JustASC

An old friend pointed me toward a silly article on intermarriage that appeared in the San Diego Jewish Journal last month. Under the repugnant title “Shiksas are for practice,” author Natalie Benjamin serves up a heaping slice of misinformed stereotyping:

I admit it: I’m jealous of shiksas. For some reason, Jewish men are more attracted to non-Jewish women. It’s not because the women are more attractive or smarter than I am. It’s because Jewish men have grown up being told that non-Jewish women are taboo, prohibited, persona non-grata – and we all know we want what we can’t have.

Jewish men also want a woman who reminds them as little as possible about their Mother. A Jewish mother is known for her attention and affection, particularly with her sons, but he for some reason (the nagging? The nit-picking? The nosiness?) wants exactly the opposite.

The whole idea that Jewish men marry Jewish women because they are “taboo” or blonde or “perky” hasn’t been true since the 1950s, if it ever was. What she fails to grasp is that distinctions between Jews and non-Jews have all but disappeared in the past 50 years, while acceptance of Jews among non-Jews is nearly complete. Why do American Jewish males marry non-Jewish American females? Because Americans marry Americans, males marry females. Besides, Jews are a tiny minority comfortable among a vast majority. Odds alone favor non-Jews meeting Jews, and falling in love.

 The better question is, why do Jews continue to marry Jews in this post-racial, diverse, multicultural 21st century? For some, call them the “most commanded,” it is because their faith forbids the alternative. For others, call them the “counter-culturalists,” it’s because they are committed to sustaining Jewish culture and think marrying a fellow Jew gives the best odds of doing so. And some, well, they just feel comfortable with a fellow Jew, the way New Yorkers might favor New Yorkers, or surfers marry surfers.

I’m probably in the second category. I care deeply about the chain of Jewish culture, and feel the best way to keep it going is not only to marry a Jewish women but raise kids to appreciate Jewish culture in a positive, sustaining, organic, and holistic way. Of course, they may end up not appreciating it as much as I do, but will at least make an informed choice if they go down another path.

 I kvell when Jews marry Jews, because I see them (perhaps condescendingly on my part) as fellow enlistees in the effort to keep this thing called Jewish going at least one more generation. And I support efforts to encourage Jews to marry other Jews.

But I would never support Natalie Benjamin’s approach, which is guilt and ridicule. You don’t get people to appreciate a culture and work towards its preservation by laying on guilt, not in 2009. You do it by raising them in an atmosphere that cherishes the culture and makes it natural for them to want to maintain its traditions. 

P.S.: Micah Sachs of Interfaithfamily.com wrote a strong response to Benjamin’s peice, which appears here.

P.S.S.: This whole debate reminds me of my favorite joke about cultural immersion: Two young fish are swimming along. An older fish swims past them and says, “Nice water today!” The two young fish smile and nod back. A few minutes later, when they are alone, one of the young fish says to the other, “What’s water?”

My take, as promised.

I’m working on a column about this latest “Downfall” parody:

When Israelis enlist Hitler in a parody, all bets are off. So long as there are living survivors, and the wounds of the Shoa remain fresh, there are no benign satires on or involving Nazism. I can well understand the pain of a survivor who imagines a young Israeli cavalierly
enlisting Hitler in a spoof.

And yet, there is something ironic, hilarious, and wildly subversive about Hitler sweeping his hand over a map of “Tel Aviv” and complaining only about the lack of parking garages. In Hebrew, yet! If the very idea of an overcrowded Jewish state is not revenge on Hitler, then nothing is.

My buddy in Israel Elli Wohlgelernter points out a boner in my interview with our mutual pal Winston Pickett. I quoted Winston as saying:

“I would be remiss if I didn’t say, and not simply on a level of self-interest, that ‘Something is happening and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mrs. Jones?’”

As Elli points out, Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man” refers to MR. Jones, not Mrs. As for MRS. Jones, she appears in Billy Paul’s 1972 hit “Me and Mrs. Jones.”

I’ll take the blame — Winston probably got it right, and I mashed the two songs together.

Back blogging after a week in Florida.

We spent the last few days at Universal Studios Orlando. Almost all the theme rides have the same back story: Thing start out “normal,” then go horribly awry, usually thanks to some villain or natural disaster. The archetype is the Jaws ride, which starts as a tour of Amity, and ends in exploding bloody mayhem. Or the Jurassic Park ride, which starts as a tour of the park, and ends in exploding bloody mayhem. Or the Simpsons ride, which starts — you get the idea. Even the Cat in the Hat ride follows this arc, although there was slightly more mayhem than bloodshed. (The only exception was the treacly E.T. ride, which starts out feebly and ends weakly.)

I’m not knocking this, but am curious a/ why Americans have such an appetite for this entropic story line and b/ if I can pull off an 850-word column developing the idea into a symbol of America’s current economic decline and can thus write off the the cost of the trip as a tax deduction?

I’ve been reading some grim reports about anti-Semitism in Britain and the rest of Europe. The ADL yesterday declared a “pandemic” unleashed by the war in Gaza. The BBC is reporting on figures suggesting 2009 is on course to become the worst year on record for anti-Semitic abuse in the UK, and interviews a 32-year-old man attacked last month in London’s heavily Jewish  Golders Green community. Playwright Caryl Churchill has written this appallingly one-sided playlet about the war in Gaza.

The stats don’t give me a clear picture of what it feels like to be a Jew in England these days, so I called my old friend Winston Pickett, who is director of the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism.  He is helping to organize next week’s London Conference on Combating Antisemitism.

Winnie is an American, but has lived in Brighton with his British wife and kids for almost 10 years. I asked him to relate his experience in England to what he remembered of life in the United States.

(more…)

Look at Google Israel’s cool Election Day logo:

At left is Bernard Madoff,  above right is Herbert Hamrol, the last known survivor of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, who died Weds. at age 106.

Rabbi Noach Weinberg, who died last week at 78 in Jerusalem, was described by JTA as “the founder and dean of the sprawling global outreach operation Aish HaTorah.”

He was also one of the most influential figures in my religious life, although I don’t know how pleased he would have been at the suggestion. (more…)

My synagogue is reading Arnie Eisen’s book “Taking Hold of Torah” in preparation for his scholar-in-residence appearance in March. On Shabbat I gave a d’var Torah based on some themes in the book, and obviously echoing some of the things I wrote about in this column on the Gaza war.

Here’s a draft, after the jump: (more…)