Bloghead

Some recent articles

Miriam — Tue, 29 May 2007 21:52:00 +0000

A Sexually confused generation (opinion) / Friday, May 25th, 2007 / The Jewish Chronicle
Life after Death (book review) / Friday, May 25th, 2007 / The Forward
How we killed respect for the dead (opinion) / Friday, May 5th, 2007 / The Jewish Chronicle
For Israel's shrillest critics, a boycott too far (opinion) / Thursday, April 20th, 2007 / The National Post (Canada)

A new beginning...

Miriam — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 08:10:00 +0000

To Bloghead's readers --
Thank you so much for all the mazeltovs on the occasion of little Eliana's birth (left, at five weeks, below, at eight). It's taken a long time to get back into the swing of things (unfortunately I had a run of bad luck and was in hospital for 3 weeks after delivery) -- but I am now almost fully recovered, and the baby, of-course, is gorgeous, which is the main thing!
Now that I'm feeling much better, I'm going back to blogging. However, I'll be at a new address. I'm joining the (London) Jewish Chronicle's brand-new group blog, which has just been launched and which is busy taking shape. The contributors will consist of the JC's own writers. At the moment it's me and Jeff Barak, the former editor of both the JC and The Jerusalem Post, and other JC journalists will join in the near future. It promises to be extremely lively -- so please check it out and adjust your bookmarks! See you there...

IT"S A GIRL!!!!!

Paul — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:10:00 +0000

BREAKING NEWS

-- to Miriam and Danny, London UK, Friday afternoon July 14. Mum and baby doing well!!!

-- from the proud Grandfather.

UPDATE: 'Eliana Lia'.

What I've been reading

Miriam — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 18:04:00 +0000

The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky -- Ken Dornstein writes about his brother David, who was killed on his way back to the US from Israel in the Pan Am bombing. I didn't expect it to be terribly good -- too often these books just tend to idealise the terrorism victim (for understandable reasons) and are too predictable -- but this one was touching because it was so honest.
David, who was in his mid-20s when he died, had been obsessed with becoming a writer and with fame. When he died, he left hundreds of boxes of notebooks with his writing, and Ken, who was several years younger and had always looked up to David, decided to go through them and publish some of the material.
To his horror, he discovered nothing publishable -- just half-baked ideas and unfinished stories. Gradually the picture of David becomes rather sad. He emerges as a charismatic and idealistic dreamer, but a dreamer nonetheless, who died without achieving his potential as an artist -- and who probably didn't really ever have the potential. Strangely, in several of his notebooks he wrote that perhaps his life would only have meaning if he died young and even foreshadows death in a plane crash. It is ironic that in the end, he does achieve a form of immortality through art -- that of his brother.
Another element is how Ken deals with the aftermath of the bombing and of-course with his renewed understanding of his brother. He struggles to emerge from David's shadow and to work out how best to keep his memory alive. For a while, he actually dates some of his ex-girlfriends -- and even marries one of them (they are still married). His openness about this emotional journey is what makes this book worthwhile.
The Lie that Wouldn't Die: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion by former Israeli judge Hadassa Ben-Itto -- I'm still in the middle of this one so I won't say too much about it, other than that a. it is a pleasure to read a 'Jewish' book which isn't about the Holocaust / women / Israel / a small handful of other topics which seem to dominate the 'Jewish book' scene b. So far, it is an absolutely fascinating account of the Protocols' origins and dissemination as well as the various Protocols-related trials that took place in the past century. I'm not sure how much here is new -- not much, I suspect -- but I didn't know most of it. C. One of the enjoyable aspects of this book is that it includes a relatively personal account of Ben-Itto's encounter with the forged document. She begins by explaining in detail how she became aware of its continuing influence and importance and intersperses some of the history -- particularly the accounts of the trials -- with her own thoughts. This is somewhat unconventional in this kind of book but it seems to work here, mainly because of her judicial past and her experience on the international diplomatic scene.
Londonistan by Melanie Phillips -- a truly scary account of the way radical Islam has been accepted and even welcomed into Britain. You can find links to reviews in almost every major publication on Melanie's own website. Even many of the positive reviews tend to qualify their approval with complaints about her 'hysterical' tone -- it seems to be socially unacceptable in Britain today to say anything nice about her without distancing oneself at the same time -- but the truth is that sometimes even hysterical people have something to be hysterical about, as I fully believe she does; and if you believed that your country was under serious threat from terrorists and a radical agenda and everyone dismissed you, you would become hysterical too.

Back -- temporarily....

Miriam — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 17:56:00 +0000

It's a week and a half to my due date and I'm on maternity leave -- so I finally have some time to blog. In fact, after just a few hours at home I am bored out of my mind and really welcome the distraction! So, until the baby appears (pg), here goes.......
(One caveat: I'm supposed to be taking things easy because of high blood pressure. So I'm going to try and avoid discussing the current situation in Israel -- and especially the way it's being covered in the media -- for health reasons.)

Where we've been...

Miriam — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 22:19:00 +0000

It may be a little late to announce this a full month after my last post, but it seems I'm on a blog break... As regular readers will have noticed, in fact blogging has considerably slowed down for the last few months.
Thank you all those who left messages of concern / sent me emails inquiring what was up. The simple truth is this: I'm pregnant (due end of July), and until about last week, was either too sick or too tired to do much blogging (usually both). Now I'm feeling better I'm finding I'm catching up with a million other things to do. (And my father is too busy earning a living to fill in...)
I've loved blogging and do not want to shut down Bloghead. Hopefully at some point in the near future it'll pick up again... so please check in from time to time and stay tuned.
In the meanwhile, I also want to point out that Out of Step Jew has officially closed his blog and to thank him for running such an enjoyable and thought-provoking site for so long. To my mind OOSJ was one of the sanest voices in the J-blogosphere and one of the first, if not the first, blogs I would check each day. He really will be sorely missed.
Happy Purim everyone!

Glass ceiling for women educators?

Miriam — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 00:12:00 +0000

Good discussion on AddeRabbi and Modern Orthodox Woman about women in leadership positions in the Orthodox world, particularly in women's learning institutions, and how they are restricted by the lack of the title 'rabbi' or an equivalent.

Masa to disaster

Miriam — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 23:07:00 +0000

I was quite sceptical when Israel announced its Masa programme, mostly -- but not exclusively -- because it would drain funds from the already proven birthright, which is also potentially much more appealing to un/under-affiliated diaspora students. Several months on, it's been announced that the two organizations are negotiating a merger, because -- you guessed it -- the competition for funding wasn't benefitting anyone.
How would this work? The JPost quotes birthright people suggesting quite heavily that it would mean additional funding for birthright. Ha'aretz hedges its bets with the fears of both sides:

Critics of the union, including Beilin, say it will endanger the reputation and success of birthright. "Masa will not take off, and it might bring birthright down with it," Beilin says.
The Jewish Agency is concerned that the union will mean marginalization and a loss of control for Masa, which is considered to be the Jewish Agency's flagship project for the coming years. The chairman of the Jewish Agency's Education Department, Amos Hermon, says "Masa is a strategic move of the government and the Jewish Agency. Bringing in partners requires very serious consideration."

Personally I'm with Beilin on this. As I've said before, I just can't see thousands of Jews from the diaspora lining up for an entire year in Israel, unless they are already extraordinarily committed (mostly = going to yeshiva for the year), which the kids targeted by birthright, who are the ones whose Jewish futures we should be really concerned about, by definition aren't (see my previous posting on this, link above). Does birthright really want to be in bed with these guys? Wouldn't they be better off waiting a couple of years for Masa to collapse, at which point much of the money would revert back to them anyway? So far, there's been all this money lavished on Masa and it doesn't yet have anything at all to show for it -- other than the harm it's done to birthright.

The roots of Tu Bishvat

Miriam — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 23:00:00 +0000

(First published Tu Bishvat 2005)

A few weeks ago we talked about the amazing malleability of Channukah, which meant something different to each generation. Today we celebrate Tu Bishvat which is, if possible, even more malleable than Channukah! Two nice explanations of this idea can be found here and here. In short, Tu Bishvat can be roughly divided into four historical periods:

Rabbinic/Economic: Tu Bishvat was first mentioned in the Mishnah (Tractate Rosh Hashanah) as the New Year for Trees – one of several new years to do with tithes. The fifteenth of the month of Shvat was, quite simply, a tax day which marked “the end of the arboreal fiscal year: tithes on fruit after this date belonged to the next year,” fruit from before this date belonged to the previous one. As a side note, Shammai wanted the New Year for Trees to fall on the first of the month. Would the festival of Aleph Shvat have caught on as well??
Mystical – After Israel’s exile tithing was no longer relevant and so the festival was neglected for a good 1,000 years. It only bloomed again (ahem) in sixteenth century Tzfat, where the Kabbalists, and in particular the AriZal (Rabbi Yitzhak Luria), resurrected it and gave it a new, cosmic face. The Ari was responsible for inventing the Tu Bishvat Seder and for initiating the custom of eating fruit on this day. The ceremony was imbued with Kabbalistic meaning – each fruit, each cup of wine etc. symbolised a Kabbalistic idea. In 1753 the Kabbalists produced a Tu Bishvat Haggadah called "Pri Etz Hadar" or "Fruit of the Goodly Tree."
Zionist/National: Tu Bishvat received another boost in the late nineteenth century when the Zionists connected it to the ideas of reforestation of the land of Israel and to the reblooming of the people of Israel in their land. To this day, Israeli school children plant trees on Tu Bishvat – a more recent phenomenon than they may realize. Incidentally, the Knesset held its first ever meeting on Tu Bishvat (1949), at the Jewish Agency building in Jerusalem.
Ecological – In the 1960s, environmental activists began to use Tu Bishvat as a day to remember and promote universal ecological issues. This is more of a Diaspora/American face of Tu Bishvat, however….

Wishing you a multi-layered Tu Bishvat!

Does Islam really forbid the depiction of Muhammed?

Miriam — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 23:19:00 +0000

The answer is, I don't know -- I'm not an expert on Islamic law and there have been various opinions expressed on this over the past week in the media. However, this blog has collected a series of images of Muhammed from the past few centuries, including many drawn by Muslims themselves. Whatever Islamic law says on the subject, drawing Mohammed has clearly not been a taboo, certainly not a reason for violence. Which either means that a great number of Muslims are ignorant about their own history and faith (as very well may be and as is not unusual in other religions, including our own, as well), or that there's a lot more to the stoking of this story than has been generally acknowledged -- or both.

More than you ever wanted to know about chulent

Miriam — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 21:43:00 +0000

We've already discussed the etymology of the word chulent on this blog; here's another chulent-y fact I wasn't previously aware of:

in the old country, Jewish families would take their cholent to communal bakers' ovens. To protect the food's kosher status, the pot was sealed with a paste of flour and water, says Brooklyn's Matthew Goodman, who writes a food column for the national Jewish weekly newspaper Forward.
On the way home from schul, or synagogue, families would pick up their pots. Typically this task was reserved for the men and children of the family, writes Cairo-born food historian Claudia Roden in The Book of Jewish Food.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't

Miriam — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 22:36:00 +0000

Just over a year ago, Bloghead noted that Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, the director general of Israel’s rabbinical courts, told an event for Yad L'Isha -- the Israeli organisation which helps agunot -- that

“Recently Yad L’Isha has positioned itself as a fist/punch to the husband and a fist to the rabbinical courts... The day isn’t far when the rabbinical courts will boycott the organization. If Yad L’Isha turns Eli Ben-Dahan and the Dayanim into their great enemies – you will have wasted your work....”

At the time, we translated this as,

'you’re making life too difficult for us, it’s no longer as easy as it was to settle these cases by sacrificing the wives. We’re beginning to feel threatened – time to get rid of these feminists before they really start getting uppity.'

Well, now the rabbinical courts have made good on Ben Dahan's promise -- and gone one better. Not only are they boycotting Yad L'Isha, they are apparently breaking off ties with any and all organizations which fight for the rights of the agunot:

A spokesman for the management of the rabbinical courts said that the council was "reexamining its relations with women's organizations that claim to protect the rights of agunot."
Rabbinical judges David Malka and Avraham Sheinfeld, both members of the six-man council, told The Jerusalem Post that there had been no official announcement.
However, both men admitted that rabbinical judges were wary of their relations with the women's organizations...
Malka said that there was a lot of bad blood between the judges and the organizations. "We are bitter after all the attacks made by the organizations on the judges."

Unfortunately, there's been more than good reason for the organizations to challenge and attack the judges, who have routinely allowed men to blackmail their wives and keep them in unhappy marriages for decades, encouraged women to give up money that other courts have ruled are owed to them and generally treated too many women with contempt. That the judges react in this way show it's all about their ego. As judges, they are not beyond criticism, reproach or challenge and the fact they think they are, and that they can get away with this behavior, is deeply disturbing.
And if anyone doubted the court's lack of understanding of the women who come before them, you need only continue reading the esteemed judge Malka's comments to the Post, where he unashamedly

admitted that he encourages women to relinquish child support payments owed by the husband or other monetary obligations in order to facilitate the giving of a get (divorce certificate).
"Listen, this is money that she never earned," explained Malka. "Only in theory does it belong to her.
"For instance, according to the law the wife is entitled to half of a man's pension rights even though she never worked a day in her life. I do not think she should remain an aguna because she is stubborn about receiving her half."

That's right, according to judge Malka a woman who spends her life bringing up her family and looking after what is, after all, her husband's home as well has 'never worked a day in her life' and is not entitled to any financial security, and their children, apparently, do not deserve financial support from their father because it's their mother doing the asking. Not that his opinion should really matter; note to judge Malka, women are entitled to this money not by theory, but -- as you yourself noted -- BY LAW. That you think your job as a judge paid by the state is to talk them out of their legal rights is beyond presumptuous.
Of-course, I was being generous before -- it's not really about the judges' easily bruised feelings. With this move, the rabbinical courts are using the strongest means they have to very consciously pressure the women and the women's organizations into shutting up and just allowing them to continue colluding in the ruin of women's lives in peace and quiet, without having to answer to the public for their rulings and actions. But there's no use in the women shutting up; in the years when the women kept quiet or operated more quietly, nothing was done for them either. They're damned if they do, damned if they don't. I hope they do because the rabbis' latest reaction is the surest sign yet that they are feeling the heat and the public pressure to change their ways.

(Via OOSJ)

Stop downplaying the WJC report

Miriam — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:53:00 +0000

The AG's report on the WJC is out and the feeling among those who have addressed its findings in the blogosphere seems to be that Israel Singer and his colleagues have been completely exonorated. In addition, of course, everyone is jumping on the media coverage, particularly in the Jewish Week, for 'misrepresenting' what's in the report and simply blasting the WJC for the hell of it (or because they're terrible journalists and can't bear to admit they've been wrong).
Well, I beg to differ with the first point, and think that the second has allowed everyone to take their eye off the real issue.
The report, which I've read, is completely and consistently clear on one thing: nothing criminal went on at the WJC and there was no criminal intent. From that point of view, many of the suspicions raised against the organisation have proven unfounded. However -- and this is a big however -- it does, essentially, convict Singer et al of terrible financial mismanagement and negligence with what is NOT THEIR MONEY.
Says the Town Crier: "According to the Attorney General's statement, the WJC seems to be guilty of not much more than having been run like a Jewish Organization."
Well, sorry, the 'everybody does it' excuse simply doesn't cut it -- the only thing it's good for is as a warning to the other Jewish orgs who function this way to get themselves into shape, pronto. The report details some extremely serious issues and actions which -- while not criminal -- should not be downplayed. Officials at the WJC were using the organisation's money to pay for their children's school tuition, for G-d's sake, for life insurance for their partners, car leases, and acting completely carelessly with millions of dollars which again, were not theirs, but came in a large part from donors like you and -- well, not me, in this case, but you get the picture.
The fact is, in this day and age, Israel Singer saying that he simply isn't 'the organizational type' isn't good enough. All of these men are worldly, experienced and intelligent enough to have known better. If they can't handle the money, they should have hired someone who could, way before Mr Herbits was brought onto the scene. The fact is, again, if anyone is to blame for this entire episode, it is not Isi Liebler -- whatever his motives were, and it's clear that he's no tallit shekulo tchlet -- but the WJC men themselves -- for leaving themselves so outrageously open to it.
Think what you like of Gary Rosenblatt's coverage, Isi Liebler's motivations, etc etc etc, but that doesn't change the basic fact that this report is still extremely serious. The very fact that Mr Singer has been barred from taking up any position of financial management speaks for itself. This doesn't make him a bad man -- I'm sure the opposite -- but I'm sorry, if you donated money to the WJC, would you want him handling it? I wouldn't.

A systematic strategy, please

Miriam — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:31:00 +0000

Not having learned the lessons from the Gaza evacuation, when the settlers' attempts to compare the Israeli government to the Nazis generated total disgust from the rest of the Jewish world, Mentalblog is calling the events in Amona a 'pogrom' -- completely devaluing, of-course, the experiences, suffering and deaths of the Jews over the centuries who went through real pogroms. Disgusting.
In the meanwhile, though, I do have to ask why Olmert decided to evacuate Amona at this exact point in time. The West Bank is littered with similar illegal settlements -- none of which I support; I want to see them all dismantled. What is the point of getting rid of one here, one there, though -- so much trauma when another ma'achaz will pop up tomorrow somewhere else and when others continue to exist anyway? What I want to see from Olmert, before the election, preferably, is a statement about how he is going to deal with the question of Israel's presence in the territories as a whole (not leaving it to our imaginations and suppositions -- 'everyone knows' what he's going to do is just not good enough), and then go about it in a planned and most importantly, systematic way. Get rid of all of them, get rid of all of those he wants to get rid of, get rid of none of them, but whatever he does, he should do it as part of a thought-out strategy, and not just as he goes along, as it suits his election campaign. There's simply no point otherwise.

UPDATE: According to Allison, the 'pogrom' accusations may have started with Effie Eitam.

Danish press -- it's a riot

Miriam — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 22:07:00 +0000

The protests across the Arab world against the 12 caricatures of Mohammed which appeared in a Danish newspaper -- and which can be seen here (scroll down) -- are continuing to gain pace, several months after the cartoons first appeared (see previous Bloghead coverage here). Danish ambassadors have been summoned, embassies closed, Danish products boycotted, threats of violence issued, street protests launched, etc etc etc. The Danish government and the newspaper which originally published the material have issued semi-apologies, as has the Norwegian PM, as a Norwegian paper reprinted the cartoons recently.
Several points:

The media seems to be portraying this as a spontaneous outburst of 'Muslim anger' (an oft-repeated phrase) in the Arab street. Anyone who believes this is an idiot. Several months after the cartoons first appeared, a harsh reaction has clearly been agreed upon at the highest levels -- embassies across a region don't close themselves and ambassadors don't summon themselves.
Why now? I haven't seen an explanation of this anywhere.
Again, rather than an expression of spontaneous 'Muslim anger,' I see this as another conscious attempt to bully the West into self-censorship when it comes to real and urgent political issues concerninng Muslims, out of fear of Muslim violence. The boycott of Danish products, in particular, is a warning to all of Europe and the entire west; which western paper isn't going to think twice about publishing material potentially 'offensive' to Muslims when the price might be the entire country's economy suffering a blow?
If you actually look at the cartoons, I can't say they're not offensive. If I were a Muslim, I would probably be offended. So what? As a Jew, I've been more than offended by plenty of blatantly anti-Semitic cartoons which have appeared over the last few years. Haven't threatened to physically harm anyone, though. As my father-in-law Chaim Bermant once wrote, "The liberty to cause offence, even outrage, is precisely what freedom of speech is about. It presumes the right to be wrong." The real question, to my mind, is not what opinions a society allows to be publicly expressed*, but how a society -- or a group -- reacts when opinions expressed under freedom of speech offend a particular party. With violence and intimidation? Or with education, pr, media work -- trying to change minds peacefully? Only with the latter can a real dialogue, and real freedom of speech, continue to exist.
Riding Sun makes a good point:
Ironically, the fury of the Muslim world's response to these cartoons shows that the cartoons themselves weren't entirely off-base. They depicted Muslims as intolerant and violent, and Muslims responded with intolerance and violence.
Those who protested the cartoons were united by a common demand that Muslims, and Islam, be treated with respect. The energy that fueled their outrage might be better spent demonstrating why such respect is warranted.
Along similar lines, I've seen a few comments suggesting that what's needed now is education in Denmark about Islam and Muslims. Actually, the lesson here is what's needed now is better education among Muslims across the Arab world (and Europe -- where, after all, these riots began a few months back) about proportion, appropriate ways to respond to insults, and freedom of speech.

*I don't include calls to violence and racial hatred in this

Run! It's red beard!

Miriam — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 23:09:00 +0000

I didn't see much reference to this at the time -- it was published before the PA elections and before Hamas became the 'hot' story of the moment -- but it's worth revisiting. Apparently, before the election, Hamas spent $180,000 on a PR consultant to help them improve their international image (y'know, how to get people to ignore the guns and the killing and the blood and all that without actually giving up any of the violence). As it happens, most of his advice wasn't bad -- basically to start repeating the kind of lies which Hanan Ashrawi etc. repeated ad nauseum, very successfully:

He says Hamas has not helped itself by celebrating suicide bombings; he advises against celebration. And he has told Hamas leaders not to talk about destroying Israel.
"Abdel Aziz Rantisi [the former Hamas leader killed by Israel two years ago] was on television saying things that foreigners cannot accept, like we will remove Israel from the map. He should have talked about Palestinian suffering. He should have said we need this occupation ended. Foreigners will accept this," he said.
Mr Aqtash has also advised Hamas leaders to emphasise that they are not anti-semitic or against Israelis because they are Jews. Hamas has taken the message on board. In an interview earlier this week, Muhammad Abu Tir, who is second on the Hamas election list, twice (and unprompted) offered an assurance that he is not a Jew hater.
"Loving others is part of our religion. We are not against Jews as Jews, we are against oppression," he said.

Many Europeans, as we've seen in the aftermath of the election, already believe this or choose to believe this, no matter what Hamas actually does or what it actually says (most of the Hamas leaders have emphatically not stuck to their 'new' message, which hasn't stopped Europeans talking about Hamas's 'political wing,' bending over backwards to find a way to continue supplying them with funds despite all the lip service, etc.). As for the rest, these messages are exactly what a majority of Westerners want to hear. If Hamas leaders ever do master them, Israel will be in real trouble.
The full absurdity of a terrorist group trying to 'improve its image', however, is brought home by this short list of pointers, which the Guardian helpfully provided, based on the PR consultant's advice:

The advice Nashat Aqtash gave to Hamas:
· Say you are not against Israelis as Jews
· Don't talk about destroying Israel
· Do talk about Palestinian suffering
· Don't celebrate killing people
· Change beard colour (if red)

Yup, especially that last one. Those red beards were always what terrified me most about Hamas!

Blogging to the Knesset...

Miriam — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:42:00 +0000

Danny Hershtal, a frequent commentator on this blog, is running for the Knesset as part of the Yisrael Beytenu list -- and blogging about it. He'll find out tomorrow what position he's on in the party's list, which will be published -- for the rest of us -- on Feb 5. No matter where he's placed, sounds like fun, and I'm sure there'll be plenty of good blog material...

UPDATE: Apparently there's another blogging candidate (thanks, Soccer Dad)

"We had a lot of fun... and having fun in an Egyptian jail is really something"

Miriam — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:38:00 +0000

The great story of how one group of POWs spent their years in captivity in Egypt. Shame the article doesn't say whether the translation was any good.

(Via Kesher Talk)

Rav Kadouri: I've met the Moshiach

Miriam — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 23:39:00 +0000

The kabbalist Rav Kadouri, who is ailing in hospital at age 108 (some say 112), apparently told (and I use the word somewhat sceptically as, according to previous reports, he hasn't been telling anyone anything much for a very long time) an Arutz-7 radio host this very week that

“The Kabbalists will investigate my words over the recent months about the Redemption and Moshiach [The Annointed Leader of the Jews during that period] and will reveal the secret name of Moshiach which was revealed to me on Cheshvan 9, 5764 (November 11, 2003).” The rabbi said he actually met the person who will be Moshiach, on that date.

2003??? Well he sure can keep a secret.... Special prize for whoever can produce his diary of appointments from that day!

The other election...

Miriam — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:56:00 +0000

Kobi Arieli in Ma'ariv / NRG has written one of the only articles I've seen about one of the curiosities of this Israeli election -- the placement of Tzvia Greenfield, a self-described Haredi woman from Har Nof, as the no. 6 on the Meretz (Yachad) list. She is a well-known activist both in the peace movement and against religious coercion and, needless to say, raises a lot of hackles in the haredi community. I'm surprised that the media hasn't made more of this; Arieli, in any case, has sparked an interesting debate on the site about what exactly it takes to be considered a haredi -- to what extent is it a sociological definition, to what extent religious. (I suppose the same debate could equally be held about any segment of the population.)
To read more about Greenfield you can visit her website, in Hebrew, here. More about her, I suppose, if she gets elected!

Canadian revolution?

Miriam — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:39:00 +0000

It's Canadian election day and according to polls, there's going to be a major upset, with the Liberal party thrown out of power after 12 years and the Conservatives returned, albeit with a minority government. Of-course, polls have been wrong before and there's no saying what will actually happen, however it will be interesting to watch -- as will the Jewish vote. The Jewish establishment is considered fairly aligned with the Liberals, however the party has been in some hot water recently for their shoddy attitude towards Israel, and the Conservatives have been much more supportive; in Ontario, run by the Liberals, the province has been in hot water for some time now over the issue of funding for Jewish schools. More on all this here.
It was interesting for me to see, last week when I was in Canada, that even many people I talked to in the heavily Jewish areas of Toronto were considering voting Conservative for the first time in years -- although in Ontario the Conservatives are considered, or were considered until very recently, the yokels from Alberta. Did the people I meet reflect reality? We'll see tonight I guess.

Where political correctness and moral relativism ends

Miriam — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:35:00 +0000

The top story in Canada's National Post today:

A new study commissioned by the federal government recommends that Canada legalize polygamy and change legislation to help women and children living in plural relationships.
The paper by three law professors at Queen's University in Kingston argues that a Charter challenge to Section 293 of the Criminal Code banning polygamy might be successful, said Beverley Baines, one of the authors of the report.
"The polygamy prohibition might be held as unconstitutional," Ms. Baines said in an interview last night.
"The most likely Charter [of Rights and Freedoms] challenge would be brought by people claiming their freedom of their religion might be infringed. Those living in Bountiful would say polygamy is a religious tenet"...
The Martin government commissioned the $150,000 study into the legal and social ramifications of polygamy just weeks before it introduced divisive same-sex marriage legislation. Same-sex marriage was approved last June.
Critics said at the time that the study underscored a deep concern in the federal government that legalized homosexual marriage could lead to constitutional challenges from minority groups who claim polygamy as a religious right.

And, if you live in a society where anything goes and where moral judgements are frowned upon, they have a point...

Quality of life

Miriam — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 18:23:00 +0000

Sharon -- slowly disappearing from the headlines -- is showing few signs of coming out of his coma. If he doesn't begin to emerge from it soon, one wonders whether he will at all, despite all the 'upbeat' predictions of this week. It's increasingly likely he may simply stay this way for years, out of the public eye. What a tragedy life in a vegetative state would be for a man like him.

Mitochondrial Eves

Miriam — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 17:45:00 +0000

The JPost reports:

[F]our Jewish "founding mothers" who lived in Europe 1,000 years ago have been credited with being the ancestors of nearly half of all Ashkenazi Jews, who constitute the majority of the current Jewish population.
About 3.5 million people - or 40 percent of Ashkenazi Jews currently alive - are descended from these matriarchs, who were among a small group, probably after migrating from the Middle East, according to the Israeli researchers, who also provide evidence of shared maternal ancestry between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi (Sephardi and Oriental) Jews.

Interesting -- although hardly surprising, because, as we noted (quoting an article in the Atlantic) last time we discussed the Jewish ancestry issue,

20 percent of the adult Europeans alive in 1000 would turn out to be the ancestors of no one living today (that is, they had no children or all their descendants eventually died childless); each of the remaining 80 percent would turn out to be a direct ancestor of every European living today....

and you can most likely say something similar about Ashkenazi Jewry. At the same time, I noted that the same article claimed that the most recent common ancestor of all Europeans lived about 600 years ago; since I'm no scientist, maybe someone can help me out here -- what, if anything, does the latest research imply about the most recent common ancestor of Ashkenazi Jewry?

UPDATE: Another question for the more scientifically inclined: how does this latest research square with this?

An inspiration

Miriam — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 04:15:00 +0000

I was reading through Adloyada's account of an uplifting Shabbat with a family of her relatives in Shiloh when I suddenly thought, 'this is sounding really familiar.' And indeed, it turned out she was talking about the Apter family, whose son, Noam, was killed in a terrorist attack on Otniel three years ago. He was one of four boys in the kitchen of the settlement's yeshivah, helping to prepare a meal for the students in the hall, when terrorists entered the kitchen and started shooting. However, the terrorists never got into the hall because the door between the kitchen and the hall was locked. After the event, from the evidence, many people drew the conclusion that Noam, understanding what was at stake (I think already wounded?), had been the person who had locked the door in order to save the students in the hall -- although the exact truth may never be known. If it is true, one of the people whose lives he saved was my brother's, who was one of the students in the hall (the majority of the boys in the room were actually a visiting group from Gush) -- and who, I should point out, also acted heroically by trying to get back into the hall to fight and later helping evacuate some of the wounded.
At the time, I wrote a profile of Noam Apter for the Jerusalem Post (which I can't find online any more, except for pay) and was already then impressed by what an unusual young man he must have been (regardless of what happened that evening), and what a special family he must have come from.
Still, losing a son can break even the strongest family. Adloyada's account of this loving and close-knit family three years on, then -- with 38 (!) youngsters turning up after Friday night dinner -- is a must-read. Whilst they were clearly special beforehand, they are even more of an inspiration today. Read her touching account here.