Dov Linzer Blows It in NY Times Op-Ed

Op-Ed Contributor Dov Linzer wrote, "Lechery, Immodesty and the Talmud" in an Op-Ed in the Times, asking to start with, "Is it possible for a religious demand for modesty to be about anything other than men controlling women’s bodies?"

While we agree with the egalitarian ideal underlying this essay, that men and women ought to have equal standing in all aspects of life, we are uneasy with Linzer's critique of Orthodox Jewish attitudes towards gender separation and roles for men and women.

To the opening rhetorical question of his essay cited above, we must say yes, it is possible for religious "demands" for "modesty" to be about many things, including modesty itself. Why would Linzer not know this? We have said previously (and humorously) that gender rules in Orthodox Judaism can assert the male Jews' tribal territorial rights over the females. Any number of equally viable reductive explanations can be adduced regarding the prominent gender laws and customs in Orthodox Judaism.

Linzer fails to accept that blunt gender differentiation is at the crux of some of those prominent forms of Haredi Orthodox religion that teach that women are different and are subject to different rules. Such gender differentiation is not subject to reductionism, to making it sound as if these rules are hiding some sinister program of male domination over females. The rules define core values and practices of the religion. (Do we debate such internal issues now in the Op-Ed columns of the Times? Shouldn't Linzer be writing directly to the offending Orthodox leaders?)

Linzer also fails to accept that religion in the US, and in Israel, is an entirely voluntary association. Women, children, and men, can opt to skip the synagogue, to walk out of Orthodoxy and never come back, without any formal repercussions in real-world legal or civic terms. As a result of such actions, those who go out will not starve, nor will they be shot.

Purchase your own copy of "God's Favorite Prayers"

Haaretz : Cedar's 'Footnote' nominated for Oscar

We saw it  at the NYFF and we predict this film will win the Oscar in its category.

Joseph Cedar's 'Footnote' nominated for Oscar
Film to compete against entries from Iran, Poland, Belgium and Canada in the 84th Academy Awards ceremony, to be held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on February 26.

Joseph Cedar's film, "Footnote," was nominated yesterday for the Academy Award's best foreign language film for 2011. Four Israeli films, including Cedar's "Beaufort" in 2007, have made the short list for the prestigious prize in the last five years.

Back from Golf in Florida

Back from holiday, done playing golf.

Our Work is Published in the World's Most Expensive Jewish Books: $970 or $1,004

These may be the World's Most Expensive Jewish Books. And they have our work inside.

The Law of Agriculture in the Mishnah and the Tosefta Translation, Commentary, Theology ($970 if ordered from Brill) ($1,004 from Amazon)

Our contributions are Berakhot (pages 398-574) and Hallah (pages 2601-2627).

The book set is not titled accurately. Tractate Berakhot, the first in the book, is about prayer, liturgy (the Shema and Amidah) and blessings. The rest of the tractates are about agriculture and many other topics.

The listing for this book set from the publisher does not properly credit any of the contributors.

Publisher's Book Set Description - This project presents in three volumes the Mishnah's and the Tosefta's first division, Zera'im (Agriculture), organized in eleven topical tractates, together with a systematic history of the law of Zeraim in the Mishnah. To the exposition of the Halakhah on the chosen topic, the Mishnah-tractates are primary but complemented by the Tosefta's presentation of its collection of glosses of the Mishnah's law and supplements to that law.

The Mishnah's and the Tosefta's tractates are integrated, with the Tosefta's complement given in the setting of the Mishnah's rules, and the whole is given in English translation. The presentation in each case encompasses an introduction, a form-analytical translation and commentary, a systematic integration of the Tosefta's compositions into the Mishnah's laws, an explanation of the details of the law, and an inquiry into how the Halakhah of the Mishnah and that of the Tosefta intersect, item by item.

Readership: All those interested in Jewish prayer and liturgy, agricultural law, Mishnaic law and Tosefta.

Product Details
Hardcover: 2112 pages
Publisher: Brill Academic Pub
Language: English
Publication year: 2005
Series: Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 The Near and Middle East, 79
ISBN-10: 90 04 14503 6; ISBN-13 (Brill)The ISBN (International Standard Book Number) on 1 January 2007: 978 9004145 03 0
Cover: Hardback
Number of pages: Vol.I, xxii, 800 pp.; Vol. II, xiv, 975 pp.; Vol. III, xiv, 1013 pp. (English)
Number of volumes: 3

Daily News: Teaneck's Rodda Center WiFi Name is “F--- All Jews and N----”

It should be easy to find out who set up the racist name on the WiFi router at the Teaneck rec center. Not many people can have access to it and the knowhow. Sounds like a kid's prank to us.

WiFi signal with racist, anti-Semitic slur in Teaneck, NJ sparks police probe; signal came from rec center router

Mom of two shocked, dismayed as iphone flashes hateful WiFi signal as daughter danced
By Michael J. Feeney / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

A bigot named their WiFi signal “F--- All Jews and N----” — and now cops are investigating.

The hateful signal I.D. popped up on the iPhone of a 28-year-old mom inside a Teaneck, N.J. recreation center, where her 3-year-old daughter was attending dance class.

The offending signal was coming from a router connected in the Richard Rodda Community Center in the the township, located 10 miles outside New York City....

Teaneck FYI is less than 4 miles from NYC, which starts at the center of the GW Bridge, not 10 miles away.

Talmud Scholarship Links

Online Scholarly Tools for the Study of Talmud
We spent many days poring over manuscripts, limited edition photo-reproductions and microfilms in libraries to check manuscript variants back in 1976 when we were completing our PhD at Brown. Things are different today. Here are a few useful links:

• Mishnah and Shas
• Talmud with Rashi and Tosefot
  
• A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. Compiled By Marcus Jastrow, Ph. D. Litt. D. (in PDF format): Volume one, Volume two and here.
• Rambi: The Index of Articles on Jewish Studies
  
• The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon from HUC
  
• The Jewish National University Library has online the Kaufman, Parma and Cambridge manuscripts of the Mishnah and the Munich (linked to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek), Florence and Paris manuscripts of the Talmud
• Online Soncino Translation of the Babylonian Talmud at Halakhah.com

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Can You Read a Book on the Sabbath?

Centuries ago, when the codex first came out and began to replace scrolls, it took the rabbis years before they permitted Jews to use a codex on the Sabbath. The Torah is still read in 2012 in the synagogue from a scroll.

So too with the Kindle.

And this reminds us of a funny Norwegian video, a call to the medieval monastic codex help desk. With the famous Talmudic objection, "Are you sure I won't lose any text?" from the show "Øystein og jeg" on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) 2001.



Orig. post 2/07.

Daily Beast: Is there a moderate islam?

We don't know what the question means when people ask, "Is there a moderate Islam?" There is no denying that Islam lends itself to radicalism and part of that agenda is deeply embedded in the Koran.

Sure, we wish to encourage moderate politics in Islam, especially when radical Islam is aimed at the US. But wishful thinking must not replace scholarship and analysis.

Chris Dickey writes that prominent Dutch politician, "Geert Wilders Says There's No Such Thing as Moderate Islam." He opines, "Can't Someone Tell Geert Wilders to Stop His Anti-Muslim Diatribes Before Somebody Gets Hurt?"

Is Dickey worried about Wilders getting hurt? That is not clear to us. In some ways there is no denying that Wilders is right. Moderate Islam exists when Muslims actively ignore core preachings of their religion.

It's much like Modern Orthodoxy in Judaism. To live it, you have to actively ignore deep seated essences of the rabbinic religious tradition.

Review of "God's Favorite Prayers" in the British Interfaith Magazine "Common Ground"

Our book, "God's Favorite Prayers" was reviewed in the new issue of "Common Ground" -- the flagship British inter-faith magazine of the Council of Christians and Jews. The magazine is produced twice a year and features articles by a number of prominent figures in the Jewish and Christian communities. It is downloadable here.

The Council of Christians and Jews was founded by the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple and Chief Rabbi, Joseph Hertz on November 14th 1941. Today it is the UK’s oldest and leading interfaith organisation with a national programme of projects as well as 38 branches in the regions. They say, "Her Majesty became our Royal Patron in November 1952. We have been deeply honoured and are grateful that Her Majesty has graced us with this Patronage for 60 years."

In addition to the review of our book, this issue contains an article by Lord Sacks, the chief rabbi.

"God's Favorite Prayers"

Forward.com: The Oy of Orthodox Sex

Our current working premise is that Orthodox (mainly Haredi) attitudes and regulations towards women are essential to their Judaism, not accidental. That means that you cannot tell the Haredim to remove or change these components of their religion and more than you could tell them to stop venerating the Torah or observing Yom Kippur.

Elana Sztokman wrote, On Teaching Talmud and Sex Toys, a review interview with Jennie Rosenfeld, co-author of the sex guide,  “The Newlywed’s Guide to Physical Intimacy,” which the Forward reviewed tepidly previously here. Sztokman says that the book, "explores the most intimate topics with no restraint, topics such as female orgasm, masturbation, and varieties of sexual positions." And although we have not seen the book, we are pretty sure that there are plenty of "restraints" in this sex guide. Sexual restraint is part of the essential regulation of Orthodox life. It's not peripheral. It is a governing aspect of Orthodox life.

Is the Volkswagen Jewish?

In the Book Review section at WSJ, the article, "The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz" in Thinking Small explains that yes certain aspects Volkswagen has Jewish connections through the Jewish engineer Ganz, and no in other views, it does not.

So, is Volkswagen Jewish, turns out to be quite a complicated question.

Gerson's Church of Copimism hits the New Yorker

We still do not get the joke that Isak Gerson in Uppsala is playing on us. He has achieved church status for his software piracy group. Yes, if Sweden thinks that all religion is a joke, then this is a natural progression.

Whatever. New Yorker sent someone to do a story on Copimism and they delved, as they do, into the details. We gag on this. Some people can live in total disrespect of property and of faith. Not us. In the middle of the New Yorker article we found this poetic gem,

When Gerson talks about Kopimism as a religion, his tone is good-humored, but he also comes off as disarmingly sincere. Even if this religious-registration business is just a bit of political theatre, there’s no doubt that there’s an honestly and deeply held conviction at its core: the free exchange of information as a fundamental right. But is that enough to make it a genuine religion? When I asked Professor Bäckström, he hesitated. “Today you can believe in anything, so I suppose the idea of belief is a minor issue in a Northern European setting,” he said. “Belief can be a very wide concept.” He admitted, though, that he suspects that Kopimism is primarily an activist prank.

Are Goldman Sach's Islamic Bonds Kosher?

Reuter's reports that some Islamic oriented bonds issued by Goldman Sachs may be overstating their "rabbinic" certifications ("Goldman Sachs in new flap over Islamic bond suspected to be not 100% halal"). Whoops.

Goldman Sachs’ controversial $2 billion Islamic bond programme faced a fresh challenge on Wednesday as it emerged that at least two scholars named as potential approvers had not even seen the prospectus.

Asim Khan, an adviser to Goldman on the issue which needs approval from sharia scholars to proceed, confirmed media reports that three of the eight scholars listed as potential approvers had not responded to requests to endorse the issue, but he said their lack of co-operation had no bearing on its sharia credentials.

Goldman’s first sukuk, also the first by any U.S. bank, is already facing suggestions that it may contravene religious principles by using proceeds to lend money to clients for interest, accusations rejected by the bank’s adviser.

Why Women Can't Even Say Thank You – it's the Beruryah Code

William Kolbrener lives in an Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Israel. Writing in the Forward he expresses his frustration that his neighbors are not polite to him. In his essay, "When Women Can't Even Say Thank You," he is surprised, and he is sad, and finally he decries that the, "Stifling Modesty Code Prevents Everyday Acts of Civility."

As his article explains further, "No Contact Allowed: Ultra-Orthodox Israeli women are taught to avoid all contact with men, even if it involves something as simple as saying, ‘Thank you.’"

Kolbrener laments that "Common sense civility in the public sphere" is missing from the Ultra-Orthodox. He concludes that "chivalry is dead" and worse, that women in that community live in a "repressive culture of silence."

Bill, we all have repressive rules. There is no place that we know of where you can walk up to a woman on the street and ask her if she would like to have sex with you (well maybe in some parts of Hollywood, but that is another story). The question is where you mark the ball on the field, how far away from the goalposts.

Bill, you do not like the Ultra-Orthodox rules. You find them to be rude and insulting. That's fine. You are entitled to your opinion.

But you also need to look more analytically at the culture in which you live. Distinctive rules of conduct for women are essential to that culture, not accidental. Women are valued tribal territories. They are protected by strict fences and borders. Bill, you see this, but you do not like it. So you insult it, calling it names like, "repressive" and "stifling."

Make your value judgments and move on then, Bill.

But others may want to understand how deeply rooted is this rabbinic code of conduct for women. It is old, and strong, and influential within the religion of the rabbis and the Talmud.

The stories and traditions about one famous woman named Beruryah encapsulate some of the basic attitudes. In one anecdote, she mocks a rabbi who asks her directions, telling him not to ask her which way is it to Lod, just to say, Lod?

But in that story you can see a castigation of Beruryah's mockery, not of the rabbinic code of conduct.

True, in other places Beruryah is depicted as emotionally sensitive, shielding her husband from grief, and morally superior, urging her husband to reconsider his anger. Yet, these too are easily seen as aspects of the code. Women must learn to recognize and manage their husband's moods.

Finally, when a student of her husband seduces her on a dare, this just proves that all women are sexually flighty, even the wife of the great rabbi, and that the rabbinic code must be rigorously enforced.

See the texts here, they are worthy of some close study. And they constitute the entirety of the "Beruryah code."

The upshot for us in brief here is that the Beruryah code of conduct for rabbinic women is old and venerable and influential. It did not just start yesterday on a bus in Jerusalem. We see these facts in front of our eyes. For many Orthodox, these rules of conduct for women are essential to their definition of religion, even if many other Jews believe that they are based on false, outdated and rude premises.

Kolbrener, if it hurts you to be subjected to the rudeness of a neighborhood, don't go down that street. As the New York City Police tell people who get beat up at the local tavern, learn to recognize which bars are too rowdy for you and do not ever go in there for a drink. It's a rough city. If you do go in and you do get beat up, don't come crying to the police.

Talmudic Tempest: Did Triumphant Tebow Transgress a Taboo?

The Denver Post reports on a "Talmudic" controversy over a play that won a football game for Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos. Was the team lined up for the play in an illegal formation? And if so, should that not have invalidated the touchdown?

Was Tim Tebow's game-winning touchdown pass for Denver Broncos an illegal play?

Were Tim Tebow's final-play heroics for the Broncos against the Steelers divine intervention or inaction by the officials during Sunday's playoff game?

Upon further review, it appears as though the Broncos may have been lined up in an illegal formation.

Anti-Women Israeli Air Force Rabbi Forced to Resign

The ideas of chain of command and military discipline were not taught at his rabbinical school: "A top Israeli military rabbi resigned on Tuesday after making comments that appeared to condone allowing ultra-Orthodox troops to avoid contact with women..."

Reuter's FaithWorld reported that,

Lieutenant-Colonel Moshe Ravad, chief air force chaplain, who was in charge of enlisting ultra-Orthodox Jews, said last week he feared for the volunteers’ “piety”. His comments, leaked to the media, were widely interpreted as a rejection of the orders requiring soldiers to attend mixed-sex events.

In an online newsletter, the military said Ravad “apologised for the way in which his view was made public in recent days” and tendered his early resignation to the air force commander, who reprimanded the rabbi for his conduct.

Looks like the rabbi did not get the memo that explains modern rigorous military regulations supersede ancient anti-female Talmudic customs.

"God's Favorite Prayers"

Link to the Reformatted Soncino Talmud in English Online at Halakhah.com

The Reformatted Soncino Babylonian Talmud English translation is online.

Download this newly reformatted edition of the Talmud in English free at http://www.halakhah.com/indexrst.html

This new edition was reformatted by Reuven Brauner of Raanana Israel in 5771. It is in PDF file format in two-column pages.

The standard description of the publication is: TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH NOTES, GLOSSARY AND INDICES UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF RABBI DR. I. EPSTEIN B.A., Ph.D., D. Lit. FOREWORD BY THE VERY REV. THE LATE CHIEF RABBI DR. J. H. HERTZ. INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR. THE SONCINO PRESS, LONDON.

This edition Contains the Sedarim (orders, or major divisions) and tractates (books) of the Babylonian Talmud, as translated and organized for publication by the Soncino Press in 1935 - 1948.

The site has the entire Soncino Talmud edition in the newly reformatted easy to read PDF format.

The earlier edition in one-column format in PDF and HTML is also available on the site.

Please add a link to the site http://www.halakhah.com on your web site or blog.

"God's Favorite Prayers"

Teaneck Deputy Mayor Adam Gussen for Congress against U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett

Politicker NJ informs us that Teaneck Deputy Mayor Adam Gussen announced his decision to run for Congress against U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett.

Of course, we endorse Gussen.

Garrett is a far right extremist who is against progress and a tool of the wealthy republicans.

Gussen needs to articulate clearly what he stands for. Conventional knowledge about the district tells us that Garrett has a giant advantage.

Reports have it that, "Garrett, chairman of a subcommittee that regulates the financial markets and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has been raising funds aggressively over the past year. His last campaign report showed $1.6 million on hand on Sept. 30."

Good luck Adam. You will need it.

"God's Favorite Prayers"