JustASC

Ariel Kaminer, the Times‘ Ethicist columnist, takes a question about the search for a new rabbi. Having just served on my synagogue’s rabbi search committee, I have opinions. First, the question and response:

My synagogue is interviewing four rabbis. One, who lives nearby, comes every Saturday to pray and glad-hand. The other three can’t, because they don’t travel on the Sabbath. Isn’t it unethical of him to take advantage of his proximity? NAME WITHHELD

Attending those services isn’t unethical; it’s sensible. If you applied for a job at a bookstore, would you refuse on principle to visit until they made their choice? But if you find the rabbi’s behavior in the synagogue to be inappropriate (if, say, he hands out $50 bills during the mourner’s prayer), then cast your vote accordingly.

Terrible answer. A good search committee goes out of its way to level the playing field among candidates, especially finalists (I presume Name Withheld was talking about finalists). We introduced our candidates to the congregation in audition weekends designed to be as identical as possible, so that the candidates would have similar opportunities to make their impressions. Had one of the candidates begun showing up on other days, I hope we would have said, “So as not to unduly prejudice the outcome, we politely request that you refrain from visiting the synagogue during the search process.”

The difference between a bookstore job and a pulpit is that you rarely if ever put the bookstore job to a vote of the store’s staff or customers. Most rabbinical searches are democratic in one way or the other — the congregation has some kind of say, even if it is an up and down vote at the end of the process (that’s one reason why the Conservative movement has a policy that interim rabbis cannot be considered for the eventual full-time position — their access to the congregation would give them an unfair advantage over other candidates). One rabbi’s glad-handling would, like political activity within 50 feet of a polling station, distort the process.

Besides, you can’t tell everything about a rabbi by the way she shmoozes during kiddush. That’s why congregations delegate much of the screening to a committee. Sometimes, because of confidentiality, the search commitee is privy to things — a bad recommendation, an unreasonable compensation or work-related request, a tendency to drop f-bombs during the interview — that a congregation could not and should not possibly know. Pity the committee that rejects an inappropriate candidate who has managed to ingratiate himself to congregants during frequent visits to shul.

No doubt a candidate could figure out a way to do some politicking on his or her own. Hell, it would be “sensible” for a candidate to sit in the front row during a rival’s audition sermon and challenge her to a debate(think how far that has gotten Newt). But I think it was clear to the rabbis in our search, if not across the Conservative movement, that campaigning is bad form, if not disqualifying.

Is this the most Jewish name for a cookie ever? The girl in the commercial looks like she was coached (badly) by Fyvush Finkel.

Last night a friend asked me for the definition of “meta” and I gave the usual answer about a thing that references itself, or should be understood at a level above (or perhaps below) its surface understanding. I hadn’t yet seen the New Yorker cartoon below, but it’s as good an example as any:

“Marvin! Is that a thought balloon
or a hedge above your head?”

The example I did give was this one: A few months ago a production company came to film a commercial in our office lunchroom. Wendy’s did this a few years back, and I guess we’re the go-to place if you need a fairly drab, generic-looking office space. Apparently, the lunchroom wasn’t sufficiently drab or generic-looking for the latest commercial company, so they redecorated. They put up a number of “office-y” signs, including an inspirational poster, a Spanish-language listing of workmen’s compensation benefits, and a sign warning people not to jam the shredder.

So that’s sort of meta already — a fictional representation of our actual office space made to look even more authentically office-like.

But here’s the bonus level: After they wrapped, the filmmakers left the signs up in the lunchroom — and nobody has ever bothered to take them down. So now all my actual co-workers work in an office space that looks more like an office than it did before, thanks to the make-believe of an advertiser.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is the kind of teacher you wish you had for all your classes. Lively, avuncular, engaging, he can make a lot of constitutional legal theory go down easily in witty and enlightening chunks. He packed the Jewish Theological Seminary last night for a talk based on his latest book, Making Our Democracy Work, A Judge’s View. (I came an hour early and was still relegated to one of two overflow rooms. On the plus side, the video gave me a close-up view I wouldn’t have had in the main hall.)

The first half of the talk was his justification for the court’s role in American law-making. He spoke movingly of a few key moments when the court’s authority was challenged and even ignored, including by the federal government itself, as when Andrew Jackson ignored a court decision and drove the Cherokee nation out of Georgia. But Breyer finds the American story infinitely more inspiring than disheartening, Remembering how Ike sent members of  the 101st Airborne into Little Rock, Breyer said “I still get kind of a shiver” when he thinks about it.

The second half of the lecture, on the Constitution as a “flexible, living document,” was red meat for the rabbis and scholars at the Seminary and the Conservative movement, whose official history is called Tradition and Change. Clearly Breyer’s book is meant as a challenge to Scalia and the “originalists” on the Court. He understands their impulse to keep decisions free of judge’s subjective impulses. Breyer’s approach is not to ask what founding fathers would do in a particular case. Instead, he asks what values underlie the Constitution, and applies these to changing circumstances. Times may change, the law may change, but “you’re taking a value that doesn’t change.”

(That’s essentially the m.o. of the Conservative movement. I imagine, however, that there might have been some rabbinic firebrands in the room who are restless over the pace of change within their movement and impatient with Breyer’s somewhat deliberate approach to jurisprudence.)

If there was something missing from the evening it was any acknowledgement of Breyer’s own Judaism and how it may or may not have shaped his own legal thinking and career. Moderator Ariela Dubler of Columbia Law School didn’t bring this up in the short q and a that followed the talk.   

“Patriotism” has come to mean football-field size flags, Navy flyovers, and country-western songs, but I never felt as patriotic as I did in listening to Breyer. In a small aside he mentioned that he had recently hosted a delegation of law students from Tunisia, explaining to them how America came to respect and enforce even the court’s most unpopular decisions. (“You can turn on the television and see what’s happening in countries who decide their major problems in the streets and with guns,” he said.) Sometimes you need a reminder that for all the polarization and hard feeling in this country, there remains respect for the law.

I was Googling the Israeli filmmaker Ami Drozd and received the following message with my results:

The word “ami” has been filtered from the search because Google SafeSearch is active.

Police nab a teen in two of the Nothern Jersey synagogue attacks:

Police arrested a Lodi teen in the firebombing of a Rutherford synagogue and an arson at a Paramus temple, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli announced Tuesday.

Anthony M. Graziano, 19, was charged with nine counts of attempted murder and one count each of bias intimidation and aggravated arson in connection with the Rutherford incident. He was also charged with aggravated arson, arson and bias intimidation in the Paramus incident, Molinelli said.

As I wrote last week, if in our fear of anti-Semitism we ignore all the “signs of Jewish acceptance and privilege, we end up handing tremendous power to a malicious teen with a spray can” — or in this case, a book of matches.

Wow, is all I can say:

The owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times has resigned his position and is seeking a buyer in the wake of his speculation that Israel would consider assassinating President Obama.

Andrew Adler, in an email obtained by JTA, announced Monday that he is “relinquishing all day-to-day activities effective immediately” following the publishing of an opinion column he wrote saying that President Obama’s assassination was among Israel’s options in heading off a nuclear Iran.

-snip-

In a Jan. 13 column, Adler, who is the paper’s owner and publisher, outlined what he said were three possible responses by Israel to Iran’s acquiring a nuclear weapon: a pre-emptive strike against Hamas and Hezbollah, terrorist groups that he said would be emboldened by a nuclear Iran; a direct strike on Iran; and “three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.”

I don’t know Mr. Adler or anything about him. I do remember when the Atlanta paper was a good one, especially when it was partnered with a then healthy Baltimore Jewish Times, but that was years ago. I also know that the Jewish conversation over Obama, Iran, and just about any other topic you can imagine has been poisoned of late by a number of extreme voices who often go unchecked by the mainstream. I am glad to see a number of groups — including the ADL, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and the American Jewish Commitee,  rise up to denounce this kind of obscenity.

My colleague and Jewish sports blogger extraordinaire Ron Kaplan wonders what a Jewish Tim Tebow might do as a signature gesture on the sidelines. Flash the kohane‘s split finger salute? Shuckle back and forth?

I think we ought to take our clues from American Sign Language. Imagine the seismic impact it would have if Ryan Braun were to do the following every time he got on base:

Last night we posted an oped by a regular contributor in support of the Second Amendment, and it’s already gotten almost 30 comments from gun proponents (that’s huge for us). This happened before, when we profiled a “Gun Rabbi“ who teaches marksmanship.

Last week we had a similar flood of comments from folks who wouldn’t normally visit our site, responding to an article debating the Armenian genocide.

The solution to our financial woes is obvious: We’re changing our name to “Armenian Gun News.”

A self-described “deeply secular Jew” admits that “he had absolutely zero interest in ever visiting” Israel, regarding it “less like a country than a politically iffy burden.” Nevertheless, he takes a friend’s advice and spends six days in Jerusalem. There, amid the winding streets and spiritual mall of the Old City and the hip bars and restaurants of West Jerusalem, he finds “exactly the kind of place where I feel comfortable.”

It sounds exactly like the testimony of a kid on a Birthright Israel trip, right? Instead, it is a travel article in the New York Times by Matt Gross. 

So of course, Jewish readers, including one prominent Jewish leader, reacted with their typical restraint and generosity of spirit.

“This is the only travel article I have ever read anywhere by anybody, that left me angry,” reads one comment. “Mr. Gross protests way too much about his flight from Judaism.”

“Such a sad cliche- the Jew who will run off into the arms of every other culture except his own and swears- swears!- that he has not internalized anti-Semitism and turned it into self-hate,” writes another.

David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, writes that he is disappointed but not surprised that the Times  “would find a travel writer on Jerusalem who brings some heavy-duty baggage to the topic.” And he insists (or at least pretends) that he doesn’t understand why a certain type of Jew would be conflicted about visiting Israel:

[F[or Gross, I repeat, "Israel felt less like a country than a politically iffy burden." Does Israel somehow make his life uncomfortable as "a deeply secular Jew," while those pesky Israelis endlessly deal with the messy demands of sovereignty and neighbors who aren't always ready, even after 63 years, to recognize the Jewish state's right to exist? Would his self-image and place in the world be enhanced if only Israel closed up shop?

Funny how no other country awakens in him such feelings.

That is putting a whole lot of words in Gross’ mouth. But really, is it really so “funny” that a deeply secular Jew would be conflicted about visiting a country that places on its Jewish visitors so many demands of history and identity?  As I wrote a few years back in response to a similarly ambivalent essay, some Jewish liberals have a hard time thinking about Israel not because they are lazy or self-hating, but precisely (davke, as the Israelis say) because the subject is so fraught. You don’t need a psychologist to tell you that the things we have the most trouble dealing with are those that hit closest to home.

Harris has to know this. But he refuses to welcome Gross’ journey to Israel and his mostly positive takeaways (and note, in the comments and elsewhere, that Gross is also criticized for being too soft on Israel and the occupation!), or wish him luck on his future joruneys. Instead, Harris presumes to tell him and other conflicted Jews what they ought to feel about Israel and their Jewish identity.

Writes Harris:

Actually, I was hoping for a happy ending after that kind of set-up — some realization that, as a first-time visitor, Gross had forged a bond with Israel, that would outlast his stay.

What I find so disappointing about Harris’ response is that it violates the first rule of advocacy and outreach to disengaged or unaffiliated Jews: start where they are.  Harris could have welcomed Gross’ article as an essay by a deracinated Jew who, after only six (!) days in Israel managed to overcome some of his internal conflicts. Instead, he treats him as a lost cause who didn’t feel the “twinkle” after his short visit. 

Harris could have welcomed the Times article for speaking directly to exactly the kind of traveler who considers Israel a land of blood and conflict or a New Jersey-sized synagogue. For these kinds of readers, the article offers an alternative image of Israel as a fascinating historical destination and a place of “frozen-yogurt parlors and focaccerias,” “underground” bars, and restaurants where you can have your “mind blown by a platter of seared veal sweetbreads with artichokes, cherry tomatoes and cauliflower cream.”

Isn’t this exactly the kind of article Israeli officials envisioned when they launched their “Brand Israel” p.r. campaign — marketing an Israel beyond the conflict? Does Harris think that message would have been more credible had it been written by someone without Gross’ “heavy psychological baggage”?

Yes, Gross’ lack of curiosity about the Jewish state annoyed me. But he went, and he enjoyed it — enough to tell other people about it and recommend that they go too. Let’s call that a victory, not a “shame.”