Here are a few terms which many people never even heard before. As yeshivish people we have labels for absolutely everyone. It’s the only way to know about a person’s over-all personality and hashkafah. If you say it’s just useless and hurtful gossip, take comfort in the fact that when these terms are used they do not come from a mean place in the heart- it’s all good-natured jibes.
Franky: Origin= Frank means French in Yiddish. Term used to describe Sephardic boys who are very into their clothing, talk on the phone all day, and think they’re cool.
Chenyuk: Origin= Omnomopotea is at work here, it simply sounds like what it means. Term used to describe people who are very frum and nerdy- especially’ girls who dress in an extremely tzniusdik way.
Greasy: Origin= greasy hair- people who don’t shower. Term used to describe boys who are more frum than yeshivish and who grow beards and have long payos.
Harry: Origin= The English name Harry connotes a certain type. This term is used to describe people who behave in a very ba’al teshuvish manner, i.e. are very sensitive about religious matters which FFB’s simply don’t care about.
Totzuch: Omnomopotea is at work here again. Term used to describe boys and men who have three cell phones and a chain with fifty keys hanging from their belt. These are the people who love getting involved in everything and making a lot of noise. Hatzolah is known to be full of totzuchs.
Thane’s quick, witty and charming. He has a frighteningly large shock of grey hair.
The star of the panel is Christopher Hitchens. The audience of 400 wildly applauds his attacks on religion.
Hitchens says that most of Islam’s canon is an "inept plagiarism of Christianity and Judaism."
He asks of religious people: "Why can’t they keep their beliefs to themselves?"
I rise and walk to the microphone (starting a stream of people to the mikes) to ask Hitch, "Why can’t you keep your beliefs to yourself?"
Then, while waiting to pose my question, I change to (Video at 54:35): "Mr Hitchens: How come it took the most religious country in the Western world to rescue your pretty secular country, Britain, from two world wars and to be the bulwark against communism and to lead the fight against Islam?"
Hitchens: "Very good question. I’m going to correct you in two ways. …May I say, ‘My fellow Americans…’ I took my oath of citizenship on April 13…the birthday of Thomas Jefferson…who wrote the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom and drafted the First Amendment, making America a secular country, not a religious one… This has had to be defended several times from religious secessionists… In my country of birth, the Queen is the head of the church and everyone has to pay money, whether they want to or not… That’s what you get from the family values of Henry VIII."
The first questioner in the other line wore a t-shirt that proclaimed that 9/11 was an American government conspiracy. The moderator skipped him for the questioner following me. The conspiracy theorist wouldn’t shut up and wouldn’t let anyone else ask a question.
Finally, security took him away.
Hitchens: "Go away. We don’t want fascist crackpots in our meeting."
I catch a friend repeatedly sitting on the ground. I yell, "White people do not sit on the ground."
True or not? Are non-whites, particularly Asians, more comfortable sitting on the ground in public places?
Dana Gioia says that young people used to read the most of any age group. Now they read the least.
The panelists say that more books are published now than ever but fewer books are sold.
Again, I ask the first question: "I’m wondering if the biggest problem in publishing is that there’s way too much civility?"
James Atlas: "Not here."
A ludicrous comment given the plodding panel discussion.
Luke: "What can we do to fan the flames of hatred in book discussions? If there was a book review section that was consistently snarky, scandalous, harsh or funny, more people would read it. Book reviews are so bland."
James Atlas: "That was actually not a question but we’ll let it pass."
Dana: "…Culture is a conversation… The more lively, the more unpredictable that conversation is, the more engaging it is."
Sara: "We do have that in the blogs…and TV shows…. The common reviewers, the Entertainment Weeklies and the Oprahs…are the folks who stir it up and sell books."
Moderater James Atlas says that was not a question but Dana and the Editor of Publisher’s Weekly respond to me (largely in agreement).
Everybody, including Snow, hates the American war in Iraq and (with the exception of Miller) predicts that nothing good can come of it.
Scheer: "I was fired for opposing the Iraq war."
What’s next for Iraq? "Impeachment [of George Bush]," says Hedges.
"If we go to war with Iran, I will no longer pay my income taxes."
Langewiesche: "There’s no chance of anything good coming out of this."
Cathy Seipp would’ve enjoyed today. I believe she was asked to moderate a panel (perhaps blogging or humor). Realizing she wouldn’t make it, Cathy suggested Amy Alkon in her stead.
This year, the demise of traditional book reviews (and Book Reviews), the emergence (for better or worse) of literary blogs and the contested territory between traditional print media and the online world were the hot topics both in the panels and in the author green room. From the first bell of the Book Prizes, where the editor of the Times lamented how it’s mere seconds between the posting of confidential internal memos before they’re up on watchdog blogs, to the final conversation I had walking to my car when a woman wearing a purple muumuu asked me if I’d review her novel based on her blog about the corruption of the Iraq war, the assault (real or perceived) on literary and simple culture was on full display.
There is a standoff that appears to have been won by the roshei yeshiva at YU (incl. Rabbi Schacter) to block YCT graduates from joining the RCA (the organization of modern Orthodox rabbis).
-YU administrators calling Orthodox synagogues considering candidates from YCT and pressuring them not to hire the YCT musmach. Leading Orthodox rabbis, including Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, visit Orthodox synagogues considering candidates from YCT and pressure them not to hire the YCT graduates (musmach).
-Rabbi Schachter tried to block YCT musmachim from getting semicha (rabbinic ordination) from the Israeli rabbinate.
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Jay writes: “Just add the daughters-in-law salaries (under their maiden names) who are paid as: specialist. Specialist with no credentials… Do they ever show up at work. Raising Heir’s grandchildren is special enough for both? p.s. One of Heir’s son is a high school (YULA) dropout. Guess which one: The one who is paid $200,000 yearly or the one who collects $180,000? So what is so impressive? They spend 77% of the monies they shnorred? Beside hefty salaries and manipulation? Thanks for the favor. What about ethical accountability? What about some academic work? Enough with profiteering off the Shoah. Can you compare at all, the work of Yad Va’Shem or even the Holocaust Museum in Washington to this clever marketing scheme? What exactly are they contributing to the world, Holocaust movies they bought for pennies and a slick marketing operation in Hollywood? This is NOT a Human Rights organization! Their slogan is and always was: “There is no business like Shoah business.” Go back and checkout their Response magazine and see the lavish special tours to Auschwitz checkout the special guests wearing fancy fur coats and you will understand where the problem started.”
I have made plenty of use of the Simon Wiesenthal Center over the years and have always found its programs topnotch. I’ve been particularly impressed by the work of Rabbi Ari Hier. I do not know his brother.
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In my childhood, my sister spoke out and she got what she wanted. My brother kept quiet and he got what he asked for (nothing). I was the youngest and I got a lot without needing to raise a fuss.
Eva writes:
This is one of the most blatant rules you learn when you come from a big family. If you make a lot of noise about something you want you’ll get it. If you don’t nag and scream about what you want, chances are you won’t get it.
I have two sibilings who pretty much get everything. That’s because they know exactly how to emphasize the extreme importance of their needs. They know how to nag you and have a thousand ways and rules to make it sound so incredibly easy for you to get them what they want. Yesterday we ran out of ink in the printer. I simply e-mailed the papers I needed to myself, then went to the library and printed out the papers. When my sister got home from school she managed to get my mother to take her to Save-on to get a certain type of Shampoo which she "desperately needed." On her way to doing errands, she also got my mother to go to Staples and get a new ink cartridge. I don’t believe that some kids in a family are more spoiled than others because the parents spoil them more. It has more to do with the kids than the parents. Children who are naturally quieter and don’t enjoy noise and making scenes simply won’t get everything their noisier sibilings get.
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The New York Post thinks so! In today’s special Sunday edition of Page Six, we are told that his new novel, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, "is bound to set off a firestorm of controversy." Why? Because Chabon "depicts some of his Jewish characters as willing to do anything, including massacring other Jews, in the cause of Zionism."
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Arnold Eisen, chancellor-elect of The Jewish Theological Seminary, declared: "The decision to ordain gay and lesbian clergy at JTS is in keeping with the longstanding commitment of the Jewish tradition to pluralism.
Pluralism means that we recognize more than one way to be a good Conservative Jew, more than one way of walking authentically in the path of our tradition."
In other words, he now embraces moral relativism in its modern-day "let’s not be judgmental" garb and abandons the traditional role of religion to command or at least suggest clear standards for human behavior and intimate relationships. Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, justified this new direction by suggesting that Conservative Judaism couldn’t survive without it. "A movement that wants to attract a younger generation of disaffected Jews had no choice but to make this decision," he told The New York Times.
Recent history in both the Jewish and Christian communities suggests he’s wrong: Disaffected young people seldom flock to watered-down versions of religious faith that lack continuity or integrity. The rapidly growing denominations are those that make demands on potential adherents and advance clear standards of right and wrong. That’s why Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity has grown while "mainline" Protestant denominations have dwindled, and why traditionalist Catholicism boasts more worldwide vitality than liberal strains of the church. Meanwhile, Mormons uphold multiple restrictions (giving up alcohol, coffee, tobacco, among other things) and yet constitute one of the fastest-growing creeds in the USA.
Judd posts:
Read this week’s torah portion. The act of homosexual sex is deemed sinful. It does not mean Judaism detests those who have homosexual desires or even those who sin, teshuva is always possible. However, the Rabbis took pains to keep people from the temptation of homosexual sex, in the same way they took great steps to keep married men from the temptation to engage in extramarital sex.
It is not about being against "pluralism," it is about abiding by a code that is of greater import, at times, than what you and I think.There are married men who cannot abstain from extramarital sex, in the same way that many homosexuals claim they are hard wired to being attracted to men. What one must decide is whether one wants is what type of person should be a spiritual leader.
In conservative/reform, it is OK that your rabbi drives on the sabbath, does not possess a certain body of knowledge of the torah and the talmud, and now, perhaps, engages in homosexual sex without any compunction. I don’t like slippery slope arguments, but why can’t a philanderer be a conservative rabbi. There is no law he is breaking and the same chapter that prohibits homosexual sex prohibits extramarital sex – I do not see the difference. It is ersatz judaism with a liberal hat tip. Conservative Judaism will demographically be gone in the US in 50 years. This will only speed the process.
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“The Ministry of Special Cases” is a provocative novel, deeply concerned with ideas, and it makes smooth use of history without feeling like a “historical novel,” the business flier’s best friend. It does not end happily, but it ends well. This novel does, however, lack the unique species of strangeness that makes Englander’s short stories unforgettable. “The Wig,” for example, feels otherworldly not because the wigs are made by an Orthodox Jewess, but because wigs are just plain creepy, the way mannequins are creepy. They both pretend to be alive. In “The Ministry of Special Cases,” the strangeness has become a kind of fantastic otherworldliness — a man named Kaddish, a long-gone race of Jewish criminals with strange names — but is inscribed a bit clumsily in the too-real world of Argentina’s Dirty War.
That clash of the real and surreal is intentional, of course, and it’s probably a fair portrayal of how it feels to live under a merciless government. But rather than being two strands always together, each inescapable, the moods tend to alternate so that one passage might be lyrical and dreamy, while another, brutal and hard-edged, feels lifted from a different book. This unevenness kept me from feeling close to the characters, because I was never sure whether they’re meant to be individuals or icons, like Kafka’s Josef K., who is a powerful symbol but a symbol nonetheless.
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Baltimore – A series of exposés on sexual abuse at a well-known yeshiva is roiling the Baltimore Jewish community and inflaming the already strained relations between the local Jewish newspaper and the city’s sizable Orthodox population.
The controversy revolves around allegations in the Baltimore Jewish Times that the late principal of the Talmudical Academy, Rabbi Ephraim Shapiro, may have molested Jewish students at the school and other youngsters who came to him for bar mitzvah classes.
