{"id":112090,"date":"2017-01-23T11:31:53","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T19:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=112090"},"modified":"2017-01-23T11:37:56","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T19:37:56","slug":"the-forward-why-its-just-fine-to-frum-shame-ivanka-trump-and-jared-kushner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=112090","title":{"rendered":"The Forward: ‘Why It\u2019s Just Fine to \u2018Frum Shame\u2019 Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phoebe Maltz Bovy writes<\/a>: <\/p>\n

As we all know by now, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump got special rabbinic dispensation to ride in a car on Shabbat for daddy Donald\u2019s inauguration. This led to a collective Jewish (and general!) eye-roll, but also to demands that we respect the young couple\u2019s religiosity and let them be. Jessica Levine Kupferberg and Andrew Silow-Carroll both made versions of the case that the self-appointed guardians of Shabbat observance should mind their own beeswax Shabbat candles, as it were.<\/p>\n

The \u2018don\u2019t frum-shame Jared and Ivanka\u2019 take is\u2026 well, it\u2019s like \u2018don\u2019t kink-shame Donald Trump\u2019 (re: pee-gate) or the ongoing take that it\u2019s mean-spirited and unfair to looks-shame the now-president. Yes, under normal circumstances, you should be respectful of private bedroom activities, and, heck, of the choice to sport orange foundation and an elaborate combover. But just as religious restrictions (such as those about driving on Shabbat) can be broken under special circumstances, so too can etiquette rules along these lines.<\/p>\n

Why? Because it\u2019s clear that the Trump looks-shame isn\u2019t about, say, making everyone with small hands feel bad about this, but to get at what would annoy him. So, too, in a way, with the frum-shaming of Jared and Ivanka. It\u2019s not that I\u2019d expect them to be touchy about it, like Donald about his hands. Rather, it\u2019s that the Trumps have invested a lot politically in the image of the couple as a good Jewish family. This fact is used to rebuff the rather heavily substantiated claim that Trump\u2019s rise brought with it a new, right-wing American anti-Semitism. It\u2019s also used, more generically, to suggest that the Trump brand stands for good family values, and not, say, trading a string of wives in for younger models.<\/p>\n

So consider this your dispensation: You are totally allowed to frum-shame Jared and Ivanka. You get to do so even if you yourself aren\u2019t pious (am I? is TMZ?), and you can rest easy that you are not, in frum-shaming that particular couple, in some way invading the religious privacy of all observant Jews, or of all converts to Judaism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So Phoebe wants to go after America’s princess on her observance of Jewish law and anything else she can find. <\/p>\n

According to her self-description: “Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood blog at the Forward. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including The New Republic and The Atlantic. Her book, \u201cThe Perils of \u2018Privilege,\u2019\u201d will be published by St. Martin\u2019s Press in March 2017. She has a PhD in French and French Studies from New York University, and has read a lot of 19th century French Jewish newspapers for a 21st century American.”<\/p>\n

\n

So I do not agree with Burchill's take on Free Melania. Almost want to but don't: https:\/\/t.co\/fh90Qp0kxI<\/a><\/p>\n

— Phoebe Maltz Bovy (@tweetertation) January 23, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n