Was Paul A. Samuelson Jewish?

Yes, the celebrated economist, the late Paul A. Samuelson, was a Jew.

The Times reports in its a brilliant obituary:

...Paul Anthony Samuelson was born on May 15, 1915 in Gary, Ind., the son of Frank Samuelson, a pharmacist, and the former Ella Lipton. His family, he said, was “made up of upwardly mobile Jewish immigrants from Poland who had prospered considerably in World War I, because Gary was a brand new steel town when my family went there.”

The Times observes further,

...In 1940, Harvard offered him an instructorship, which he accepted, but a month later M.I.T. invited him to become an assistant professor.

Harvard made no attempt to keep him, even though he had by then developed an international following. Mr. Solow said of the Harvard economics department at the time: “You could be disqualified for a job if you were either smart or Jewish or Keynesian. So what chance did this smart, Jewish, Keynesian have?”

Indeed, American university life before World War II was anti-Semitic in a way that hardly seemed possible later, and Harvard, along with Yale and Princeton, was a flagrant example..

For Sure the Messiah is Coming: The Times Reviews 3 Glatt Kosher Teaneck Restaurants

It's hard not to do a double take when you see the venerable NY Times review glatt kosher restaurants. And when they are all in Teaneck, then that is nothing short of sign of the imminent coming of the messiah.

Where Glatt Kosher Restaurants Come in Many Flavors
By DAVID CORCORAN

ONE restaurant is quiet and soothingly lighted, with a high-priced menu offering sweetbreads and beef-cheek gnocchi and oat-and-dill-crusted branzino. Another is straight-ahead Indian, with first-rate pakoras and rousing kebabs. A third has longhorns in its logo and serves its secret-spice-rubbed brisket only after a 14-hour sauna in a Southern Pride smoker.

Quick: What do they have in common?

Well, all three are in Teaneck. But their essential feature is one that may not occur to you until you notice that most of the male diners are wearing skullcaps.

The three — Etc. Steakhouse, Shalom Bombay and Smokey Joe’s — are all kosher restaurants. And not just kosher, glatt kosher — which technically has to do with lesions on the lungs of the animals used for meat, but is often used by restaurants to indicate extra-strictness...more...

Hebrewbooks.org has digitized Rabbi Saul Lieberman - שאול ליברמן

We have mixed feelings about the legacy of Professor Saul Lieberman. On the one hand, many literate Talmudists venerate his work and consider him a genius of the past generation.

On the other hand, a review, attributed to Lieberman and published after his death, committed a grievous act of unmitigated disrespect to the work of one of my teachers. Alas, diatribes do not expire after a set time, unlike copyrights.

We assume the JTS copyrights to these works have lapsed and that leaves them in the public domain. We hope and trust that the Lubavitch Hasidim who run hebrewbooks.org have confirmed their rights to post all of their digital versions, since the physical books are still being sold by JTS. 

"Who owns the rights to digital editions?" is a hot topic of debate now if we judge from the article on the front page of today's Times, "Legal Battles Over E-Book Rights to Older Books" by MOTOKO RICH.

Hebrewbooks.org is a mighty useful Talmudic resource. Here are their links to some Lieberman books:

על הירושלמי		ירושלים	תרפט
תוספת ראשונים-חלק ראשון		ירושלים	תרצז
תוספת ראשונים-חלק רביעי		ירושלים	תרצט
תוספת ראשונים-חלק שלישי		ירושלים	תרצט
תוספת ראשונים-חלק שני		ירושלים	תרצז
תוספתא כפשוטה על סדר זרעים		נ.י.	תשטו
תוספתא כפשוטה על סדר מועד		נ.י.	תשטו
תוספתא כפשוטה על סדר נשים-חלק א		נ.י.	תשטו
תוספתא כפשוטה על סדר נשים-חלק ב		נ.י.	תשטו
תוספתא כפשוטה-חלק א-זרעים ח”א		נ.י.	תשטו
תוספתא כפשוטה-חלק ב-זרעים ח”ב		נ.י.	תשטו
תוספתא כפשוטה-חלק ג-מועד ח”א		נ.י.	תשכב
תוספתא כפשוטה-חלק ד-מועד ח”ב		נ.י.	תשכב
תוספתא כפשוטה-חלק ה-מועד ח”ג		נ.י.	תשכב
תוספתא כפשוטה-חלק ו-נשים ח”א		נ.י.	תשכז
תוספתא כפשוטה-חלק ז-נשים ח”ב		נ.י.	תשכז
תוספתא כפשוטה-חלק ח-נשים ח”ג		נ.י.	תשלג

PS: The most comprehensive Tosefta site (yes there is one) is Tosefta Online, which links to these and many more Tosefta resources.

Note Well: Many of the questions about the nature of Tosefta and its relationship to Mishnah were thoroughly researched and resolved in published works that are not referenced on that site - specifically e.g., our own monograph, The Mishnaic Law of Blessings and Prayers: Tractate Berakhot, republished as, Part One: Mishnah-Tosefta Berakhot in The Law of Agriculture in the Mishnah and the Tosefta: Translation, Commentary, Theology. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1, the Ancient near East. Brill Academic Pub, 2005.

Times: Students have Sex with Rabbi Haskell Lookstein

Nothing for us to add to what the Times reports, "For the last 23 years, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein has taught Jewish Sexual Ethics to every 10th grader to pass through Ramaz, a Modern Orthodox institution in Manhattan."

In a Manhattan Classroom, Judaism Meets the Facts of Life
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

Nearing his ninth decade, formal in vested suit and cufflinks, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein strode purposefully into a classroom of Ramaz High School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side one recent Monday afternoon. He checked the presence and location of his 18 students against a seating chart. He chided one for arriving moments late.

Then he led off the discussion of the homework assignment. It consisted of an article from the national Jewish newspaper, The Forward, about a married couple who participate avidly in both synagogue and swinging. “Aren’t these people just being honest?” Rabbi Lookstein asked. Five or six hands immediately shot up.

So began another day in Jewish Sexual Ethics, the course better known around Ramaz, even to its teacher, as “Sex With the Rabbi.” For the last 23 years, since Rabbi Lookstein devised the class, he has taught it to every 10th grader to pass through Ramaz, a Modern Orthodox institution combining rigorous secular and religious curriculums.

“This is one of the most favorite things I do in the world,” Rabbi Lookstein, 77, said in a recent interview. “I love the interaction with students — and being able to open their eyes to the way in which Judaism approaches the basic facts of life.”

Over the span of 18 sessions, Rabbi Lookstein covers topics from infidelity to abortion, same-sex marriage to religious divorce, as well as the Jewish laws dictating family purity, or taharat hamishpacha. The readings range from newspaper articles to theological essays, and the discussion in the classroom is unrestrained.

Once, that is, the students get over the initial shock of listening to a gray-haired authority figure talk about menstruation or homosexuality or spouse-swapping. The slang name for the course plays on the incongruity...more...

Is Senator Orrin Hatch Jewish?

No. Everyone knows that Senator Orrin Hatch is not a Jew. He is a member of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- a Mormon -- for heaven's sake.

Tablet e-zine informs us that he has written a new Hanukkah song.

Hey Tablet. So you want to be a "New Read on Jewish Life"? OK we guess, whatever that means.

This is the reaction that you publish to your big deal article on a Hanukkah Song by Mormon Senator Hatch. And a story about how there was no good song for Hanukkah and the dramatic unfolding of this mythic tale...

Biggest clicking day on the Jewish Internet and that's the main "New Read on Jewish Life" holiday message you got for us?

Oy - a waste - you have not done good.

Is the JooJoo Jewish?

A new tablet computer that was called in its development phase the CrunchPad is now the called the JooJoo.

No, the JooJoo is not Jewish because (a) except for the two that Moses got, tablets do not have religions and (b) this gadget was supposed to sell for $200 when it was first announced and now it will be sold for $499 - a real un-discount - not Jewish at all.

Still it sounds like a cool invention, as PC World reports:

The CrunchPad is now the JooJoo
Ian Paul

The fate of the once-named CrunchPad has been decided: The device will be coming to market by the end of the week under the name JooJoo. Fusion Garage -- the onetime manufacturing partner with TechCrunch -- held a video call for reporters and analysts Monday morning led by CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan, and announced his company's intent to move ahead without TechCrunch and bring the JooJoo to market.

Rathakrishnan claims his company has every legal right to do launch the JooJoo itself, and disputes TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington's previous claims that intellectual property rights for JooJoo are shared between Fusion Garage and TechCrunch. The JooJoo will be available for pre-order beginning Friday, December 11 for $499 at theJooJoo.com. JooJoo is an African term meaning "magical," according to Rathakrishnan.

The JooJoo is a tablet device, with a 12.1-inch capacitive touchscreen that can display in both portrait and landscape mode. The device has only one button (the power button); all other controls are touch-based. For text entry, the JooJoo has an on-screen keyboard that can disappear when not in use. The JooJoo uses gestures (such as swipe) for navigation, and they'll likely be the same as what we saw earlier this year.

The device has Wi-Fi connectivity, and a Unix-based operating system that boots directly into the browser much like Google Chrome OS does. Fusion Garage claims it can render full HD video, but Rathakrishnan did not specify if that meant 720p or 1080p resolution...more...

David E. Y. Sarna - Guest Blog: The Bostoner Rebbe – A Quiet Revolutionary

REMEMBRANCES: Grand Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Horowitz (1921 - 2009)
The Bostoner Rebbe – A Quiet Revolutionary

Grand Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, America’s first US-born Hassidic Rebbi died on Saturday. He served his congregants for 66 years, in Boston since assuming his father’s mantle at Congregation Beth Pinchas  in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1943 and since 1999 in Har Nof, Jerusalem, Israel as well.

Fervently Orthodox, and the descendant of the Hasidic dynasty which traces its origins to Rabbi Dovid (1746-1814) of Lelów, Poland, he was an unlikely revolutionary.

I was privileged to know him since 1965. His passing, after an illness of several months, brought back to me a flood of memories.

He had a long string of “firsts.”

He was the first to make a primary thrust of his Rabbinate the Boston area's large number of college students, many of whom were away from home for the first time. He turned his own home into a virtual hotel, filling it to capacity (and beyond) hosting college students for weekends, and training his congregants to do likewise. Many had tried to dissuade him, saying that Hasidism and college did not and could not mix, but the Rebbe persevered and was personally responsible for returning thousands of students at Brandeis University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts and the Boston areas’s other famous universities to their Jewish roots.

About Bad Book Covers, Bad Books and Bad Authors

If you ever bought a book just because of its cover or if you ever did not buy or read a book because of its cover, and who hasn't, you must read Joe Queenan's back page essay in today's Times Book Review. It is funny.

And we think you can tell a lot about a book and its author by what he puts on the cover. It can ruin or make a book and sometimes ruin or make a relationship.

The adage ought to be revised and lengthened.

You can tell about a book and its author by its cover. It's just that a book is not identical to its cover and a cover does not tell us everything about the integrity of a book's author.

The essay...

Six People You Meet in Synagogue

I got a call in August (2009) from the dean at the Jewish Theological Seminary inviting me to teach a liturgy course at the school. He was confident that I was qualified and prepared to do this because he knew my published work in the field. I was not so sure because that work was written for scholars, not for theological students.

I accepted the assignment and then set out to re-purpose and refocus my previous research so that it could serve to prepare students to engage in meaningful constructive theology, not in the dispassionate history of religions.

The result – instead of teaching my abstract speculations about the origins of prayer in this or that presumed social milieu of a distant time and place, I created a new framework of present and personal entities. I taught that davening originates in a timeless minyan of archetypes. My students were able to leave behind some echoes of a positive historical vision of Judaism and were quick to accept a clear and vivid, present and personal liturgical reality.

I've started writing up the course for publication and presentation in a variety of media and venues.

I've given the project a working title, "Six People You Meet in Synagogue."

In this regard I apologize to and thank the writer Mitch Albom. This project's title is a play on that of his inspiring book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, (New York, 2003) though my content bears no similarity to that work.

I do owe a debt to him for his subsequent and current work, Have a Little Faith, (New York, 2009) which confirms my esteem for what I call the seventh archetype, the community organizer.

In a narrative with archetypal impact, Albom reverentially describes in this book how two heroic characters, Rabbi Al Lewis in South Jersey and Reverend Henry Covington in Detroit, sustained and inspired their respective faith communities.

You will find a community organizer in every liturgical culture. He may come from the ranks of the laity or from the clergy. That person will rarely get formal recognition. In the synagogue, a single Sabbath prayer asks for a blessing for him from God, “May he bless those who unite to form synagogues for prayer … and all who faithfully occupy themselves with the needs of the community (Koren, p. 518).”

The Talmud Yerushalmi in its own idiom, praises the sanctity of this work:
R. Jeremiah said, “He who is involved with communal needs is like one who is involved in the study of words of Torah.” [By stipulation, he has the suitable disposition out of the context of his activities to go ahead and engage in prayer.] (Y. Berakhot, Chapter 5, Mishnah 1).

The task of the community organizer archetype is to facilitate the social order of the synagogue, the society out of which our liturgy comes and within which we need to address those urgent theological notions of how to conduct liturgical discourse, how to foster Jewish culture.

Speaking of synagogues, there is a powerpoint of the Acco synagogue circulating in email. It is dynamite. Get a taste of it here.

Bring Back the Chazan

I was happy to read in 2006 about the film, "A Cantor’s Tale".

Perhaps this film will help us bring back that lost art of cantorial singing. Alas, today, in many of our Orthodox synagogues, its stead we have DIY (do-it-yourself) davening.

That's what I call it when a non-professional leads the services at the synagogue.

In the Teaneck area that's about all you can ever expect in an Orthodox shul. It's a rare occasion when a professional chazzan, a cantor, leads the prayers.

I don't like DIY davening. First of all I don't favor it because I grew up in Manhattan where nearly all the shuls had chazanim. Hence I do know how formal davening sounds. I know how formal davening changes the character of the sanctuary. A good chazzan can create a palpable focus, a presence, a numinous, holy quality in the house of prayer.

Consequently I don't like DIY davening because of its informality. When a non-professional lay person leads the prayers, it contributes to a sense of casualness that is conducive to talking. It engenders a lack of focus that frequently leads to congregants daydreaming and engaging in idle chatter.

Worse, sometimes this background hum of conversation in the shul leads to problems for the synagogue staff. The rabbi, who should maintain his dignified leadership and stature at all times as the spiritual model for the synagogue, sometimes finds it necessary to rise up at the pulpit and berate the murmuring congregants -- as if they were schoolchildren talking during quiet time in a classroom.

The grisley details include these stories.

One local rabbi in town has gotten up in front of his flock and announced, "We welcome you all to our shul, except for the four of you who were talking during the davening."

Another rabbi once cancelled the concluding Shabbat Musaf hymn, Ayn Kelokeynu -- because there was too much talking -- and he told everyone to go home. Another time he simply told people who talk in synagogue to, "Stay home."

A third rabbi usually stands in the middle of his shul's pews as if he was a monitor in the hall, waiting to catch children misbehaving.

I feel bad for those Rabbis who berate or monitor their membership and are forced to take leave of their assigned roles to add dignity and awe to our holy rituals of prayer.

In the old days, that monitoring, when needed, was the role of the shammos. Nowadays in our DIY synagogues, that professional also seems to be absent.

Accordingly, I propose that we bring back these two professionals of the American synagogues of yore. We should bring back the chazzan to insure that a constancy of quality and a regular sense of holiness permeates our services.

I further propose that we bring back the shammos who will patrol the aisles of our shul. Then, on that rare occasion, when a congregant leans over to speak with his neighbor, the shammos will politely and privately ask him for respectful silence.
//repost from 9/8/06//