Rabbi Landsberg's Blog

A strong mind, a strong stomach and a marked philosemitism

In brief, here is a lovely article in the Dublin Review of Books about the renowned poet Czesław Miłosz, recipient of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature.   Miłosz ought to be best known amongst Jews, however, as a man whose worldview and philosophy were self-consciously refracted through his interactions with Jews.   Miłosz--born in Vilna and living much of the 1930s and '40s in Warsaw--declared that it is only through the "anti-natural" human acts of religious life, politics, ideology and culture that one overcomes the senseless necessity of nature.  "The Jews helped to form a complex in me," he wrote, "thanks to which, at an early age, I was already lost for the [Catholic, nationalist] Right." 

Aside from the insight I gained from the piece, I was much moved by it.  I both felt and thought that much of Miłosz's driving spirit is shared by the many Jews that I meet at morning minyan or at a shiva or at some other shared moment of tefillah.  They seem to know that through these acts they are investing this world with a meaning that--though it may not be easily articulated--spits in the eye of the cruel "natural" banalities of this world.   

Czesław Miłosz would be a 100 years old this year.  May his memory be a blessing.

"driven down Broadway by a Maccabee"

The chagim are over, and I return to occasional blogging.  Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker attended the preview screening of a  movie based on the extraordinary story of the Jewish partisans  - the Bielski partisans who fought the Nazis from the Belorussian woods. The scale of the valour shown is hard to  imagine.  Gopnik does well when he explains that the director:

"originally considered starting the film...with a scene of a customer finding himself in the back seat of a taxi and realizing that he was being driven by a Bielski, as one might be driven down Broadway by a Maccabee"

Read the rest of the piece here.   The trailer for the movie can be seen here.

Catching up on the Times and tales of Savta

I have been so engrossed in the US election and the preparation for the chagim, that I confess I have not been as diligent as I should be in following events in the wider Jewish world.  Now as I play catch up on the events of the last few weeks, I am stumbling on pieces that I want to share.

Here is an article from the New York Times magazine from a couple weeks ago entitled Evening in Jerusalem. It is a bittersweet recollection of a grandson (now living in Los Angeles) of an Iraqi Jewish  woman in Jerusalem.  Savta (the Hebrew for "grandmother") is from a world away, both metaphorically and literally.

According to my husband, his savta was not dissimilar in circumstance and manner from the  savta described here. She came from Basra Iraq and moved to Abadan Iran as a small child (from where later on she would make aliya on the creation of Israel). She died some months before I met Adam, but I like to imagine we would have enjoyed sharing some Nana tea as we spoke  in broken Hebrew.

the income of Episcopalians and the voting habits of Puerto Ricans ....

For any Jew raised in the U.S., this phrase needs no explanation.  For all others: it refers to the voting habits of US Jews, who refute class based explanations of voting patterns (i.e.,  with above average incomes but wedded to the Democratic party).  Now as the U.S. November elections approach, my attention has returned to developments south of the border.  There have been a spate of articles about how Jews will vote this cycle.  For one example, read this piece about the Democratic primary in Florida: "As Obama Heads to Florida, Many of Its Jews Have doubts"

I have always fought the easy syllogism that says: Jews tend to be politically progressive, therefore Judaism is progressivism.  There is much wrong with that position, not least that it is increasingly untrue for a vocal section of the U.S. [and Canadian] Jewish community.  More importantly, however, the civilization of the Jews is something so expansive it can respectably support almost any political stance.  To reduce the Covenant to politics is a transgression.

That said, I still read about the likely voting intentions of US Jews this November.   M J Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum writes:

"American Jews are, for the most part, well-off. But they vote as if they still were poor ghetto dwellers, somehow understanding that their fate is connected to the fate of those who have little or nothing."

For more read here.

We women and our daughters

Michelle and Hillary (and yes, I am watching the Democratic National Convention all too intensely and yes--though it is rather late at night--we have been allowing the children to watch with us).  Admittedly, the link below has nothing whatsoever to do with Mrs. Obama or Sentor Clinton, but I first wanted to acknowledge them as my inspiration for this post today.

Rachel Papo, a U.S. born Israeli photographer, has a compelling series of photos of young women in the IDF, entitled "Serial No. 3817131"  In her description of the photos, she speaks of her her motivation behind this project:

Almost fifteen years after my mandatory military duty ended, I went back...Serial No. 3817131 represents my effort to come to terms with the experiences of being a soldier from the perspective of an adult. My service had been a period of utter loneliness, mixed with apathy and pensiveness, and at the time I was too young to understand it all. Through the camera’s lens, I tried to reconstruct facets of my military life, hopeful to reconcile matters that had been left unresolved.

I find the photos challenging--mostly for their true otherness of experience.  As a Jewish woman in North America, I have not faced military service nor had to look ahead to it for my daughter from her first moment of life.   The chasm between my life as a Jew here rather than in Israel is real.  It makes me need to eschew any notion of using "we" when speaking about Jews here and Jews in Israel. 

Yes, "we" do claim each other--we claim history and relationship. But "we"--when speaking about Israel and its citizen soldiers--is claiming something too easily.  Until my daughter's life is on the line, I will talk of "here" and "there".  I will talk of "Jews" only when I do mean Jews everywhere and reserve  "Israelis" for those bearing the peculiar burdens of citizenship there.   And I will identify for Noa, my daugther, Israeli women who should inspire her, and there are many...and the American Jewish Woman that I am will hope that she remembers the first time she saw Michelle and Hillary.

From Youngstown to Warsaw: Two Tributes

Each time I try to write this post, my right pinkie gives out from spending so much time hovering over the backspace key.   I cannot easily find the words--even weeks now since his passing--to give voice to the profound esteem and deepest affection I have for Rabbi Dreyfus, alav hashalom, or to express the wave of sorrow I have felt since he died.  I had the blessing of studying with Rabbi A. Stanley Dreyfus every Friday morning during most of my years at rabbinic school.  He is given the most lovely of tributes by my friend Rabbi Andy Bachman here.  I hope that Andy's words suffice, especially for those of you who remember Dr. Dreyfus' erudition and dignified presence at my installation at Emanu-El in 2001.

With Dr. Dreyfus' passing colouring my mood, I read about the recent death of the Polish intellectual and politician Bronislaw Geremek [nee Lewertow], who had escaped from the Warsaw ghetto as a child.  Though Geremek gained fame on the world stage as a humanist and as the preeminent intellectual of the Polish Solidarity trade union, his remarkable story is also part of the tumult of the Jewish twentieth century and merits a remembrance amongst Jews.  Reading about his life and his choices coupled with his deep fortitude, I cannot help but wonder about all of the ways that the happenstances of history shield or challenge us.   Geremek's friend Adam Michnik, the Polish Jewish intellectual and Solidarity legend, pays him tribute here. 

Despite the bittersweetness of this post, I wish you only a sweet Shabbat.

More than just a stopover between Toronto and Tel Aviv

I don't really have thoughts to share about this thread.  I simply think it is worth opening a nice pinot noir and reading--the wine is good for the heart; the rest a good reminder of the issues of Jewish identity and life outside of the axes of North America and Israel:

Paris Journal (NYT)
Aux Barricades!� France and the Jews
British Perspective--reportage from The Guardian UK
Phoebe on Roger

As well...

And, speaking of Adam, he also handed me this article from the New Yorker immediately upon my return from Israel. It is a profile of the ever-fascinating Sheldon Adelson, the gambling magnate who underwrites, amongst other things, a large portion of the Birthright program.

There is much to say, but for an opinion let me direct you to Daniel Levy and his incisive thoughts on Mr Adelson's underwriting Israel 60th Anniversary presidential conference. Read it here.

going to the doctor for a check-up...

As a transplanted American rabbi in Canada, I still pay attention to the Jewish conversation south of the border. Over the last few months there have been stirrings of change in talk about Israel. It's hard to tell how enduring it will be, but it does matter for all Jews everywhere (if simply by virtue of American Jews being the elephant of Diaspora life, so to speak).

A young columnist of The American Prospect, Ezra Klein, occasionally tips his hat on his relationship with Jews and Judaism. [He is, btw, the man if you wish to follow the vicissitudes of the US health care debate and many other issues.] As far as I can surmise his feelings are warm if not necessarily defining.

He wrote this article back in April, No Time For Neutrality, which was a call for support for the new J Street progressive Israel lobbying organization. By way of introduction he articulates his dissatisfaction with the nature of Israel talk in synagogues. This is how he puts it:

"More often, the pull of identity overwhelms the call of the ineffable, and whatever mysticism should exist is shattered as the Rabbi does his or her best to rally the assembled Jewry in defense of their besieged brethren -- and shame those who don't go along. It's an odd feeling, akin to going to the doctor for a check-up and being subjected to an angry lecture on payment rates in the upcoming Medicare law"

I do think that Ezra might have a sense of Judaism that leaves little space for the nuts and bolts of actual peoplehood, which is part and parcel of Am Yisrael. Still, I take his point. It matters that was is said in a synagogue not only has sacred sources, but employs an argument for Zionism qualitatively different from the necessary hard ball of the public square. Ezra Klein is (a mere) 25 - that makes his critique all the more important. It matters deeply that a man such as he believes that synagogues are the locus, not the flight from, thinking every bit as sophisticated and nuanced for Zion as he could encounter in other spheres of life.

And you thought you were Jewish....

After a very long hiatus and a three week study sojourn in Jerusalem at the Shalom Hartman Institute I have returned to the virtual world.

So much is happening in the Jewish world and the pace of change is dizzying that it is hard not be a little overwhelmed by the pace of change.  I intend to adopt a new style of blogging and pass on links to the many affecting article and sites I see in the Jewish world.

In that vein let me share this with you Conversion: The American Machers Protest. It from the ever excellent pen of Gershom Gorenberg author of amongst other things The Accidental Empire: Israel And The Birth Of The Settlements, 1967-1977. If you ever want to know in accessible journalistic style the story of how Israel came to Settle about 450,000 people in the West Bank without ever quite realizing it this is the book to read.

I digress. Read Gershom's blog post. It is the $64 million dollar question for the Jewish people. It is happening now and it affects us all.