Haaretz Op Ed: Iran Deal on Nukes is Good - I agree

Amazing how American Jews have become experts in Iranian Nuclear politics. Truly it is a miracle.

A Haaretz writer explains why Obama is right on Iran. I agree with him:

Jewish Americans are going through a harrowing dilemma. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been calling the nuclear deal with Iran a mistake of historical proportions. He has made opposing it the shibboleth of whether you are a good Jew and a true friend of Israel, or whether you let Barack Obama throw Israel under the bus. So Netanyahu keeps repeating it: By cranking up sanctions even more, a better deal with Iran can be reached, but Obama and the P5+1 group have been weak and defeatist.

Netanyahu's tactic has created enormous problems. He has dealt further blows to Israel's relations with the United States, created deep rifts in the U.S. Jewish community, and worst of all, he has turned the discussion into whether you are for Israel or against it. He has turned it into good versus evil: Care about the Jewish people or be willing to let them perish in the next Holocaust.

The shrillness of the debate has made many forget that dealing with Iran is not a matter of ideology but rather carefully balanced probabilities. Get the best deal under the given circumstances, and the best deal isn't a matter of rhetoric but careful calculation.

This is my call to U.S. Jewry. Turning the Iran deal into a partisan issue is about as wrongheaded as checking your doctor's political convictions rather than credentials and experience. This is why it's best to listen to top Israeli security officials, who have both the professional competence and dedication to care about what serves Israel best.

U.S. Jews might therefore wonder: Why are there no prominent Israeli voices supporting the Iran deal? Well, the noise has drowned out the fact that a phalanx of security chiefs has publicly supported the deal.

Hebrew National Hot Dogs are Really Truly No-Kidding Kosher

Yes. Hebrew National Hot Dogs have been kosher since 1905. And Target sells them!

I have eaten them. But I know some more-kosher-than-thou types who won't partake. Those are the Jewish folk who answer to an even "higher authority" than Hebrew National.

Kenneth Lasson, writing in a Baltimore Jewish Times cover story in 2009, weaves together reportage about the hot dog industry, the kashrut supervision industry and baseball parks to come up with a fascinating fabric of a story, "Hebrew National and Kosher Politics - What’s kosher about answering to a higher authority?".

For years there have been some super-glatt-orthodox who whisper about whether the supervision of Hebrew National was "reliable." Lasson covers this controversy and says for instance,

...As to Triangle K, Rabbi Abadi wrote on the kashrut.org Web site, “Rabbi Ralbag is a G-d-fearing man and if he says it’s kosher, you sure can eat it. I can’t say the same for many of the other labels out there.”...more...

The Talmudic question is of course, can we trust the writing of Kenneth Lasson. Is he reliable? Is he glatt kosher? /repost from 7-9-09/

Maimonides and Pictures of Topless Women

Mitchel First (author of Esther Unmasked) alerted me to the fact that a Marc Shapiro found topless women adorning holy books - and indeed he had in his new book, Changing the Immutable, "a whole chapter there about the printing of Rambam's and other halakhic works that had illustrations of topless women on their title pages and ... this was normal at some point!"

That snip above is from the title page (TP) of Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Amsterdam 1702. Here is the whole title page.

The work was printed by the Athias printing house:

In the middle of the seventeenth century, Joseph Athias established a combined Hebrew-Dutch printing house in Amsterdam, which turned into a success. His son, Immanuel Athias took over the management of the Hebrew printing in 1685. In 1702, he published Maimonides' Mishneh Torah in four volumes. The edition was dedicated to Moses Machado, army purveyor of King William III of England, who gave financial support to the printing house for buying new printing equipment.

I do not think that Artscroll Mesorah publishers or any Orthodox publisher would approve today of such a depiction in any of their books.

And honestly, I don't know why. I cannot explain when and how some Orthodox Jews became Puritans. 

NPR: A Brief Historical Survey of US Bathing Suit Rules (Not the Jewish Ones)

The NPR history department did a story on a Brief Historical Survey of US Bathing Suit Rules (Not the Jewish Ones). Hat tip to KS.

Thank goodness it concludes:

...as the 1930s wore on, restrictions on swimwear began to wear off. Stories about beaches posting dress — or undress — codes seemingly disappear from newspapers. By 1939, the city of Hammond, Ind. — apparently reflecting the relaxing attitudes of many American towns — had thrown all bathing suit rules out the window. "The city will establish no rules on type of bathing suits to be worn," the local Times reported on June 16, "just so bathers are garbed in some fashion."

Swipe Your Mobile Phone for a Jewish Date: My Jewish Standard Dear Rabbi Column for August 2015

Dear Rabbi,

My twenty-something daughter told me that she went on a date with a boy she met via a smart phone app called JSwipe. I gather that apps like that are meant to help people find casual hook-ups, and are not intended to lead to a serious relationship. Am I justified to be concerned?

Worried parent in Wyckoff

Dear Worried,

Although many of us have smart phones by now, most of us do not know how an app like JSwipe works. When I got your question, I didn’t. So I loaded the app onto my phone to see how it works. From what I gather reading about the app, it is a knockoff of the much more popular app Tinder. The premise of JSwipe is that it targets a subset of the population — Jewish people.

If you have a Facebook account, you can log in to the app with your ID and password and it pulls in your photos and other information from that site. You answer a few basic questions about your Jewish preferences (e.g., kosher or not, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or a few others). You can be swiping actively through pictures of potential matches with the app in a matter of minutes.

There is no learning curve. You look at a picture of a possible date and swipe left to reject it or right to accept it. If you swipe right and the other person does as well, then you have made a match. You then can chat with your match in the app and possibly make a date.

Several shortcomings of this technology jumped right out at me. When I tried it out, the app did not actually screen who I was. I downloaded it, signed in, set some values, and was ready to swipe. That should worry both young users and their parents. If the new user wants to meet a Jewish date, you should know that the other JSwipe user might not be Jewish even if they say they are. And yes, Jewish or not, there is no way to know if they are stable or reputable people.

Once you get the app on your phone your activity in it is limited mainly to looking at pictures — many of which are the grainy snapshots that people use for their Facebook accounts. A small percentage of users put in additional descriptions of themselves and their interests.

A user can set some preferences — but not many. You can tell JSwipe the age range you want to see and the geographic proximity to potential matches and set a few Jewish preferences.

I certainly hope that people who match through the app and agree to a date will meet in a safe public place, to get a chance to validate somewhat that their match is a suitable person.

Does this system help people find proper matches? I’m no specialist in the sociology of Jewish dating. But I seriously doubt that this type of superficial app produces many fulfilling relationships or even enjoyable dates. To use totally non-analytical terms, at first blush, to me the system seemed simplistic, rude, and creepy.

Should you be worried if you find out that your child uses the app? A little. Most kids have common sense to be cautious about whom they meet and date. So you need not be that worried. But the superficiality of the choice process and lack of vetting of the population using the app are big drawbacks.

Well okay then. Is there anything you can do to help your kids find suitable dates? Parents I spoke to agree that trying to set up your child with a shidduch is not at all welcomed in the more liberal segments of our Jewish community. Apart from the ultra-Orthodox, who deem arranged marriages desirable, it’s common that children will not want your meddling at all into their social lives. Young people spend a great deal of effort to establish their own identities and their independence.

What I recommend, then, is that you help enable your children to find and join communities of like-minded peers, where they will have a better chance of meeting a suitable date or mate in person. Synagogues, community centers, artistic and cultural groups, charity activities, sports activities, and the like are valid starting points.

Try to be patient and let real human processes of meeting and making dates and establishing relationships take their course.

Bottom line, as you can tell, I’m not impressed with a dating methodology based on swiping through tiny pictures on a phone.

Tzvee Zahavy earned his Ph.D. from Brown University and rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University. He is the author of many books, including these Kindle Edition ebooks available at Amazon.com: “The Book of Jewish Prayers in English,” “Rashi: The Greatest Exegete,” “God’s Favorite Prayers” and “Dear Rabbi” — which includes his past columns from the Jewish Standard and other essays.