BDH: Yeshiva U. Professor Brian Daves says the Jewish Vote "Doesn't matter"

Talk about bewildering enigmas. Here is a report from the Brown Daily Herald that Yeshiva U. Professor Brian Daves says the Jewish Vote "Doesn't matter" in deciding presidential elections (Political scientist: Jewish vote not crucial By Katherine Sola).

Next thing you know, he'll be claiming that Jews don't control the press or the economy. Sheesh!

The Jewish vote "doesn't seem to matter" in determining the outcome of U.S. presidential elections, political scientist Bryan Daves argued Thursday evening. The Yeshiva University professor presented his study of election data to about 15 students and faculty at the Watson Institute for International Studies.

In a talk heavy on numbers and graphs, Daves framed his theories against those presented by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their 2006 work "The Israel Lobby." Mearsheimer and Walt argued that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, is able to affect U.S. presidential elections and policymaking.

In response, Daves said his research shows that, despite the high concentration of Jewish voters in crucial swing states, the Jewish vote does not impact presidential elections or policymaking decisions...more...

HuffPost: Rabbi Laura Geller's Rosh Hashanah Temple Twitter

Here is a rabbi who gets it. Twitter and Facebook are there for the taking. For religion and philosophy, if that is what you want to do. Sure we don't expect all shuls and rabbis to embrace these systems in the sanctuary on a holiday. It was a mini-dramatic idea and we say the rabbi made her point. Rabbi Laura Geller tells us about her sermon.

...Sometimes we take risks, do something that might even be slightly transgressive. Consider for example these recent High Holy Days in our congregation, Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, a large, almost 75-year-old Reform congregation in the middle of Beverly Hills. The opening words of my Rosh Hashana sermon, as I took my cell phone out of the pocket of my white robe, were: "Please do not turn off your cell phone."

There was stunned silence, then nervous laughter. "Yes, you heard me. Please do not turn off your cell phones. In fact, please take them out now. And if you have a Facebook or Twitter account, please log on."

The theme of all of our High Holy Day messages related to the existential question posed by God to the prophet Elijah in the Book of Judges: "What are you doing here?" "What are you doing here," we asked our congregants. "What are you doing here in the synagogue and here at this very moment in your life?"

So I gave the congregation an assignment right there in synagogue: "Please post your answer to the question 'What are you doing here?' in 140 characters or less."

In 140 characters. Characters, not words.

Many of them did, and the answers, because they were so short perhaps, were especially moving....more...

Rethinking Jewish Civility at the Forward

Over at the Forward, a weekly New York Jewish newspaper that we read sporadically online, one writer named Jay Michaelson, about whom we know very little, has opted to abandon the restraints of civility and to hurl unsubstantiated and unexplained and unprovoked insults at large numbers of committed synagogue-attending Jews and at the rabbis, cantors and other leaders who serve them.

Now sure, Jay has a freedom of speech right to insult whomever he wishes. And the Forward has a freedom of the press right to publish whatever slights that it sees fit.

But rights does not equate with propriety.

The offending op-ed is called, "Rethinking Egalitarianism: Are We Leveling the Playing Field Too Low?"

We found the whole essay offensive and insulting. It offends all those who have striven for egalitarian rights within Judaism and the synagogue. It insults so many sincere Jews who dedicate their lives to making and maintaining synagogues.

By the way, it turns out that the essay is not much about egalitarianism. It's about how little the author and his friends like attending certain synagogues. So we might argue that this opinion piece is a bizarre variation on the practice of Jews berating or hating themselves in public.

Here are a few of Michaelson's most awful expressions and phrases that jumped out at us, things that ought not be said in any polite community discussion of synagogues.

• (He starts off with a story about a community in the South with) ...a “lame” Conservative synagogue, a “dead” Reform synagogue.
• (He goes on to observe:) The only thing egalitarian about the more liberal settings was that everyone was equally bored.
• (He makes this general claim:)...if the family stays together in synagogue, often no one prays at all.
• (He says about)...responsive readings ... (they) suck the wind — the ruach — right out of the service. They kill momentum, and because they tend to be laden with theological talk that almost no one believes, they tend to alienate.
• (He decries)...intoning deeply problematic theological statements in unison with a largely lethargic “audience”?
• (He asks quasi-rhetorically:) Is it really more inclusive to be patronized by a service aimed at the lowest common denominator?
• (He pontificates cleverly:) "...egalitarianism should not mean that everyone is equally infantilized."

You do need to read the whole screed to appreciate how it purports to discuss a deeply divisive contemporary issue of liturgical synagogue reform, but under the surface the essay just reeks of an even more divisive triumphal Orthodox-like nastiness.

Bottom line: It does not matter who is Jay Michaelson, who is his "Jewish academic from New York" friend, or what they like or dislike in synagogues that they attend in the North or in the South, in the East or in the West.

No amount of obfuscation can hide that it is 2010 and that all flavors of synagogues need to be 100% egalitarian in every single aspect of their practice.

Was Abbie Hoffman Jewish and the first to say, "Sacred Cows Make the Tastiest Hamburgers"?

Was Abbie Hoffman the first to say, "Sacred Cows Make the Tastiest Hamburgers"?

Probably not. Some quotations repositories attribute the saying to Mark Twain. Discussions of that attribution point out that the terms "hamburger" and "sacred cow" were not current during Twain's lifetime. Other sources trace the quip back to 1971.

The Times reports that at Hoffman's death in 1989 his rabbi said that "sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger" was one of Hoffman's favorite sayings. Yes, Abbie Hoffman was a Jew....

On a more traditional note, Rabbi Norman Mendell said in his eulogy that Mr. Hoffman's long history of protest, antic though much of it had been, was ''in the Jewish prophetic tradition, which is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.''

But the Rabbi also quoted one of Mr. Hoffman's favorite sayings: ''Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.''

Why do we bring this up, you ask?

Because we want to go on the record as having been the first to say that, "Kosher sacred cows make the tastiest beefburgers."

And in case you haven't noticed, we do gore or slaughter some kosher sacred cows on this blog. Mmm, gishmak. / repost from 7/27/09 /

My Non-Spiritual Beginnings

I guess I just am not that much into myself, he said half-seriously. I pontificate quite frequently here but hardly ever wax autobiographical.

To compensate a bit for that, here is a short selection about my "Non-Spiritual Beginnings" extracted from a draft of my next book...

I was born Jewish and grew up in an Orthodox family, but not an entirely stereotypical one. My mother grew up as an American-born Reform Jew in Washington Heights in upper Manhattan. She went to New York City public schools and then to Hunter College. My father grew up in an American-Orthodox family. Both of his parents were born in the US. He too went to New York City public schools, then to a yeshiva for high school and to Yeshiva University for college and for his rabbinic ordination.

Did the United Arab Emirates Kill Swimmer Fran Crippen?

It's wrong to conduct a competitive swimming event in water that is too hot to be safe.

We swim every day. We know that hot water -- above 83 degrees -- is uncomfortable for lap swimming. Water near 90 degrees is unsafe for a swim race. Period. Everyone knows that.

So why conduct a race in such dangerous conditions? It's unprofessional, unsafe, and unfortunately, in this case, it was lethal.

Swimming in warm water can take deadly toll on body
By Madison Park and Ashley Fantz, CNN

(CNN) -- Competing outdoors in almost 90-degree water is like racing inside a hot tub, swim experts said Monday.

Merely sitting in a tub saps energy, said extreme swimmer Diana Nyad. "When you get out, you're feeling light-headed and very thirsty. ... Imagine now, you're going to crank your entire body, and swimming uses the entire body."

U.S. swimmer Fran Crippen died during a 10-kilometer marathon Saturday in the United Arab Emirates. Several of the athletes complained about the water temperature...more...

So we ask, Did the United Arab Emirates Kill Swimmer Fran Crippen? Should they have canceled the race due to the unsafe heat?

Yes, they should have.

Update -- Newsy Video

Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

Times: Review of the "Please Don't Blow Us Up" Exhibit at the New York Public Library

When you throw together for exhibit a random assortment of diverse religious artifacts from three distinct religions over several millenia, people will wonder, Why? What's the point?

Edward Rothstein writes a comprehensive and sensitive review, to describe and explain the exhibit, "Abraham’s Progeny, and Their Texts" saying, "The sweep of the new exhibition at the New York Public Library — 'Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam' — is stunning. It stretches from a Bible found in a monastery in coastal Brittany that was sacked by the Vikings in the year 917, to a 1904 lithograph showing the original Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue. It encompasses both an elaborately decorated book of 20th-century Coptic Christian readings and a modest 19th-century printing of the Gospels in the African language Grebo. There are Korans, with pages that shimmer with gold leaf and elegant calligraphy, and a 13th-century Pentateuch from Jerusalem, written in script used by Samaritans who traced their origins to the ancient Northern Kingdom of Israel..."

The Times' reviewer explains the rationale behind a new exhibit at the New York Public Library as follows:

These exhibitions have a distinctive post-9/11 cast. One reaction to Islamist terror attacks has been a self-conscious ecumenism; one of the main sponsors of “Three Faiths,” for example, is the Coexist Foundation, whose aim is “to promote better understanding between Jews, Christians and Muslims.”

The focus on similarities among the three religions is partly meant to disconnect terrorism from the mainstream Islamic tradition. In the British catalog, Karen Armstrong, who has written widely about the Abrahamic religions, minimizes the scale of Islamist violence by suggesting that each religion has its dangerous extremists, but more important, she argues, is that the faiths share a devotion to the ideal of transcendence through holy texts. The British exhibition even had the subtitle “Discover What We Share.” And in New York, too, the emphasis throughout is on commonality. At this historical moment, this is meant to defend Islam against anticipated accusations. Thus: out of three distinct monotheisms, one humanist perspective.

This argument deserves more analysis, but in any case, the resemblances are considerable...more...

We think this exhibit sounds just wonderful, but has been misnamed.

It should be called the, "We are all Alike, so Please Don't Blow Us Up" Exhibit.

Rabbi Soloveitchik DVD, "The Lonely Man of Faith" Review and Memoir

Home version of the DVD on sale here.

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Review/Memoir by Tzvee of the film, The Lonely Man of Faith, by Ethan Isenberg

The inspiring film, "Lonely Man of Faith," is an homage to and biography of my revered teacher Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, known respectfully as the Rav.

I am hardly a neutral reviewer. I studied for four years in the Rav's shiur (Talmudic seminar) from 1969 to 1973 and I got to know him well outside of the classroom. I was not a full-fledged "shamash" of the Rav (a student personal assistant). But because I was a generous fellow and drove a nice Lincoln Continental, the Rav frequently asked me to drive him on Thursdays to the Boston shuttle at La Guardia Airport, sometimes with stops on the way. One such stop one day was to visit a cemetery, after which we were involved in an auto accident – a car rear ended my Lincoln. The Rav wore a neck brace for a few days after that and I was not at all happy.

On another occasion we stopped at the Fifth Avenue apartment of a wealthy stockbroker, Mr. Gruss, to pick up a five figure check for the Maimonides School. Other times in the car we discussed the shiurim (seminars) of the week, I asked a variety of shailos (religious questions) and the Rav would ask me about various and sundry topics.

Not Too Big to Fail: God Files for Bankruptcy

Even God is not too big to fail. One of his major churches has filed for bankruptcy.

Crystal Cathedral megachurch files for bankruptcy
By AMY TAXIN, Associated Press Writer

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. – Crystal Cathedral, the megachurch birthplace of the televangelist show "Hour of Power," filed for bankruptcy Monday in Southern California after struggling to emerge from debt that exceeds $43 million.

In addition to a $36 million mortgage, the Orange County-based church owes $7.5 million to several hundred vendors for services ranging from advertising to the use of live animals in Easter and Christmas services.

The church had been negotiating a repayment plan with vendors, but several filed lawsuits seeking quicker payment, which prompted a coalition formed by creditors to fall apart.

The Confused Sexuality Policies of Orthodox Jews

The Jewish Standard in Teaneck has been embroiled in a vocal and public debate and dispute over the announcement of a gay wedding. The editor and publisher appear to the public to be confused and vacillating over the matter after a "firestorm" of criticism from Orthodox rabbis. It's not their fault. It's the fault of the Orthodox rabbis who appointed themselves guardians of public policies on sexuality in the Jewish community and then could not articulate a viable, logical policy. That could confuse anyone, and it does.

Just to illustrate how mixed up the self-crowned spokesmen are, the statement was repeated over and over that the announcement of a gay wedding "caused pain and consternation" in their Orthodox communities. What? Note that the actual wedding and the underlying issue it illustrates is not what troubled the "deep sensitivities within the traditional/ Orthodox community." It was the announcement in a local paper. Confused? We sure are and so were Jamie Janoff and Rebecca Boroson at the Jewish Standard. But it was not their fault.

The Orthodox community is profoundly mixed up about sex.

Yehuda Mirsky wrote a column in JPost that demonstrates some of the confusion among Orthodox Jews over public policies that relate to sexuality. He speaks about the two main policies that contribute to Orthodox confusion over sexuality, namely, segregation of the sexes and rules of modesty (called tzniut in Hebrew). He asks, "Where is the ‘tzniut’?" and opines, "True modesty should not attempt to erase women, whether in the recesses of Mea She’arim, or through their objectification in the aggressive world of advertising."

The author decries the segregation of sidewalks in Orthodox areas of Jerusalem (now illegal according to the courts) and he rails against secular society too:

...YET THERE can be no denying that it is tied to a corresponding extremism in secular society. The objectification of women in extreme haredi practices is more than matched by the objectification of women to which we are subjected day and night by the colossal apparatus of marketing and advertising. And that apparatus is taking over the public sphere in its own way, with massive billboards and inescapable ads which forcibly revamp the public sphere no less than do the mehitzot of Mea She’arim....

Confused? You should be. Forcing your women to walk on another sidewalk or to sit in the back of the bus is not the analogous in any way to putting up a billboard, no matter how much you deem that act to be tasteless.

Back to the trouble in Teaneck. I'm thinking, maybe the Orthodox are feeling their own confusion when they rant in public about a gay wedding announcement. After all, when you send boys to same-sex yeshivas and when you seat men and boys together and every day have them drape themselves in shawls for prayer; and when you hide women from view and have them neutralize their sexuality with long and loose clothing... maybe you are encouraging same sex attractions. Ya think? And maybe now you are feeling guilty. And maybe, at the very least, that makes you confused.

Giant billboards with pretty women do not offend me. They do not objectify women nor are they expressions of extreme secularism. They are not confusing at all. They are effective ads meant to attract attention to sell products.

Rabbis ought to consider carefully that their policies that too rigorously restrict the mingling of boys and girls, men and women, may lead to confused sexuality, which in turn can produce true "pain and consternation" and not the holiness or sanctity that they seek.