One Week

Within this week:

• one broken toe
• one mangled finger
• one Shabbos in Washington DC
• one funeral in Florida

May the next week be less crazy.

Oh, the guilt!

Jon Stewart has, for many years, had a great spin on gay marriage: playing off The Right’s fears that gay marriage will ruin marriage for straights; will be the decline of society and morality; will lead to pedophilia and beastiality… His humour in this clip is great. And be sure to catch his opinion on Jewish lesbians marrying.

“I don’t have a problem with them having children because they’re gay. But I am concerned for the welfare of any child with two Jewish mothers.”

Pink Shirts and Pinstripe Trousers: Co-ed Learning at Drisha

Drisha Institute in New York City is offering a month-long weekly co-ed class this summer that is open to the public and may be of interest to [some of us] who are interested in issues of gender, clothing, and sexuality. Chasiah Haberman will be teaching “Pink Shirts and Pinstripe Trousers: Clothing and Gender Construction Halakha.” From Drisha’s site:

What do women wear? What constitutes a uniquely male garment? Is modesty a gender-specific concept? How do assumptions about gender shape ideas of appropriate dress for men and women? We will study both traditional and contemporary halakhic literature.

Chasiah Haberman
Tuesday, 7:45 – 9:15 p.m.
Tuition: $125

Financial assistance is available. Space is still available. This class is co-ed.

Register soon, as the class starts on July 1st!

Numbers

I was recently asked why I’m here in New York. Why I wasn’t looking for Jew-y stuff in Canada. And, exaggerating to make my point, I said, “There are more Jews on the Upper West Side than in all of Canada!”

I thought I should actually do the math, see how greatly I exaggerated. According to the 2001 Census, there are 329,995 Jews in Canada. Based on the 2000 US Census, there are 318,640 Jews in Manhattan alone. My exaggeration wasn’t as hyperbolic as I’d hoped it was.

Other tidbits to file away… There are 1.6million Jews in NY, total of 5.28million in the US; 5.3million in Israel. The Jewish population of both the US and Israel is roughly the same at 40.3% and 40.6%, respectively, as a share of the world’s total Jewish population. (The Jewish population in the world is approximately 12-13million.)

Live from New York

It’s Saturday Night.

In the midst of wonderful thunderstorms, sheets of rain sweeping across the city, I enjoyed a cozy Shabbos inside. We had planned to eat up on the roof, but the humidity, early on in the day, prompted us to switch to my air conditioned apartment instead. After the thunder and lightning started, but before the rain, we decided to go up to the roof, to enjoy the view and breathe some “fresh” air before the rains came. In the time it took us to climb those twenty-five stories, the skies opened up: big, heavy drops poured down on us with such force that they bounced off the roof tiles and soaked my shorts from the bottom up.

There are many things I enjoy about this region of North America, and the thunderstorms are included. For all it’s spectacular scenery and nature, Vancouver just doesn’t know from good storms.

Another thing I love is the mesh of cultures here. A friend once said that all New Yorkers are part Jewish, Irish, African American, Italian, and Latino/Latina. And I’d believe it. Two year’s ago, I was walking with two friends from the Upper West Side, where we had attended Rosh Hashanah services, to the Upper East Side, where we would be having dinner. Our walk took us through Harlem, on a fairly indirect route (these same two friends would get us lost in Central Park the next day, as we tried to cross from West to East, only to have me, the visitor, get us out of there). We passed Miss Mamie’s and a guy, eating outside, shouted at us. “Hey! Heyyy!!” We kept walking, a little unsure. “Hey! Jews!” We turned back to look at him, a little confused, and more than a little cautiously. “Shaw-naw tow-vah,” he said, with an amazingly Southern drawl and unique pronunciation that I would never have expected to hear.

Following the same vein, Friday’s encounter brought a smile to my face. I was out walking with Gwen. We passed a volunteer (African American, wearing a cross on a chain around his neck) collecting money to feed and shelter the homeless. I threw some change into his collection vessel (a large, empty, water jug, like for a water cooler). A few hours later, we passed by him again. He was still asking passers by to contribute change to help feed the homeless, provide shelter, and every penny helps! He saw me, and changed his pitch, asking for “tzedakkah” instead. I said I’d already given. He paused, looked more closely at me, and said, with a smile, “Oh yeah, you did! Thanks! Shabbat shalom!” And I smiled and kept walking.

As they say in Avenue Jew, “everyone’s a little bit Jewish.”

Did you hear?

Posted to Jewschool. I’m a blogging machine tonight.

Previously in the High Rabbinic Court: WTF file, we talked of revoking conversions. Today’s story is about Deaf conversions.

Many years ago a deaf woman appeared before the Conversions Court and declared her desire to become a Jew so she could marry her Jewish love. The court ruled in the majority that there was no point in converting her, since the Halacha exempts the deaf from performing mitzvahs; and since the conversion would be rendered insignificant, there was no way to perform it.

The court’s reasoning was that since the Halacha says that “one who is deaf, one who is young and one who is a simpleton shall be exempt form ordinance,” the woman in deemed incapable of observing mitzvahs, thus incapable of accepting the burden of ordinance, which is the cornerstone of conversion.

I’m saddened that they’ve taken such a position. Especially when their logic does not hold: “one who is young” is “exempt,” but children are converted all the time (when adopted, when their parents convert, etc). Exempt does not mean forbidden. They also could have looked at this from the point of view of her potential husband (and future children) - by allowing her to convert, he could have Jewish offspring. Without her conversion, most communities will not consider her children to be Jewish.

Are people who are Deaf from birth lesser Jews? Of course not. Until a century ago (and, sadly, even more recently), it was believed that “deaf = dumb.” We know now that it’s not the case - individuals just have a more difficult time learning in a hearing/aural/oral environment when they’re Deaf (big surprise, eh?). There are schools for the Deaf, universities, different sign languages around the world. In the Jewish world, there’s an international Orthodox yeshiva for Deaf students; Chabbad regularly hosts events for Deaf Jews; Our Way offers resources for religious Deaf Jews to participate more fully in their home religious communities (and is funded by NCSY and/or OU, I think); and more. There are even Orthodox Deaf rabbis. Why would they be ordained if they were forbidden, err exempt from mitzvot?

With our updated understanding of the intelligence of Deaf people, shouldn’t this exemption be reexamined? Shouldn’t this woman have been allowed to convert?

[ETA: Interesting comments on this over at Jewschool.]

Giving

Maimonides famously wrote that there are eight levels of tzedakah - charity. The highest form of giving is in such a way that you prevent someone from becoming impoverished in the first place (giving someone employment, an interest free loan, teaching a man to fish, etc.). The next to greatest form of charity is giving tzedakah anonymously to an unknown recipient (usually via a trusted intermediary organization or person).

Let’s put that on hold for a moment.

Since returning from Israel, I have been trying to give up coffee. I was at the point where I could drink several large cups a day and still not feel a jolt. It was time to give it up. Now I’m down to about one cup a week. (Unfortunately, it’s hard to go cold turkey when your sleep schedule involves waking at 5:45 and going to bed around 1:30 or 2:00.) So I’m saving money, not buying beans to make coffee at home, not buying a couple coffees from cafés.

Before going to Israel, my tzedakah giving was routine. Each Friday, just before turning off my computer for Shabbos, I would make a donation online. I tried to vary the donations, rotating through a list of organizations that had missions I believed in. I bought bees and goats, sponsored programs for at-risk youth, supported film festivals… Which was only nominally anonymous. The youth didn’t know who funded their programs, but the fund development staff did.

Now, my practice is a little different. On my way to buying my weekly coffee, I check in with someone I see on the street, ask if s/he would like a coffee too. If they ask for a different drink, I’m happy to fulfill that request too. If they ask for something a little fancier, or specify the milk/sugar, I’m down with that too. I go, get our coffees, and return. We usually end up having a chat - talking about the weather, the drink, the neighbourhood, people watching… it doesn’t really matter what we talk about.  But we talk. I sit with them on the church’s front steps, on a park bench, in the middle of Columbus Cirlce, and we talk. The transaction is more than a simple gift of a drink, it’s a personal interaction.

And that leads me to thinking about how Maimonides would judge this exchange. It’s far from anonymous - it’s personal and lingering. I’ve been thanked, told that it’s made their day (one person said it made his month). And it’s not the charity that they’re thanking me for - it’s the conversation, being treated as an equal, having their eye contact met for more than a fleeting second. It’s not a grand gesture, but it’s an honest one.

Is this, then, an inferior way of giving?

BC travels

I spent four lovely nights in Victoria, visiting my home, my friends, remnants of my plants. It was great to relax, fully embrace my dorkiness, play a lot of Scrabble, and fall back into a comfortable rhythm with my friends.

On the way back to Vancouver, I had to transfer buses as the Ladner Exchange. There, a woman and her college-aged daughter started pointing at me, then pointing at a fellow standing a few paces from me. I stealthily paused my iPod so I could casually listen in on what they were saying about us. The mother was saying something about my “beanie” and the “head dress” of the other fellow. (Based on what I saw, I assumed him to be Sikh, so that was in fact a turban.) I wasn’t the only one listening in; the other guy had been listening and caught my eyes when this was said of us. He stepped towards the mother and daughter to clarify things with them. But he didn’t know the words “kippah” or “yarmulke,” so in trying to explain that he wasn’t wearing a head dress, and I wasn’t wearing a beanie, the mother and daughter concluded that we were both of the same religion and were wearing variations on the same religious head wear.

At this point he looked to me, so I stepped over and tried to clarify. At some point the daughter had a “light bulb” moment and said something like, “Oh, like what the Pope wears?!” Um, yes. Kind of. Many religions have customs of head coverings and… I lost them. He looked at me and shrugged. The daughter started talking to her mom about an Easter “South Park” episode which claimed the Pope’s hat was pointy because the Pope had rabbit ears to hide. And I put my earphones back in and turned on my iPod.

It’s good to be back on the west coast…

As a side note, I’d recommend reading two recent posts on Jewschool: The H in Apartheid, a thoughtful piece on Hebron, and No One Is Jewish, about Jews who have had their conversion revoked.

Beyond Hope

Chol Ha’moed in Vernon. Which, for those who enjoy geographical puns, is beyond Hope. Yesterday’s adventures included hitting several grocery stores (small and big chains) in search for matzah. None was found. However, the BC Liquor website showed us that one of the locations in town had Manischewitz wine. So we headed over there to procure a bottle, in order to make Manischewitz Mixer Madness. (The name has changed, but it’s still tasty.) While there, the manager showed us the wine he’d ordered in for Passover, even though it seemed none had been purchased. Seeing the wine, however, prompted my father and I to think there might actually be a Jewish community here. Googling hasn’t actually proven our hypothesis.

From the drive up, somewhere along the Coquihalla Highway:

Pesach Plumage

So here I am in Seattle, cleaning, kashering, and cooking. The kitchen is pristine. The rest of the house… not my domain. Because I’m not the one who will be eating in this house post-Passover, I’m allowing my host to have the final word on some of the halakhah. The result is the chometz cupboard and box in the fridge (stuff he’ll want to eat in a week, that’s expensive to replace, and needs to be refrigerated). Thanks to the internet, both the box and the cupboard have been sold. That is, he no longer owns a cupboard in his kitchen, nor does he own the box in his fridge. I had fun with it, drawing on the boxes:

Then we had to find a feather. Despite suggesting to a friend that “tackling a bird” would be a great way to get a feather, I was not about to attempt this method on my own. We went to a dollar store that had a craft section. Alas, no feathers. We checked a K-Mart, alas, no craft section. Then we went to a giant pet store chain. They sell birds and, sure enough, there were feathers at the bottom of their clean-looking cages. While I wandered amongst the cat toys, trying to decide which cat toy could be defeathered the most easily, my friend approached an employee. “I have sort of a weird question… We need a feather for a religious ceremony. And I saw some in the birds’ cages. Could we have them?” The employee found a second employee, who agreed. Minutes later, he was on his hands and knees in the bird cage (while we were both mildly creeped out because, you know, no matter how clean that cage liner was…) grabbing a half dozen colourful feathers from budgies. My friend and I both reached for the nearby hand santizer as a reaction, but it was empty. (Oh, and let’s not forget the smell in there. A customer’s big ol’ dog had decided the floor next to the bird cages was the perfect place to do his business, both businesses.) Hands were washed once we returned home.

And now we have tiny little feathers to sweep for crumbs with.