Europe.

The generation which came from the shtetl made ground-breaking contributions to the labor movement, lifted their children into the educated middle class, and struggled to maintain faith when faced with modernity. Because of this important and identity-shaping role, I was willing to overlook that the stories of my childhood reflected the experiences of my parent’s generation more accurately than my own. But now, for my daughter’s sake and to honor my parents who were also part of an identity-shaping generation, I cannot help but ask, “Where is the Jewish children’s book entitled Bubbie and Zaidy were Hippies?”

The most meaningful experience of faith for today’s Bubbies and Zaidies is unlikely to be being saved from physical attack; it is more likely to be the first time they prayed outside at sunrise following and all-night Shavuot study session. How lovely the illustration of this could be: Zaidy, 30 years younger, in his in jeans and rainbow-colored tallit, the sun rising in soft watercolors. Maybe the most meaningful Jewish moment for Bubbie was when she first saw the Torah up close, for her first aliyah, which she had as an adult. Their sense of community with other Jews was forged not in lantsmanschaften but in havurah-based, pot-luck Shabbat dinners. These settings and situations can exude warmth and evoke the transformative power of spirituality and community as effectively as stories from eastern Europe- and perhaps do a better job because they map more easily on to the real life experiences of today’s children.

Our children can be inspired by stories about young Jewish men and women, now in their sixties, who left their quiet lives to register voters in Mississippi and Alabama, and how these experiences shaped their Jewish identities (When Zaidy marched with Dr. King). Given that Dr. Joachim Prinz, a founding chairman of the March on Washington, as well as president of the American Jewish Congress, was a zaidy ten times over when he died twenty years ago, these stories are long overdue.

The distance in time from my great-grandparents’ arrival in North America to my parents’ birth in the 1940s is the less than time from 1940s to the present. The Jewish experience changed radically from the early 1900s to the mid-1940s. But it has changed equally radically since then. While for European immigrants one could either be a modern “free-thinker” or a religious Jew, it was the spiritual struggle of the next two generations that tried to define how one could be both. Hearing stories about the shtetl teaches our children about an important time in Jewish history and about the strength and value of faith. Hearing stories about the lives of their modern grandparents will give them the framework to maintain that faith in the nuanced world of today’s Judaism, where practicing at all is an active choice we make and where we have many rich and varied options of how to do so.