JustASC

A Miami synagogue made news by cancelling a scheduled talk by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chair of the Democratic National Committee. She was scheduled to talk about  Israel following Friday night services; a synagogue member, Stanley Tate, who happens to be co-chair of Mitt Romney’s campaign in Miami-Dade County, resigned from the synagogue when he learned ”he would not get an opportunity to offer a Republican rebuttal,” according to The Miami Herald.

This has led some to suggest that politicians have no place in a synagogue in the first place, and that such invites run afoul of IRS rules forbidding houses of worship from conducting partisan activities. In fact, the IRS allows churches to invite politicans if their talks are not intended to be political in nature; otherwise, they must invite all candidates to attend (for a helpful primer, see here).  

(All this might come as news to the East Brunswick Jewish Center, which just hosted a town hall meeting with Chris Christie; Congregation Sons of Israel in Manalapan, which is hosting a talk by former Sen. Norman Coleman on behalf of the Republican Jewish Coalition; and the Pine Brook Jewish Center, where Newark Mayor Cory Booker will speak on June 10.)   

Of course, asking a politician to give a non-political talk is like asking a baby to”just hold it in” until we get home. But do we really want to keep politicians out of the shul altogether? That would only make synagogues more detached from civic life than they already are. Surely this Miami synagogue could have found a way to invite Wasserman Shultz and signal to congregants and the outside world that they are non-partisan. (Synagogues shouldn’t presume political unanimity among their members.)  The smartest thing would have been to couple the Wasserman Shultz invite with the announcement of an equally prominent Republican speaker at a later date.

As for the  “rebuttal” format, that can be unwieldy — as well as redundant, if I know my fellow Jews. 

Today’s NJJN editorial welcomes the news that Israel will recognize and pay the salaries of rabbis from all streams of Judaism, not just the Orthodox. It also includes, IMHO, a not-bad joke about the situation:

 What do you call an out-of-work Reform or Conservative Jew in Israel? Rabbi.

(Thank you very much. We’ll be here all week.)

But Jonathan Tobin pours cold water on the celebrations. He points out that the decision was full of hair-splitting and legal fictions. More importantly, it doesn’t address the heart of the problem: Why are religious bureaucrats on the payroll of the Israeli government in the first place?

A far more urgent issue for most Israelis than the discrimination against Reform and Conservative rabbis is the oppressive nature of the taxpayer-financed official religious authority that is the bailiwick of ultra-Orthodox officials who have the ability to make an application for a marriage license the equivalent of a visit from the Spanish Inquisition. Like much of the structure of the Israeli bureaucracy, the whole idea of state-subsidized religion (and it should be specified that all faiths including Christianity and Islam are also given government support in Israel — the only reason non-Orthodox Jews are left out is because they refuse to register as being separate faiths that are distinct from traditional Orthodox Judaism) is the core of the problem.

Teens in Great Britain taking the GCSE high school proficiency exams were asked to write a short essay in response to this question: “Explain briefly why some people are prejudiced against Jews.”

 When Jewish leaders and other observers suggested the question was a tad inappropriate, an exam board spokesperson said that the question referred to a “relevant part of the syllabus [that] covers prejudice and discrimination with reference to race, religion and the Jewish experience of persecution.

“We would expect [students to refer] to the Holocaust to illustrate prejudice based on irrational fear, ignorance and scapegoating.”

Sure, you can expect that. But the question also invites a whole set of other answers. When a mom asks a kid, “Why don’t you go play with Timmy down the block?” she’s merely urging the kid to get out of the house. But she shouldn’t be surprised when the kid replies, “Because I hate him and he smells and he’s a poopoo head.”

Rabbi David Meyer, the executive head of London’s Hasmonean High School, says this in somewhat more elevated terms:

“The role of education is to remove prejudices and not to justify them,” he said. The question “plants suggestions and implies ideas that shouldn’t be instilled into students.”

But would it ever be appropriate to explore the roots of anti-Semitism or any other form of prejudice? Sure — whole books, many written by Jews, have been devoted to the subject. (“Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism” by Prager and Telushkin is probably the best known.) It’s an important question to ask if you want to understand history, dispell bad ideas, and give people the tools not to repeat them.

Aish makes an interesting distinction in its treatment of Why the Jews:  ”When we study any theory, it is important to distinguish between a ’cause’ and an ‘excuse.’” Helping students understand the difference seems like a worthwhile lesson.

So what would be an appropriate question? How about, “Provide a frequently cited reason for anti-Semitism and describe its impact on a Jewish community,” or maybe, “Discuss an episode of prejudice directed at the Jews and the attitudes and events that give rise to such bigotry.”

This Sunday and Monday are Shavuot, known around my house as the Lactose Intolerant Tisha B’Av.

Observant Jews across the country are enjoying the irony that a holiday devoted to dairy foods is falling on one of the biggest barbecue weekends of the year, and by “enjoying” I mean “not enjoying.”

For those of us who work at Jewish institutions, it also means a lost day off.

But I’m not complaining — oh wait, I am complaining. A lot.

Chag sameach, have a great long weekend, and if you eat a hot dog for me, I’ll eat a soy-based cheese alternative for you.

I’ve seen folks on Facebook post this story, apparently approvingly, about a Purdue University Calumet prof asserting his right to ridicule Islam and Mohammad on Facebook. Professor Maurice Eisenstein, an associate professor of political science, says he asked on Facebook, “Where were the moderate Muslims? They must be listening to that idiot Mohammad.” The school launched an investigation of his remarks, and in response, Eisenstein is suing the school. He said the investigation was a violation of his First Amendment rights to free speech.

According to  the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which is defending him:

The PUC Muslim Student Association and several students and faculty members had filed harassment complaints against professor Maurice Eisenstein after he criticized moderate Muslims who he believed had not condemned “radical Muslim” terrorism in Nigeria. Two faculty members had also filed retaliation complaints against Eisenstein, who came to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help.

“This is not the first time and it won’t be the last time we will see a university punish a student or professor for constitutionally protected speech on Facebook,” said FIRE President Greg Lukianoff. “Professors at public universities should not have to go to court to defend their free speech rights.”

The irony here, which I am betting will be lost on folks who see Eisenstein as an anti-Muslim hero and free speech martyr, is that FIRE is also defending The Medium, the Rutgers student newspaper that made a Hitler joke at the expense of a campus pro-Israel activist. In that case, the Zionist Organization of America and other Jewish groups are welcoming the university’s probe and urging that the newspaper and its faculty adviser be censured. “While we all respect the First Amendment as the bulwark of a free society, we do not believe the Medium should be allowed to hide behind a First Amendment claim,” state Jewish federations wrote to the Rutgers administration.

At least FIRE is consistent: They want the campus to be a robust marketplace of ideas according to the Constitution. “Eisenstein’s colleagues ganged up on him to punish him for his protected expression,” says FIRE Vice President of Programs Adam Kissel. “The best remedy for ‘bad’ speech is more speech, not this pattern of wild prosecution.”

I wonder if Eisenstein’s fans at FrontPageMag.com and on Facebook would extend that principle to a Muslim professor who attacked Jews, Judaism or Israel. I’m guessing not.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be one of the moderators at a debate featuring candidates for Congress in NJ’s District 10 (Essex and parts of Union County).  It’s an unusual two-in-one primary on June 5:  Voters will be asked to select a candidate to fill the late U.S. Rep. Donald Payne’s unexpired term; and then also to  select a candidate for the full, two-year congressional term for the new District 10.

The debate takes place Weds., May 23 at 8:30 a.m. (as in, first thing in the morning) at the Cooperman JCC in West Orange.

Back blogging after a week in Paris, where I explored the implications of Hollande’s victory on the Eurozone economy and the Iranian question while — no wait, I thought I was Thomas Friedman there for a minute.

Actually, we spent the week eating pain au chocolat and drinking espresso, with occasional breaks for museums.  I was tempted exactly once to do something work-related: I saw that there was an Art Spiegelman exhibit at the Centre Pompidou. We got ice cream instead.

I was 11 when I first saw West Side Story, when it premiered on network television. As Maria tended to the body of the dying Tony, and the ominous bell tolled, I was convinced that I was watching the solution to all the world’s wars and conflicts. Just get people to watch West Side Story, I remember thinking through my (secret) tears, and there’d be no more fighting.

My classmates at Waltoffer Ave. School apparently didn’t agree with me. After the movie was shown, the boys would divide up into Jets and Sharks at lunch hour and “rumble” on the playground (which meant, in our highly risk-averse suburb, a slight variation on the time-honored game of “kill the guy with the ball,” which involved a lot of jumping around and homoerotic “piling on”). I have a distinct memory of Mr. Verde getting on the loudspeaker and calling a stop to the rumbles. I’m guessing some parents complained about the grass stains.

West Side Story no longer moves me in the same way, but it moves me –  when I get teary, it’s over a Bernstein melody, and if I want to imitate anything on stage it is the leaps and splits of the dancers. (I would give anything to be able to do that jump and kick sideways thing the Jets do in the opening number, although perhaps not under the West Side Highway.) The corps in the current production of the musical at Newark’s NJPAC dance the hell out of the show, and Jerome Robbins’ original choreography still has the power to bring an audience to rapture.

NJPAC is presenting the touring version of the 2009 Broadway revival, recreating both Robbins’ choreography and Arthur Laurents’ original direction.  It’s probably best known for giving the Sharks Spanish dialogue and lyrics, which was a nice authentic touch. The cast is uniformly excellent, and the settings are lovely and evocative (and something of a technical marvel, considering this is a travelling show). If I had a quibble, it’s that both gangs are given vulgar gestures — flipping the bird, thrusting their hips, miming masturbation –  that I can’t imagine were in the original show (“Officer Krupke” especially tried to mine laughs from this sort of thing, unsuccessfully). I’m not a prude, but the lewdness of the gestures seemed somehow to make the show seem even more quaint. In 1957, Sondheim and Laurents had to work hard to convey the grittiness of the setting while staying just this side of the standards (and obscenity laws) of the era. Sondheim tells the story that “Krupke” originally ended with the gang shouting “fuck you,” until he was told by Columbia Records that the cast album would never be allowed to be shipped over state lines. (And besides, he writes, “Krup you!” — Bernstein’s suggestion — “may be the best lyric line in the show.”) Audiences bought into the sanitized slang the same way that they bought into the idea of gang members doing splits and plies and breaking into song. If Riff is giving a guy the finger, why is he saying “mother-lovin’” and “Krup you”?

Otherwise, a great production of a great show. And that dancing!  (Performances continue today at 1:30 and 7:30 p.m.; Friday at 8; Saturday at 2 and 8 and Sunday at 3.  See www.njpac.org.)

This apparently is not an Onion headline:

Giant black hole is seen gobbling up a star