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Mystery (Agriprocessors) Meat

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:40:00 GMT-5

A reader from suburban Chicago was mystified when he made a trip to the kosher aisle of his supermarket this last weekend. There, among the kosher soups and meats, he found packages of Agriprocessors’ turkey and corned beef, being sold under the Aaron’s Best label.

The presence of these packages was a mystery because Agriprocessors ceased to exist this past summer — nearly a year after an immigration raid at the company’s Iowa slaughterhouse — when new owners bought the company and renamed it Agri-Star. How then, did meat from a company that no longer exists end up on the supermarket shelves all of these months later? Is it old meat — or is there a new company masquerading as the recently departed? The new owners of Agri-Star are also not producing beef in their Iowa facility, so whence the corned beef?

Our reader is not the only one who has had questions of this sort. Menachem Lubinsky, a kosher trade consultant, and one-time spokesman for Agriprocessors, recently saw Rubashkin’s label meat in Brooklyn stores and wondered: “Is this old product or new? And how did it get here?”

Calls to the store and the company did not immediately clear things up. A spokesman for the Jewel-Osco store in Evanston, Ill. said that the packages came from Agri-Star, the new company that purchased Agriprocessors out of bankruptcy in July. When that purchase happened, though, Agriprocessors ceased to exist, and the label our reader saw clearly has the old company’s name. Presented with this conflict, the spokeswoman for Jewel-Osco wrote back: “Our records show that the product was sourced from Agri-Star. You may want to give them a call directly to determine their packaging strategy.”

The Lilith Fair Returns; Feminists Shrug

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:30:00 GMT-5

The 1990s era music festival Lilith Fair — like The Sisterhood’s fellow Jewish women’s magazine Lilith — derives its name from the Jewish medieval myth about the first woman on earth, exiled because of her refusal to submit to Adam’s rule. A nebulous character who shows up in various cultural myths, the Lilith figure has become both a proto-feminist heroine and a demonic femme fatale.

In keeping with its lightning-rod namesake, the music festival has attracted its share of controversy and derision, dismissed as a stereotypical touchy-feely estrogen festival of bad music. Recent news that Lilith Fair was coming back for a 2010 tour brought a chorus of shrugs in the blogosphere, mostly from feminists dismissing music from the likes of Jewel, Sarah McLachlan and Paula Cole as over-earnest molasses-pop, the kind of earth-mother stuff that gives the women’s movement a bad name tempered by brief nods to the fact that the actual musical acts at the festival varied from Christina Aguilera to Casandra Wilson to Joan Baez to Missy Elliot.

But I have to disagree: I was exposed to those artists in middle school. During those socially conformist years, top 40 radio was embraced by every single kid in my age group, from the future punk devotee to the future folkie to the future hip-hop head. The idea that one should look at Jewel through an ironic lens wasn’t even considered; instead, my fellow sensitive 13-year olds and I gathered around her lyrics sheet and talked about how deep she was.

Keeping The K-Word Off of Our Site

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:38:00 GMT-5

In recent days, the Forward has been taken to task for disabling comments on a provocative post on our Sisterhood blog. The writer of the post looked at the question of why, two generations after the Holocaust, the most mundane sights, sounds and words — in this case, a German-accented reality television host announcing which contestants would be “eliminated” — could, to this day, evoke Nazi imagery.

We decided to close comments on that particular blog entry not because we were receiving comments that challenged the writer’s thesis or the Forward’s decision to publish the piece or its follow-up. We did so because we were receiving comments that contained personal attacks on, and threats to, the writer and her family.

Many of the comments we receive on a daily basis are thoughtful responses to our coverage, and the often-difficult questions that our articles and blog posts raise. Many others are just plain nonsensical or contain copyright infringements or curse words.

And, I’m sorry to say, quite a lot of them are just plain hateful: Name-calling? Check. Libel? Check? Anti-black racism? Anti-Arab racism? Antisemitism? Holocaust denial? Check, check, check and check.

Olympic Crooning by Matisyahu

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:21:00 GMT-5

One day, one day … One day.

“All my life I’ve been waiting for, been praying for …” a Hasidic reggae musician to be the voice of the Olympics. Well the day arrived just this week, when NBC launched their promotion for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics set to the tune of Matisyahu’s recent hit “One Day.”

Check out the video:

Jewsh Terrorism: 'You Can't Blame an Entire (Religious) Community' — 'Yes We Can'

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:41:00 GMT-5

There’s an interesting debate unfolding in the opinion section of Ynet, Yediot Ahronot’s Web site, over the role of religion and settler ideology in the alleged crimes of accused West Bank Jewish terrorist Jack Teitel. Some of it appears in translation on their English site, and some of it doesn’t, either by coincidence or because someone thinks it’s Not for Public Consumption.

Background: The announcement of Teitel’s arraignment on November 1 set off an immediate round of defensive statements from settler movement spokespersons that their community abhors murder and violence and can’t be blamed for one person’s deranged actions. The mantra, repeated whenever there’s another incident of settler violence, is: Don’t blame an entire community (tzibur shalem) for the actions of a wayward individual.

The day after Teitel’s arraignment, November 2, Ynet published a column (here’s the English version) by Yair Borochov, a frequent Ynet contributor and editor of a Lubavitch Web site, Shturem.net (and relative of Ber Borochov? Dunno), with a quirky take on the issue. He argues that journalists have a habit of assigning catchy nicknames to celebrity bad guys, but only when they’re Orthodox. Examples: The Abusing Rabbi (an Israeli cult leader accused of serial sexual molestation). The Starving Mother (doesn’t translate well — she’s a Hasidic woman accused of starving her toddler son, and we would probably dub her Munchausen Mom). And now, the Jewish Terrorist.

By contrast, Borochov writes, non-religious criminals don’t get these catchy nicknames. He offers two examples of recent headliners, Michael Fischer and Asaf Goldring, both accused of killing their own children, both known in the press simply by their names.

He may have a point. Here in America, nicknames like that are routine for sensational crimes. Think of the Boston Strangler, the Zodiac Killer or the Mayflower Madam. But I can’t think of any parallel examples from Israel that would disprove Borochov’s thesis. Maybe I’m blanking out.

Borochov is arguing a larger case, however, and here’s where he’s wrong.

The identity of the victims is irrelevant; regardless of whether they are Jewish or Arab, a murderer is a murderer, and if a person who murdered his wife and three children does not fit the “terrorist” category, I see no reason to do so when the victims are members of a different ethnicity or in case the murderer is religious.

In fact, he doesn’t really believe that the identity of the victim is irrelevant. Chabad, and much of the rest of the Jewish world, finds particularly deep meaning in the deaths of Jewish victims because of their identity and never hesitates to mention it. It’s called dying Al Kiddush Hashem, for the Sanctification of the Name. For that matter, I doubt whether Borochov objects to terms like Islamic terrorist or Shi’ite insurgent. Or Colombian drug kingpin. Or Nazi murderer. The monikers tell an essential part of the story, namely the motive and the political significance that makes the act more than a simple crime.

A telling counterpoint appeared that evening, in a column by Ariana Melamed, a Tel Aviv writer and literary critic, with the provocative title, “Yes, blame an entire community.” This one doesn’t appear in English for, um, some reason. So I’ll give you the thrust:

Taking the Mickey

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:48:00 GMT-5

In British English the phrase “taking the mickey” means “pulling your leg,” or “making fun of someone’s gullibility.” It doesn’t have any etymological relation to Mickey Mouse but Disney’s favorite rodent is again straining credulity.

The copyright law is an important protector of innovation: inventors need to benefit from their inventions. I’m a proud member of an anti-fundamentalist religion though — one that has made it possible to interject a whole civilization of rabbinical and lay interpretation from life into scripture by providing all its members with the tools to make that scripture accessible. So once a lifetime of benefit has accrued, society needs to be given access to those inventions. Not even Divine provenance and certainly not a cartoon mouse whose inventor has been dead for 40 years should allow texts to escape broad appropriation, interpretation and, possibly, improvement.

So when Disney, a multibillion dollar interest, lobbied hard and successfully to extend their monopoly over Mickey, Pluto, Goofy and Donald. It was an affront to the free exchange of ideas that most Americans claim is their right and a cornerstone of American freedoms. So far legislation has almost doubled the length of time that corporations can hold onto copyrights: from the original 50 to the current 95 years. Individual songwriters, insofar as they are able to police their rights without the support of corporate lawyers, have a measly 70 years.

Now, though, Disney — jealous controllers of the image of Mickey and the deep revenue streams he provides — is changing Mickey in order, the New York Times claims, “to make us like him.” So Mickey will be “cantankerous and cunning, as well as heroic.” So, in fact, nothing like the lovable minstrel figure that we saw in “Steamboat Willie” all those years ago. So nothing like Mickey Mouse?

It appears that Disney can change the image of Mickey to make us like him, or change him into any character they think will sell video games. But, at the same time we can’t use the image that’s been in the public sphere since November 18, 1928? To paraphrase Bill Thompson’s critique of Michael Bloomberg’s bludgeoning of the term limits legislation: “80 years is enough.”

Peter Cole: Poems, Stumbling and Pints

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:55:00 GMT-5

Last night, in the historic surroundings of the Fraunces Tavern, critically acclaimed Jewish poet Peter Cole, gave a reading of contemporary meditations on an age-old struggle.

Cole set the tone for the evening by introducing his first poem ‘Meaning Of’ as a “take on my own Messianic inclinations — not to mention those of my people”. Cole — poet, translator and publisher — proceeded to hold the Tavern audience rapt as he read from his 2008 collection “Things on Which I’ve Stumbled.”

For Cole, resident in Jerusalem, Israel is the thing upon which he stumbles everyday. To move beyond a messianic response he has written and translated poetry that explores the ethical and spiritual dimensions of humanity and his own Judaism.

Alongside this philosophical discussion Cole also contemplates the political realities of the Israel/Palestine conflict — “Things” emphasizes the need for coexistence in a shared homeland whilst criticizing extremists and fundamentalists of all stripes.

Cole’s are important poems and, like most good literature, worth hearing with a drink in your hand!

Cole and his wife, writer Adina Hoffman, run Ibis Editions, a small Jerusalem based book press specializing in literature of the Levant. Born in Paterson, N.J., Cole won the 2004 PEN-America Translation Award was named a MacArthur fellow in 2007. Four of his poems recently featured in Zeek magazine.

Growing Strictures on Religious Women's Comportment – and Their Silent Complicity

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:11:00 GMT-5

I love a good frum wedding. No one knows how to party, in the best possible way, like religious Jews at a wedding. Last Sunday, we went to the wedding of the daughter of a couple to whom we’re related by marriage and with whom we’ve become friends. It was a beautiful affair that took place in an elegant wedding hall in Boro Park.

The bride’s parents are both extremely religious and very worldly. They have earned my admiration for doing incredible chesed, collecting food and clothing from myriad sources and re-distributing it to more than 1,000 poor people each week throughout Brooklyn. There is barely room to walk through their basement because it is packed high with pallets of donated potatoes, sugar, canned goods and other foods. When food does not meet stringent kosher guidelines, for one reason or another, it is given to food pantries that feed non-Jews, mostly through local black churches.

The affair was beautiful. And make no mistake about it, this was a Boro Park wedding. There were streimels galore, and a parade of distinguished, elderly rebbes came by, with entourages of younger followers at their heels. I see a new take on the HBO show “Entourage.” Instead of a young Hollywood star and his cronies hanging out poolside at glamorous hotels and watching tushes, our new show would feature big-time rebbes and their followers hanging out at tisches.

Gold, Silver and Rubber: Village Voice’s 'Best of NYC' Awards

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:26:00 GMT-5

“S’iz shver tzu zain a yid,” runs an old proverb: it’s hard to be a Jew; yes, but is it hip? Definitely has been, at times (see this blog for two notable testimonies), but, if you hold Village Voice’s “Best of NYC Awards” to be the barometer of coolness, in 2009 we’re coming in only slightly above the freezing point.

Prominently, though, two Russian Jews were singled out: Eugene Mirman as the Best Stand-Up Comedian, and David Stromberg, who got a shout-out as part of the Melville House’s much deserved Best Small Press award. Stromberg’s book of raucous and darkly humorous cartoons, the Baddies, hit the shelves this month; he’s worked with Zeek magazine, and is a writer/critic. Let’s admit it: Russian Jews have become the absurdist messiahs of the dull American golus. I kept my accent all these years, knowing this day will come.

Also, notably, Jon Singer’s Xylopholks received the “Best Buskers Dressed As Animals” laurel — you may have seen this hilarious rag-time band in oversized costumes on the subway or at random klezmer gatherings. Quality performers Michael Winograd and Benji Fox-Rosen who’ve appeared with Xylopholks, also play with half-dozen klezmer outfits.

There’s also a curious bit on David Rothenberg, a publicist, who turned John Herbert’s play about prison life and condition, “Fortune and Men’s Eyes,” into a Broadway hit, and consequently found the Fortune Society, non-for-profit provider of re-entry services for ex-cons. David Rothenberg was also the first openly gay candidate to run for City Council, back in 1973.

The most endearing award this year, however, is the one for “The Best Place To Get a Spanking,” that opens up with: “Have you been bad? Do you deserve a potch on the tuchus?…”

Amen! We know you’re out there.

Watch the Xylopholks video below. And Eugene Mirman below that!

About That Heidi Klum Post

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:57:00 GMT-5

Given the controversy over my recent “Project Runway” post, which generated a torrent of angry comments, I have been given the opportunity to respond here.

First I want to clarify (listen up, Tablet) that I do not think Heidi Klum is a Nazi. My point was not to attack Klum but to acknowledge the associations that I, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, sometimes have — politically incorrect as they are — between ordinary Germans and Nazis. I’m not one who avoids German products, or German people for that matter. But after years of Holocaust education, if we can call it that, certain images and stereotypes have been so ingrained that I can’t help but think of them, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.

Matisyahu Squared

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:20:00 GMT-5

Jewish rapper, beach, self-interview. Got it?

It’s clear why he’s a famous singer, not a famous comedian — but it’s cute.

Hat tip Erez and Shemspeed.

Why Is a Swimsuit Model Headlining a JTS Event?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:41:00 GMT-5

Headlining a recent community email from the Jewish Theological Seminary was a phrase that was conspicuously out of place: swimsuit model. The email touted the participation of the Conservative movement’s flagship seminary in an event hosted by “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Esti Ginzburg,” and sponsored by Birthright NEXT and the Council of Young Jewish Presidents. Described as “an evening of fashion and passion” the event was billed as “a major opportunity for guests to get a sense of the incredible variety of Jewish engagement opportunities in New York — and to party with hundreds of other professional, active, vibrant, young Jews.”

I am not a development professional, but I will go out on a limb here and say that an institution that trains clergy should probably stay away from events fronted by swimsuit models. People who learn, teach, and advocate for the highest values of our tradition are not going to increase Judaism’s appeal — or their own — through forcing an association with low-brow celebrity culture. The religious leaders who chase after celebrities in the name of kiruv — lo and behold! — often turn out to be using their Torah-for-the-masses public face as a screen for their own narcissism or social climbing. We can all name our favorite examples.

Somebody Is Stalking Me and Making Stuff Up

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:06:00 GMT-5

My old buddy Jonathan Mark at the Jewish Week tipped me off this morning that I’m mentioned by name in an on-line Special Bulletin published yesterday (November 2) by Memri, the Middle East Media Research Institute. The bulletin features translated excerpts from a column about J-Street that was published the previous day in Al-Ittihad, a government-owned, Arabic-only daily newspaper in the United Arab Emirates. I was pretty excited to hear about this. There’s nothing a writer likes better than to see his name in print (other than Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy, of course).

Imagine my disappointment, then, when the column turned out to be quoting somebody else, one J.J. Goldenberg. Weirdly enough, he’s also a journalist, and he seems to have written a book with the exact same title as mine (my lawyer will hear about this!). The thing is, the quote in the column is something I never said and wouldn’t say in a million years, so it must be somebody else. Here’s an excerpt from the excerpt:

A prevalent view in the U.S. and outside it is that the Jews determine and control America’s Middle East policy, mostly through [the Jewish lobby] AIPAC. But since President Obama’s July 13, 2009 address to the leaders of the Jewish-American organizations, [in which he] set out his Middle East policy, there have been accusations from Jewish circles that Obama is being manipulated by two of his Jewish aides who have renounced [the usual pro-Israeli views] - Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod.

Journalist J. J. Goldenberg, author of Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment, thinks that one of the goals [of these aides] is to restrain the Jewish-American community by means of two organizations that attack Israel, namely ‘Americans for Peace Now’ and ‘J Street.’

Huh? Emanuel and Axelrod trying to “restrain the Jewish-American community”? Americans for Peace Now and J-Street “attack Israel”? I keep getting attacked, from both right and left, for not saying that stuff. One piece just the other day called me “a cranky old Yid,” essentially for my reluctance to draw those sorts of connections.

My first thought on reading this was that they had confused me with another J.J. Goldberg. So I Googled my name (try it — it’s way cool) and found two other J.J. Goldbergs, neither of whom seems a likely candidate. One is indeed a writer, but his expertise is cow teats (I’m not kidding). He has written such groundbreaking works as “Evaluation of a 1% Iodophor Postmilking Teat Sanitizer,” published in 1994 in the authoritative Journal of Dairy Science, a journal I’m familiar with from my Kibbutz Gezer days but never actually wrote for. I don’t see this Goldberg weaving conspiracies out of Rahm Emanuel and J-Street.

The other lives in Salt Lake City and has a Facebook page with a photo of himself and a woman in a wedding dress, presumably his bride. Again, possible but unlikely.

So then I looked up the columnist, identified as Dr. As’ad ’Abd Al-Rahman. I was thinking he might be a homeopath (not that there’s anything wrong with that) or a podiatrist, but a quick check on the Web showed that he is a political scientist, an “independent member” of the PLO executive committee and head of its refugee-affairs negotiating team. My on-line source, Palestine Who’s Who, gives his last known place of employment as the University of Amman, but the entry seems uncertain whether or not he’s still active or even alive. My guess is that if he had a column in Sunday’s paper, he’s probably still alive, but based on the column’s content, his current residence is Dreamland.

In the end, I must confess that I have no idea where that quote came from or what it was that ’Abd Al-Rahman or Al-Ittihad or Memri thought they were seeing. But it sure didn’t come from me.

As you can imagine, this is pretty upsetting stuff. If word gets around, it could damage my reputation, perhaps even to the point where I would no longer get my regular table at Deli Kasbah in the corner near the washing stand with the excellent view of the TV monitor showing nonstop videos of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s speeches in Yiddish. I would hate for anything to come between me and their outstanding shwarma.

On the other hand, “cranky old Yid”? I kind of like the sound…

Steinhardt Attacks Jewish Leaders

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:41:00 GMT-5

In a surprise move, even noted by the non-Jewish business press, Michael Steinhardt attacked Jewish communal organizations and their complacent leadership. A longtime stalwart of Jewish philanthropy, he accused organizations of disliking change and being satisfied, at least in the case of campus Hillels, with “trying hard” but not being “good enough.”

Too many Jewish organizations don’t change anything, he claimed. People with social studies PhDs doing analyses and surveys achieve “gur nicht” Steinhardt noted but, talking about the new survey which suggests that the massive investment in Birthright has had some success he said that “maybe this one will change something.”

Watch his speech on The Jewish Channel below.

Hat tip to Jordana Horn.

'In or Out': Why Heidi Klum Makes Me Nervous

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:38:00 GMT-5

While the sixth season of the fashion reality show “Project Runway” is fast-approaching its climax, it’s become a running joke in my house that the show’s host, German supermodel Heidi Klum, would have made a good Nazi.

Every time she announces to the panel of quaking designers, in her German accent, “One of you will be in, and one of you will be out,” either my husband or I will mock, in our own fake German accents, “One of you will go to the right, and one of you will go to the left.”

Then, of course, there is the matter of the empty bed the day after someone has been “eliminated” (eliminated!). The remaining contestants never fail to mention the loss of yet another of their peers, and to remark on how their ranks are being whittled away, one by one. You will say that this is all a part of how the reality show game is played, and of course that is a part of it. But, in contrast, I would argue that Klum’s counterpart over at the food reality show “Top Chef,” host Padma Lakshmi, manages to deliver the line of elimination, “Please pack your knives and go,” in a manner suggesting she actually feels bad about it.

But maybe I’m being too harsh on Heidi Klum. Maybe the fashion industry or the show’s producers are to blame for the harshness of these judgments. Hosts aside, “Top Chef’s” “Please pack your knives and go” is a much gentler way of giving someone the axe than Project Runway’s “You’re out.” The “please” adds a polite touch that softens the blow, and the line is constructed as a request. No contestant, to my knowledge, has ever responded, “No, I won’t pack my knives and go,” but that would not be an unreasonable response, linguistically speaking. In contrast, no one could reasonably respond to “You’re out,” a statement of fact, with “No, I’m in.”

But I digress.

I realize that whether or not Heidi Klum is actually a nice person has nothing to do with her being German.

I, like many of us I suspect, have not gotten over the suspicion of, and prejudice against, German citizens that our relatives passed down to us from World War II. And joking about something as serious as the Holocaust is a way of alleviating the deep-seated anxieties that still plague us, subconsciously or not.

So I will probably continue to watch “Project Runway” and laugh at Heidi Klum, because that’s part of what makes it fun, but I will try to focus more on her obsession with whether clothing “looks expensive” than with the way she seems to relish deciding contestants’ fate.

Ich liebe dich, Heidi!

Ethiopian Jewish Festival of Sig’d Goes Mainstream

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:46:00 GMT-5

Of the various immigrant groups in Israel, it’s clear that Ethiopians have it especially tough. There is widespread poverty in the Ethiopian community and the country has not overcome the fact that the educational level of immigrants on arrival was largely lower than that of immigrants from other backgrounds. Still today, the educational standard is often lower than among other Israelis leading to fewer opportunities.

The problem is recognized at the highest levels of the country’s leadership. “Ethiopian Jews’ feeling that they have been wronged is not detached from reality, a reality that we must change,” Ehud Olmert, then-Prime Minister, declared at the end of 2007. In 2008 the state comptroller, Micha Lindenstrauss, said in a report that pretty much every state body had failed the Ethiopians in some way — see a report on what he had to say here.

On a cultural level, Ethiopian traditions and practices have largely failed to interest or influence the Israeli mainstream. The community’s major festival has had a bittersweet feel since Ethiopian Jewry started arriving in Israel three decades ago. On the one hand Sig’d, which takes place 50 days after Yom Kippur (November 16 this year), acquired a new poignancy, as the day’s ritual involves calling for a Jewish return to Jerusalem. But while the majority of Ethiopian Jews made it to Jerusalem, or at least to Israel, it was largely ignored by the establishment and the general public.

Playing with Playmobil: Fun With Pharaoh

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:53:00 GMT-5

I love the shopping circulars that come with the Sunday Times (which really arrives on Saturday). I’m a big browser – and not the Internet Explorer kind. Well, I browse online too. But back to one of the few remaining circulars that arrive in the print newspaper.

In this weekend’s paper arrived the Toys R Us “Big Book,” which my youngest still pores through as if it holds the secret of happiness. Perhaps for an 8 year old, it does.

Featured was the newest line from Playmobil: plastic representations of the marvels of ancient Egypt. You can buy an Egyptian pyramid (only $105!) and Sphinx, along with a “Royal Ship of Egypt.”

All sorts of things Egyptian are available in this New! featured set.

You can get an Egyptian family and a Pharoah, even Egyptian soldiers and a masked robber on horseback.

But something seems strangely missing. Where are the little Israelite slaves who built the Sphinx and pyramids? How about a mini-Moses – then you could set up all the little Israelite slaves behind Moses, following him out of slavery.

Barring Bar Refaeli’s Body: Boon or Bane?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:13:00 GMT-5

There are only two people whose gargantuan faces greet drivers along Tel Aviv’s Ayalon highway. One is the larger-than-life-even-in-death Lubavicher Rebbe. The other is Bar Refaeli, possibly the most recognized Israeli face (and body) among American adult males.

Both billboards – and the glaring absence of any others – are indicative of the frightening and growing imposition of radical ultra-Orthodoxy on public life in Israel and the pressures women face.

Last year, after Israel’s Transportation Ministry declared that the billboards swamping the Ayalon were dangerous for drivers, massive white sheets were draped covering all of the advertisements but one. Chabad mysteriously got itself excused, and only the Rebbe remained, alone but seemingly content in his role staring down at motorists.

Fast forward to last week, when the Fox clothing chain successfully challenged the Rebbe’s monopoly on the Ayalon and received permission to hang its own advertisement. Out came a ten-meter high picture of Bar Refaeli in a provocative pose with a lesser known bloke, who is currently the envy of throngs of gawking Israeli male drivers.

That’s when some vocal members of the ultra-Orthodox community got angry.

Goldstone v. House of Representatives: The Unending Inquiry Into the War Crimes Inquiry

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:49:00 GMT-5

There could be trouble brewing for the congressional resolution (PDF), now circulating for signatures in the House, that condemns the United Nations’ Goldstone Report on alleged Israel and Hamas war crimes in Gaza.

The House resolution, H.Res. 867, has collected 124 signatures so far for its appeal to the Obama administration to oppose any international consideration or endorsement of the report, which it calls “irredeemably biased.” The resolution was initiated by Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami and is co-sponsored by Democrats Howard Berman of Los Angeles and Gary Ackerman of Queens, along with Republican Dan Burton of somewhere in Indiana.

But Berman, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is having second thoughts about the resolution, according to this Friday blog post by Spencer Ackerman of the on-line Washington Independent. Berman’s staff is said to be consulting with Ros-Lehtinen’s staff about how to proceed. The reason: a hard-hitting letter to the committee from Richard Goldstone, the South African jurist who authored the U.N. fact-finding report. Goldstone goes through the resolution paragraph by paragraph and points to a hefty list of distortions, misrepresentations and borderline fabrications about his 575-page report.

By way of background (if you’ve been following the case, skip this paragraph), Goldstone was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council last spring to lead a fact-finding mission probing alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead last December and January. Goldstone’s report found evidence of war crimes by both Israel and Hamas. It was submitted September 15 to the Human Rights Council, which voted October 16 to refer it to the Security Council. The Security Council can send the report to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution of suspected war-crimes perpetrators, unless Israel acts beforehand to launch its own independent investigation.

One point Goldstone has been making over and over since his report was published is that the international court may act only when a nation can’t or won’t conduct its own credible, independent inquiry into allegations of war crimes. Israel has conducted numerous such inquiries in the past, to worldwide acclaim. This time, for some reason, the Netanyahu government has been refusing to launch an inquiry, instead leaving it to the army to investigate itself.

Investigator: “Hey, O’Reilly, did you beat up that kid?”

Suspect: “Naah.”

Investigator: “Glad to hear it. Say hi to Marge and the kids.”

Israel tried at first to ignore the Goldstone commission. Now it’s waging an international campaign to discredit the report. Lehtinen’s resolution seems to be the campaign’s latest sortie; in fact, much of its language comes straight from Netanyahu government talking points. (I posted last week that Netanyahu now seems to be reconsidering his refusal to launch an inquiry.)

More on the details of the House resolution and Goldstone’s critique after the jump.

Jewish Playmates, Jewish Gospel and a Jewish President

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:08:00 GMT-5

Big Brother Rabin: From her home on Kibbutz Manara in the Galilee, Yitzhak Rabin’s sister, Rachel, recalls in Haaretz the siblings’ Tel Aviv upbringing, the children of a “tempestuous revolutionary” mother, during the 1920s and 1930s.

Ask the Experts: Nishmat, an organization that certifies female advisors on Jewish law, or yo’atzot halacha, recently lifted the 10-year restriction that had been placed on those certifications. The growth in the number of women undergoing fertility treatments and hormone therapies has increased the demand for female advisors, the Jerusalem Post reports.

’Breaking Free’: j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California has a cover story on Jewish women recovering from domestic violence — and the Bay Area nonprofit using “Jewish healing rituals” to help these move on with their lives after abuse.

Paging Dr. Christina Yang: In an interview with Jewschool, Olivia Cohen-Cutler, an ABC television exec and the chairwoman of the Morningstar Commission — formed 12 years ago to counteract stereotypical portrayals of Jewish women in the media — discusses the increasingly diverse roles for Jewish women on TV.

On Second Thought: Jewish women continue to be cast in role of exotic outsider. Tablet has a piece about the Fox television hit “Glee,” in which the character of Rachel (actress Lea Michele, above) is a token Jew whose “ethnic looks clash nicely with the blond midwesterness of the ‘Cheerios,’ the cheerleaders who serve as her ostensible rivals.”