The Evolving Jew

Yesterday, scandal-ridden Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich did what many feared he would do - he appointed someone , ( Roland Burris) to serve out Obama's US Senate term. The hue and cry is enormous - everyone on both sides of the aisle are condemning this appointment as illegitimate. There are threats by the state attorney general to refuse to certify the appointment and threats by the Democrats who control the US Senate to refuse to seat Burris. But it's far from guaranteed that they will be able to legally exercise that authority and the courts may overrule them and Burris will be seated anyway. And by deliberately picking an African American, Blagojevich has cynically put race into the equation as well. This environment is the last thing the new Obama administration needs as they come to Washington. But the Illinois state legislature had a chance to do the right thing, and the majority Democrats balked . They had the chance to strip the governor of the power to appoint

I was tagged by Jessica with this meme - my first one :-) The Rules: a) Link to your blogger and list these rules on your blog b) Share 7 facts about yourself, some random, some weird c) Tag 7 people (if possible) at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs d) Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs 1: I have a really good voice (I’ve been told), love singing and used to sing in a choir. But I have no talent for art whatsoever. If you ask me to draw a picture, it’ll look like a kindergartner drew it. 2: I am a cyborg. I have a metal plate and 9 pins in my ankle as a result of a hiking accident at the aptly named Breakneck Ridge in 1996. (And am glad it wasn’t my neck!) I still set off some metal detectors. 3: I travelled to France with some friends to see a total solar eclipse in 1999. Unfortunately, clouds rolled in just before totality and we missed it. But it was still eerie to see day t

The Jerusalem Post has this amusing article about the lack of latkes (or levivot) in Israel in favor of sufganiyot (fried jelly doughnuts). Some of the comments are funny too. The author quotes someone's story on how sufganiyot became popular in Israel: "It was the Histadrut guys, you know the ones from way back... They were bothered by levivot being homemade and not something that was sold in grocery shops or kiosks, and felt that something was needed to keep workers busy - particularly during the slow months between the hagim and the time dried fruits start moving. So they began to look for an alternative, you know, something that you need oil for but also something that people - and especially kids - would spend money on. Someone real smart came up with the idea of making sufganiyot a Hanukka treat, and bingo, a star was born." Personally, I think both are a recipe for indigestion. Instead, I'll be making some zuchinni levivot later fried in oliv

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/nyregion/23yeshiva.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink Interesting article on how faculty & students at YU are dealing with the scandal. One non-sequiter: The picture of students in the beit midrash is labelled "Students in the library." I guess that's close enough - does anyone use the term "study hall" these days?

So it seems that Bernard Madoff invested all his clients' money in his own wealth and depended on his being as cool as "the Fonz" to get him through it. But unfortunately, he was caught by Mr. Cunningham. Joanie was so disappointed in Bernie, that he decided to turn himself in... Well, someone I know really did think it was called a "Fonzie Scheme". In actuality, Madoff's crime is his pulling off a giant "Ponzi scheme", named after Charles Ponzi, who pulled the wool over his investors' eyes in the early 20th century. For more, see the Wikipedia entry here .

Noam Shpancer writes a column in my local Jewish paper. He's an Israeli living in my city and he has strong opinions, usually to the extreme left of Israeli politics, and more often than not, I think he's gone off the deep end. But his latest piece is excellent, albeit written in his confrontational style. He decries the tendency to see antisemitism around every corner. I agree. sometimes it seems like fighting antisemitism has replaced the richness of our actual tradition for some organizations. Here's his article on the local paper's website or on his blog . I once knew a guy named Ze'ev Maghen. I haven't seen him in many, many years but a quick google search found him teaching at Bar-Ilan. Anyway, way back when, I think around 1990, he wrote an article on how to fight anti-semitism. Its main point was that we shouldn't moan and wail about anti-semitism but go ahead and live rich Jewish lives and that's the best answer. I found a link to the art

I have several female friends who are Orthodox and single, all near the age of 40, (give or take a couple of years,) who had babies, are pregnant, or are trying to get pregnant. It’s a tough decision to become a single parent, but I see no reason why that decision should be stigmatized by Orthodox Judaism. These women are opting for artificial insemination. While there may be some halachic issues, they’re not an insurmountable barrier. These women felt their biological clocks ticking and decided to go for it. They're successful professionals who can afford to do this financially and they have support systems of friends. Instead of this being something that is talked about in hushed tones, the Orthodox community should relax its obsession with the supposed “singles crisis” and create an environment where such decisions are celebrated rather than looked down upon. While there are many reasons aside from community pressure that a single woman might shy away from this path, com

JTA is reporting that the seige at the Chabad House in Mumbai is over and that local media is reporting that all the hostages are dead. This is not yet confirmed, so let us hold on to that last glimmer of hope and daven for all the hostages and all their families. ------------------------ ------------------------ Update: It looks like the worst has likely happened - the deaths reportedly include the Chabad Shaliach, his wife, and others. Please daven for their families and for their orphaned son.

My wife and I were recently driving somewhere and the song “Patience” by Guns ‘N Roses came on the radio. Upon hearing the lines: Said woman take it slow It'll work itself out fine All we need is just a little patience I, being an incorrigible punster, quipped to my wife “He’s a doctor singing to his nurse that their practice will pick up – all they need is just a little patients.” My wife said “Why is the man the doctor and the woman the nurse?” She’s right. This isn’t a big deal in the greater scheme of things, but it shows that as egalitarian as I think I am, I still have preconceived notions in my head about what roles men and women have when it comes to some jobs, probably implanted there during my childhood in the 70’s.

There is a big push on, in the final days of Bush's presidency, a time when lame duck presidents traditionally hand out some pardons, to obtain a pardon for Jonathan Pollard , who's been sitting in a US Jail for 23 years, serving a life sentence for spying for Israel. I'm not going to discuss whether what Pollard did was right or wrong or whether the punishment, life in prison, fit the crime. Nor do I wish to explore whether Pollard may have unintentionally sabotaged some of the past opportunities for his release. The only point I want to make is that those who are pushing for a pardon may be pursuing an unattainable prize and that they should reconsider their tactics and ask for a commutation of his sentence instead. There are still many in the US military and diplomatic communities who are extremely loath to see Pollard released. Their power is waning over the years as new faces rise in the Pentagon and State Department, but make no mistake, it's still th

I'm a map junkie. I spend a lot of time wandering around different online map systems, like YahooMaps , Microsoft Live Maps, and especially Google Maps. And naturally I often zoomed the maps over to Israel. For the longest time, the Google Maps of Israel showed a few place names, but when you zoomed in... nothing. Just blank space. Well, it looks like they've finally added details of Israel . The streets of Jerusalem? All there, in excellent details, to the point of showing which streets of my old neighborhood of Katamon are one-way!

Ark. man left the phone at a McDonald's; he's now suing for $3 million This guy left his cellphone with nude pictures of his wife in a McDonald's and they ended up online, so now he and his wife are suing McDonald's. ??????????? 1) Women: don't allow compromising pictures of yourself be taken. By Anybody. EVER. 2) Everyone: If you do have private images or data on your cellphone, MAKE SURE IT'S PASSWORD PROTECTED! 3) How on earth is this guy's stupidity McDonald's fault?? ("Your honor, the hydrogenated fat in their fries went to my brain and made me forget the cellphone...")

How bad is cheating among students today? How about helping someone else cheat? A college-age blogger whose blog I often read, casually and unselfconsciously mentioned, in a post about something else, that she got “into the business of writing papers for this one guy” and that he owes her money for the service. I was surprised that she would mention helping someone cheat in such a casual way, so I hoped I misunderstood her. I challenged her on this: “Please explain what you mean. Do you mean writing school papers for someone else? Basically cheating for someone else?” She replied: “yes. I ‘cheat’ for him. I don't believe its fair that all these damn colleges feel everyone should be well rounded.” She went on to explain that he’s in a specialized program where it isn’t important that he be knowledgeable in subjects outside his professional training. I replied: “It doesn't matter what you think is ‘fair’ or not. What you are doing is extremely unethical. My respect for you just

I rode my bike 2 1/2 miles to work today in sub-freezing temperatures (bundled up, of course.) In nicer weather, this bike parking area is full of motorcycles. But today, in 24°F weather, all the motor bikers retreated to their nice warm cars. The only brave ones? Me & one other bicyclist. Disclaimer: This post was mostly tongue in cheek - I don't really think motorcyclists are wimps. Well, not all of them, anyway! :-)

This old broken computer was just taking up space. But you're supposed to take out and destroy or wipe the hard drive before putting a computer in the trash. My question: Why do they make it so hard to get to? Millions of tiny screws for which you need a microscopic screwdriver!

The latest chumrah? Sheitels are too sexy and should not be worn . My wife doesn't cover her hair & I like it that way. Frankly I think it's a very weak halacha that had more to do with social mores throughout history than with anything the Torah says. (I know I'm going to get hit on that one, but I'll delve into the halachic issues in another post.) However, many frum women do insist on covering their hair. What Rav Elyashiv doesn't get in the cloistered Charedi world, is that many of these women work, especially in the US. They can't show up at the office with scarves or hats. It's just not done. And I'm not just talking about big league career women. What about all those kollel wives who support their husbands? Surely Rav Elyashiv likes the kollel system? Well, he seems to want to have his cake & eat it too. If you want men not to work, someone has to bring in the money and it's usually the wives. And they need sheitels to work in a

Interesting trivia: It looks like Sasha Obama, age 7, will be the youngest child of a president to live in the white house since the Kennedy kids (Caroline, 3 and John Jr, infant, at the start of JFK's term). But it got me thinking and I realized that as far back as I can track without looking it up (back to the 30's) , only Democratic presidents have had children living with them in the white house. Upon looking it up, I found that the last Republican president to have kids under 18 upon becoming president was Calvin Coolidge, who had 2 boys, aged 17 and 15. The younger one, Calvin Jr., died of blood poisoning at age 16. William Howard Taft's youngest son was 12 when his father became president. The last republican to have preadolescent children in the white house was Theodore Roosevelt, whose youngest child, Quentin, was only 3 when Teddy became president.

I saw this grape flavored apple at the store today. At first I thought it was some hybrid fruit and considered buying it. Then I looked closer. They actually inject the fresh apple with partly artificial grape flavor! If this becomes a trend, we'll have to consider the kashrut of fresh fruit for the first time ever. (Outside of Israel, that is.) Imagine going to the house of a friend who doesn't keep kosher and seeing fruit on the table. Can we assume that it isn't injected with flavors that may not be kosher? Of course, by posting this, I may be prompting a massive new chumrah hysteria in the frum community. If so, I want a cut of the profits from the hechsher industry. :-)

" I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood. "

This is a nonpartisan message: GO OUT & VOTE if you haven't already. And vote all the way down the ballot. Democracy means a balance of power between the judiciary, legislature, and the presidency, with similar breakdowns on the state & local levels. Living and participating in a democracy means much more than voting for President. Vote for congress, senate, judges, state representatives, ballot initiatives, etc. If you're not sure who and what will be on your ballot, spend a few minutes on the web, research the issues & candidates, write down your choices, and then go to the ballot booth and register those choices.

I’m taking a brief break on my moratorium of all things political to write down some thoughts that crystallized over Shabbat and try to convince wavering voters who are supporters of Israel that Barack Obama will be better for Israel than John McCain. It basically boils down to this. To paraphrase the traditional political question “Are you better off than you were 4 or 8 years ago”, I’m asking: Is Israel more secure than she was 8 years ago, when that “great friend of Israel” George W Bush came into office? Before Bush there was no peace and Israel’s enemies hated her. But the existential threat was kept to a relative minimum. Then Bush, with John McCain’s wholehearted support, attacked Iraq, destabilizing the Middle East. The big winner? Iran and its madman president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran may have been developing nuclear weapons before Iraq was removed as a rival, but the program accelerated afterwards. Iran’s influence and power in the region were kept in check by the ba

Archeologists have found what they are decribing as the oldest hebrew text ever , on a 3000 year old pottery shard. The date was established by carbon dating. That would set its origins from around the time of Kind David. It was found in the Valley of Elah, near Beit Shemesh, in the dig of an ancient fortress believed to be one used by David in his fight against the people of Pleshet. It's written in proto-Canaanite characters, and includes the words "שופט" (judge), "עבד" (slave), and "מלך" (king). What apparantly makes it Hebrew is that according to Yosef Garfinkel, the lead archeologst studying it, it includes a "three-letter verb from the inscription meaning 'to do,' a word he said existed only in Hebrew." All the articles say the same thing, but I can't find what that 3 letter word is, despite looking through several Hebrew articles about this find. Maybe I missed it? Here's one of the Hebrew articles .

http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c37_a13850/News/National.html The jist is that subsidiary organizations of Aish have been heavily involved in the making of right-wing anti-Islamic videos, not to mention their extreme partisanship in US politics. Now, I'm no fan of Aish, but this goes even beyond common sense. Isn't "kiruv" their stated purpose for being? I imagine they'll turn off a lot of potential recruits by their partisanship and their extreme social and political commentary. This stuff has nothing to do with their mission statement ( http://www.aish.com/aishint/ ): Aish HaTorah, founded in Jerusalem by Rabbi Noah Weinberg in 1974, is dedicated to revitalizing the Jewish people by providing opportunities for Jews of all backgrounds to discover their heritage in an atmosphere of open inquiry and mutual respect. Except that they're driving away liberals or anyone who thinks in terms other than in black & white. But w

Certain midrashim are clearly not literal. I was just learning in shiur last night Chagiga, daf 12b, where it says that a heaven that is a curtain is pulled over the sky every night and blocks the light from the sun and then is rolled back again every morning. I don't assume that chazal took this literally. After all, they saw the sun set in the evening and rise on the opposite horizon every dawn. They knew that it wasn't a heavenly curtain that kept the sun's rays from reaching them at night, even if they might have thought the earth was a disc. So the gemara is meant allegorically, and is meant to teach about Hashem's renewal of creation every morning, perhaps, or some other message. But when chazal say that insects are spontaneously generated from a pile of dirt, it is hard to say they didn't mean it literally. It's not that they were advancing a false theory, they were just repeating the prevailing wisdom of the time , which we now know

I heard Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico speak this morning at an Obama campaign event near my city. He's a funny and engaging speaker, but without a lot of fire. He told a funny story and I filmed most of it. I'll set up the clip: He said that the first time he realized the character of Barack Obama was at one of the early debates, when he was still in the primary. He was next to Obama and since there were so many candidates he didn't get a lot of questions, especially since so many of the questions went to Obama and Clinton. So after he was asked a question, he didn't always pay full attention to the follow up since he figured it wouldn't be his turn again for a few minutes. But in this case, it didn't turn out that way and he didn't know what he was supposed to answer. In case you couldn't make out what he said Obama whispered to him, it was " They asked you about Katrina!" I got a chance to meet Richardson afterwards and got

Is Obama “bad for Israel”? First of all, let me point out that when American Jews refer to a candate being “good for Israel” or “bad for Israel”, they generally mean does he or she support Likud-type policies. Whether that’s good for Israel or not is arguable. Leaving that aside, however, I want to address the claim that is often heard that Obama doesn’t really support Israel and that he’s just conveniently spouting the formulaic support required in an election year to get Jewish votes. Over a year and a half ago, Obama said : “My view is that the United States' special relationship with Israel obligates us to be helpful to them in the search for credible partners with whom they can make peace, while also supporting Israel in defending itself against enemies sworn to its destruction," Almost 3 years ago, he said : "I flew on an IDF helicopter to the border zone. The helicopter took us over the most troubled and dangerous areas and that narrow strip

Hope everyone had a comfortable and meaningful fast. We finished davening at 2:45 and Mincha was at 4:45. Of course, I had already taken a break during mussaf for 20 minutes. I just can't sit so long. I went to the library which is a 2 minute walk from my shul and started reading what promises to be a fascinating and gripping book " The Last Theorem " by Arthur C Clarke and Frederick Pohl, 2 elderly giants of science fiction. It's Clarke's swan song before his death earlier this year. I hope to get to the library before Shabbat to take it out. During the break I went home, sat in my easy chair and somehow made the strange choice to read cookbooks. I was reading "Mediterranean Vegetarian Cooking", a poor strategy for dealing with fasting, but now I'm all fired up to try making chick pea soup, fava bean falafel, and others tasty sounding recipes. What did you do during the break on Yom Kippur? --------------------------------

I went to an Obama rally today at OSU. No, the candidate himself wasn't there, but Bruce Springsteen was! I'm a fan from way back but I've never seen him live before. This is the first time I'm putting video on my blog. I suspect that the very poor quality doesn't really do it justice - it was taken on my phone. (I'll have to take my camera next time which takes better quality video.) Plus I was sitting way back under a tree. (Maybe I'm getting too old to stand in the sun in a crush of people.) So yes, the quality of the video & sound is poor, but it was such a rush that I feel like sharing anyhow. I felt like a teenager again. Yes We Can! Vote Obama.

I was recently at a non-kosher middle-eastern restaurant in my town for a presentation by a friend. While on most of the walls they had pictures or murals of a middle-eastern theme, on one wall they had a mural of a giant American flag, taking up the whole wall. I have no doubt that here in midwest, the Arabic owners felt it neccesary to put up the flag after 9-11 to show that they aren't terrorists. I just think it's a shame that in 21st century America, there should be such fear of being stereotyped.

I’m not an economist. But in these days of financial upheaval, it behooves us all to pay more attention to what’s going on. As I understand it, the $700 billion plan to bail out the failing financial services industry is intended mainly to keep the credit system from collapsing. Treasury secretary Hank Paulson warns that failure to approve the plan will mean that Wall Street will be unable to back debts, which will cause the loss of credit to thousands of businesses of all sizes and many millions of Americans, resulting in massive job and home losses. One of the problems is that the American economy as it is currently structured runs on credit. Debt is ubiquitous and businesses cannot run simply on what they have in their coffers at any one time. Businesses in today’s economy cannot survive without constantly growing, and they cannot grow without substantial credit. As such, businesses survive day-to-day by running on credit. The loss of easy and convenient credit, backed by the soli

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how much of the formerly Modern Orthodox community has been leaning to the right, religiously. The problem is much more pronounced in the big communities where the Orthodox population is dominated by the Ultra Orthodox. The MO in those areas seem to take their cues for everything from the Charedim. Kashrut, education, etc, are all run or organized by Charedim and the Modern Orthodox just use the services provided by them. I live in a small community that is most decidedly "out of town". Because there are only a handful of Charedim here, the MO rabbis and lay leaders and members of the community all step up to the plate and manage the Vaad Hakashrut, run & teach in the day school, manage the eruv, invite modern speakers, etc. In the big communities the MO look to the UO for all their community building, by default, and end up thinking about themselves the way the UO think of them - that Modern Orthodoxy is just "Orthodoxy

I am tired of hearing about the supposed “shidduch crisis” and am even more tired of hearing it being blamed on the singles culture of the Upper West Side. I met my wife on the UWS, in my early 30's. In my experience, most of the singles on the UWS do eventually get married and most of those within their childbearing years. There seems to be a tendency for the Yeshivish and Centrist Orthodox communities to lament the "shidduch crisis" among their 20-something children who worry about the color of a boy's shirt or where their parents went to camp. Then those communities turn around and suddenly blame it all on the singles culture of the UWS. The UWS singles have the healthiest attitudes I know in the Orthodox community. They don't reject potential spouses for nonsensical reasons like family backgrounds and they're not focused on having a boy sit in kollel instead of supporting his family. They don't care if the potential spouse's parents are rich

Quote of the day : (was a comment on this post ) "...if you read Minchat Chinuch without thinking about it, you might imagine that 19th century Galicia was filled with hermaphrodites, people lacking external genitalia and half emancipated slaves." Some really unusual things will come up in jblogging. The comment above, in context, certainly had relevance. Nevertheless, it's amusing to see what comes up sometimes.

Recently the gemara (talmud) class I attending was studying Tractate Megillah, and one topic discussed was whether women can read the megillah for men. It seems very clear from the gemara, (towards the top of page 4a), that women can do so, and that men will fulfill their obligation by hearing a woman read. The gemara says: ואמר רב יהושוע בן לוי נשים חייבות במקרה מגילה שאף הן היו באותו הנס Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: Women are obligated in the reading of the megillah, for they too were part of the miracle. Note that it says “bemikrah”, in the reading of the megillah, not “beshmiyah”, in the hearing of the megillah. However, Tosafot, while acknowledging that the plain text would appear to support that view, then jumps through hoops to work out an interpretation that denies women this right. I wonder if this is a case of approaching the topic by the standards of the medieval period in which the Tosafists lived with a preconceived notion and then wringing out their desired