Mail.Liberal-Judaism

• Jerry Blaz <ffdog@earthlink.net>

• Bruce Block <bblock@tribeca.ios.com>

• gmneudel@ecn.uxa.bgu.edu (Marian Neudel)

• Rabbi Arthur Waskow <Awaskow@aol.com>

• Tatjana Grom <zgrm@iskratel.si>
• Robin Cohen Anderson <robin@crocker.com>
• Chaim Frazer <frazerch@carroll.com>

• Betteann Wagner <bwagner@mail.sdsu.edu>

From: Jerry Blaz <ffdog@earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 01:55:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Apocryphal Story about Oak Park Temple

Having seen a notice in the recent MJL about adult education courses in Oak
Park congregations reminded me of a story, that might be apocryphal, but is at
least 35 years old, about a group of members of a neighboring church visiting
the Oak Park temple (which one I do not recall) but in the social hall of the
temple was a large fireplace.  One of the visitors, a middle-aged woman,
turned and asked the hosting member of the Temple, with all the serious
demeanor of the learning mode, while gesturing towards the fireplace, "Is this
where your high priest does the sacrifices?"

It is so gratifying to find our neighbors taking such an interest in our
rituals.<g>

Jerry Blaz

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From: Bruce Block <bblock@tribeca.ios.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 09:16:16 -0700
Subject: How Rude is it to Sleep in Shul?

Apropos of the recent discussion on sleeping in shul, there's an old joke (I
think it's from Leo Rosten's Joys of Yiddish):

Sam, a veritable pillar of the synagogue, would fall asleep the minute the
rabbi began his sermon, and wake up almost as soon as the rabbi concluded.
This went on for twenty years. Finally, following the rabbi's last service
before retirement the rabbi finally inquired as to why.  "Sam, I've noticed
that for twenty years, like clockwork, you nod off the minute I begin my
sermon, and wake up the instant it's over. Now that I'm retiring, I really
think I'm entitled to ask you why." Sam, without missing a beat, replied,
"Rabbi, would I sleep if I didn't trust you?"

Chag Sameach.

(Rabbi) Bruce Block

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From: gmneudel@ecn.uxa.bgu.edu (Marian Neudel)
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 12:51:51 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Increase in Activities of "Messianic Judaism"

My daughter, who lives in the far-out Chicago exurbs, has been noticing an
enormous increase in the activities of "messianic Jewish" congregations, "Jews
for Jesus", and "Hebrew Christians" in that area.  Her web searches have
turned up only material *from* these groups, and she wonders what, if
anything, the Jewish community itself is saying and doing about this
phenomenon.  (She has web access but no e-mail. Long story.)  Can you all help
us out?

Or v'shalom,  and hag sameach.

Marian Neudel

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From: Rabbi Arthur Waskow <Awaskow@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 07:55:54 -0400
Subject: Israel: Death at the End of the Tunnel

As Jews celebrate Sukkot, we focus on the sukkah. Its crucial characteristic
is that its roof is not only leafy but leaky - open enough to see the stars,
open enough for rain or a robber to enter. If it is built to be invulnerable,
it is no longer kosher.

Yet in the evening prayers, we ask God to "spread over us the sukkah of Your
shalom, Your peace."  Why is this vulnerable house the home of peace? Because
only when we all know and publicly acknowledge how vulnerable we are - we all
are - and only when we respect that vulnerability in others as well as
acknowledge it in ourselves, can we make peace with each other.

But during the week before Sukkot, the Netanyahu government violated that
basic wisdom.  It pretended to be invulnerable itself, and it trampled on the
vulnerability of the Palestinians. Now Palestinian and Israeli families are
paying in the coin of death the price of that violation.

Some have argued that opening the tunnel alongside the ancient Temple site was
no big deal. In an atmosphere of cooperation and negotiation, it might not
have been. But striking a match to light the holiday candles among friends in
the open sukkah is very different from lighting a match in a closed room where
you have poured gasoline in every corner.

And in a region already reeking of gasoline, some of it poured out by
Palestinians who chose terrorism, the Netanyahu government has spent the last
three months sloshing gasoline everywhere. It has announced that many more
settlers would be poured into the West Bank. It refused to go forward with the
withdrawal from Hebron that is mandated by the Oslo agreement. It has
demolished houses and community centers in Arab East Jerusalem.

Worse, it should have known that to open the tunnel was to toss a burning
match into the gasoline-soaked room. The tunnel has an old history. As someone
who spent 17 years as a tourist guide to the tunnel when it still had only one
entrance recalls, "In digging this tunnel several decades ago, an ancient
2000-year-old gate to the Temple Mount was discovered. In medieval times, the
entrance ramp beyond the gate (under the Temple Mount) had been converted into
a water cistern. Moslems on the Mount heard the shovels of the Jews breaking
through the ancient doorway into the water cistern. I was told that Rav Getz
(the rabbi of the Wall) personally held off a mass of Moslem youths who
rallied to the site. With his personal stature, he averted a riot - he was
from North Africa. The Moslems then cemented up the doorway, which is how it's
remained ever since.

"Every time I guided folks in this tunnel I would point out the ancient gate
to them. Because the tunnel is so narrow, very few people could enter, and
each group needed to walk to the end and then return. It made sense to open
the other end. But several years ago a riot ensued when Israel tried to do
just that (based on rumors that the Israelis were opening up an entrance to
get onto the Mount), so the opening was postponed."

The guide went on to say, "In a peaceful Jerusalem, it would make all the
sense in the world to have the tunnel open at both ends."

Probably true. In a peaceful marriage, it makes sense for the spouses to make
love. But when the spouses are enraged at and distrustful of each other, for
one to insist on sex when the other is unwilling does not make sense - it
makes rape.

For the Netanyahu government to ignore both the history of tension over the
tunnel and the deep fear, distrust, and anger that both sides have been
feeling - the Israeli distrust of Palestinian terrorism that brought Netanyahu
to power, and the Palestinian distrust of Netanyahu's intentions and actions -
was to throw the burning match into a room filled with gasoline. Small wonder
it exploded.

What to do now? There must be two crucial actions by the Israeli government,
and one by the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Netanyahu must close the tunnel and
withdraw Israeli troops from most of Hebron, as required by the Oslo
agreement. That will douse the match and get rid of some of the gasoline. And
Mr. Arafat must restore his police force to the status of police, not an
army--among other things, by making sure they do not have machine
guns. (Whether they are for use on Palestinian crowds or Israeli soldiers,
these seem not what a normal police force needs.)

Most basic of all, both Israelis and Palestinians must recall the profound
wisdom of the sukkah: Both peoples are vulnerable. The fate of each is
intertwined with the fate of the other. The leaders of both peoples must say
this in public and judge every act by that standard.

Only then will the stink of gasoline be washed out of the two houses that
stand side by side and both become the homes of peace.

Arthur Waskow

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From: Tatjana Grom <zgrm@iskratel.si>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 96 11:41:27 MET
Subject: Jews of Color

We have to treat everybody in a nice, polite way so as not to hurt them.  It
is even better, if we also think about them in that way. We should give
everybody a chance. Sometimes it is hard.

Most of the people are afraid of people, who are different.  This difference
can be in race, nation, social status, religion, behaviour etc.  They dont
trust them and they feel threatened by them, mostly they dont even know, why.

It can be protection instinct. It can be something we are told to feel. It can
be both (politics taking advantage cleverly of our instinct).

It is strange, though, that we feel safe inside OUR group, although there are
bad and vicious people there, who could harm us also.

Where I live, this problem occurs in connection with people from the south -
economic immigrants, who talk, dress, behave, beleive differently. There is
some tension between them and natives, maybe we could even call it a gap.

The only bridge between US and THEM that I know of, is GETTING TO KNOW THEM.
Once one sees, that people from foreign group are the same as people from your
group or maybe even better, you feel ashamed, that you let yourself have
prejudice.

If we want to cross that bridge or not, is up to us.

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From: Robin Cohen Anderson <robin@crocker.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 07:46:07 -0700
Subject: Re: Jews of Color

In "Jews of Color," Bernard Rotmil wrote:

>I believe that it is essential that we bask in our differences (vive la
>difference) because the realization that we are not alike makes life so much
>more interesting; allows us to appreciate the rest of mankind and, above all,
>allows a sense of humor about ourselves as we are who we are.

I fully agree that we should celebrate our diversity, and I did not mean to
imply that we should be afraid of it. But there is a distinction between
celebrating one's own uniqueness and being constantly reminded of it by
others.

For example, I am very proud of the path I've taken to return to Judaism, and
that my non-Jewish husband has been so instrumental in my return. I love
breaking the rules and being more observant *because* I am married to a
non-Jew, rather than despite it. And I'm not very shy about telling my story
when I feel so inclined.

However, imagine if every time I went to shul, someone came up to me and
reminded me that having the last name Anderson was so "special" by saying
things like "So, you're name is Anderson. How fascinating. I don't know too
many Jewish Andersons. Tell me, are you intermarried? How did you come to
attend our synagogue?" or "So, you're name is Anderson. You must be friends
with the Sorensens who attend our shul" or "With a name like Anderson, you
must be from Minnesota." I'd feel self-conscious, I'd get tired of feeling
that I had to reveal private information about my status as a Jew, and I'd get
weary of repeating that all intermarried people do not know each other or
befriend each other, nor do all people with Nordic last names come from the
midwest. Jews of color have analogous kinds of experiences in our synagogues,
and it behooves us to be aware of that.

My feeling is that it's up to each of us to share our uniqueness in a way that
feels comfortable. Some of us are very outgoing and self-revealing; some are
more restrained and private. But I want to *choose* when to raise the issue of
being intermarried, just as a person of color might want to *choose* when to
discuss issues regarding race and Judaism. For many reasons, I've felt very
different from others all my life; I love being part of the Jewish community
where my similarities to others are more important than my differences. I
revel in that feeling of being just like everyone else as much as I celebrate
the unique path I took to get there.

B'shalom,
Robin

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From: Chaim Frazer <frazerch@carroll.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 19:41:51 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Jews of Color

In Volume 6 Number 50, Tanya Scott indicates that I wrote about the situation
of the Ethiopians in Israel. I don't believe that I mentioned them, as their
Halakhic situation is much more complex than is true of "non-whites" in North
America, and would deserve a thread of its own. In general, the Religious
Zionist camp, since the days of Chief Rabbi Avraham Kook in the early 1930's,
has called for the redemption of Ethiopian Jewry, a project begun under the
last Begin government, and substantially completed (at least in terms of
relocation to Israel) under Shamir's first government.

On a personal note, many Ethiopians now attend graduate Yeshivot in Israel,
and one of them was a study partner of my younger son during his stay at
Yeshivat HarEtzion (the largest of the Israeli Yeshivot combining Torah Study
and military service, and one of the finest Yeshivot in Israel).

In the same Issue, both Tanya Scott and Laurel Halbany express some concern
about why color plays a role in some people's thinking for the "perfect
shidduch" (marital match), and Laurel also questions whether my statement that
some Orthodox Jews have negative attitudes toward Black Gentiles regarding
crime and welfare issues does not show residual racism.

It is crucially important to be honest, and to resist the temptation to
obscure one's own personal flaws or the flaws of one's community. Some, though
by no means all (or in my experience even a majority of) Orthodox Jews have an
extreme hypersensitivty about literally anything that would detract from what
they perceive to be less than a perfect match for their children.

The overwhelming majority of such concerns do not touch at all on racial
matters, but have to do with a variety of other matters (family background and
genealogical tree, perceived religiosity, and financial/professional status
are the most common). I feel strongly that the extent to which a minority of
Orthodox Jews takes these considerations is unhealthy for the individuals
involved and for the Orthodox community as a whole. Within that context, in
America (though generally not in Israel), color can be one such worry that
people inflict upon themselves needlessly.

As to Laurel's question regarding why these people don't worry about their
grandchildren being "openly Orthodox" impairing their future prospects, that
is because being visibly and publicly identifiable as Orthodox is one of the
major positive factors that most would insist on for their children's
prospective mates.

I stated, and I believe, that for a large majority of Orthodox Jews in America
(and virtually all in Israel), color per se would not play an important role
in their thinking. For that minority for whom it would be an issue, I believe
that for most of them it would be only one of a number of issues, and not
necessarily a decisive one.

Regarding Laurel's contention that negative attitudes toward Black Gentiles
have a racist basis in prejudiced "assumptions", I would simply point out that
in many communities Orthodox Jews continue to live side-by-side with Blacks,
are often (though not always) the disproportionate victims of Black criminals
by comparison to non-Orthodox Jews, and are more likely to see firsthand the
deleterious effects of the current welfare system on their own neighbors than
are most non-Othodox Jews (who generally do not live in such neighborhoods).
There is a vast difference between having been assaulted by people belonging
to Group A and developing negative feelings on that basis, versus living in
more removed circumstances and viewing Group A negatively.  This is, I
believe, a subject separate from internal Jewish-Jewish relations, though
Laurel may still disagree..

(I am reminded of an article in the 1970's by Nat Hentoff, a sensitive and
committed Jew (and not Orthodox in the least) who also was a dedicated pioneer
in the Civil Rights Movement. He wrote of his shock that his own son (then in
his mid-teens) avoided Blacks on the New York City subway, and scrutinised
them carefully when walking down the street. When he confronted his son and
accused him of incipient racism, he received a reply to which he said he had
no answer. "But Dad, don't you know that these are the people who beat us up
and rob us?")

Laurel also contrasts clarification as to an unusual appearing person's
Halakhic status with the "ban" on questioning a convert about his or her prior
status. I fear my earlier post was not sufficiently clear.

The problem tends not to arise with Jews of whatever color born into Orthodox
families and socialized through our communal institutions (schools, camps, and
youth movements). By the time such a person hits early adulthood, if not well
before then, he or she has such a wide range of Orthodox personal
acquaintences that he or she could enter vitually any Orthodox community of
significant size anywhere in the world and would know people there, know the
Rav, or know people known to either the congregants or the Rav. (For persons
not born into the Orthodox community, the problem also tends to go away after
a number of years of being part of Orthodoxy, as they build a similar network
of friends and acquaintences.)

In situations dealing with people (of whatever color) whose status is not
known to the community, the Orthodox community is quite concerned about
clarifying the Halakhic status of prospective congregants, and an increasingly
common practice is to inquire about the background of anyone not known to come
from a Jewish family (by Halakhic standards). Given the number of conversions
not conducted according to Halakha, as well as the decision to treat children
not born to Jewish mothers as Jews (formally taken by Reform, but often
practiced on an informal basis by wider sections of Jewry regarding adopted
children), Orthodox communities are more and more requiring clear proof of
Jewish status according to Halakha before admitting people to synagogue or
other institutional membership-let alone considering prospective marriages.

>From this perspective, what tends to happen regarding persons not known to
the community whose physical appearance is sharply different from what we have
come to expect (e.g. Black or Oriental) is that they will tend to have these
matters addressed early rather than later, as the possibility of irregular
Halakhic status manifests itself earlier.

In actual fact, the Orthodox community does tend to follow what Laurel
describes as preferable: namely having the Halakhic inquiry (if needed) made
by the Rav and following his decision without inquiring themselves. I think
that my own ignorance (after 10 years of knowing her, as mentioned in my
original post to this thread) as to whether a member of my congregation with
African Americal physical characteristics is or is not a convert shows how
this works in actual practice.

One should note carefully that the Halakhic proscription about drawing
attention to a convert's past (or referring to it negatively) is not designed
to hide the facts, but to concentrate attention upon the convert's present and
future. Therefore, it is not absolute.

Obviously, if converts themselves choose to discuss some of these matters, a
person should respond supportively. Similarly, the differences in how mourning
practices regarding his or her "birth family" can diverge from Jewish mourning
practices for close relatives (but need not, largely depending upon the
convert's decision) mandate that the community be somewhat aware of a person's
prior status if only to offer proper support at a time of grief.

(The one Halakhic situation in which it is important for everyone to know a
person's status is in terms of marital law. A female convert may not marry a
male Kohen (descendant of a priestly family), so one would not wish to propose
or agree to a Halakhically improper match. Reform, of course, abrogated
Halakhic marital law quite early in its institutional life, and I believe that
Reconstructionism has followed suit, so they would not have the same
considerations as Orthodoxy. My understanding is that Conservativism still
retains this area of practice as formally binding.)

I do agree with Laurel that we shall see more and more converts from a wide
variety of former backgrounds, with accompanying increasing incidence of
varied physical appearances, and believe that my original post gives a good
description of this process at work in the Orthodox world.

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From: Betteann Wagner <bwagner@mail.sdsu.edu>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 11:15:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Information Request: Looking for Gilbert Goldstein

Last Pesach all three of my children were together for the first time in many
years.  I told them of my memory of my great gradmother lighting candles for
Pesach.  I realized for the first time that I have never known her name.  That
has bothered me a great deal.  I thought I might be able to contact my uncle,
my mother's brother for information.  New York has 32 Gilbert Goldsteins in
their directory.  He would be 81 now if he is still living.  I know he is
observant and orthodox.

Is there any group that I might be able to contact for assistance?  Is there
someplace I could post a request for information?

Thank you.
Betteann Wagner

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"It is not our task as liberal Jews to complain about the Orthodox attitude or to be bullied by it, but rather to choose our legitimate path according to the inner logic and development of liberal Judaism" (Rabbi Walter Jacob)

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