Columbia still unbecoming

Columbia University's ad hoc committee investigating charges of intimidation of pro-Israel students by its professors released its report today, concluding that there was no evidence of anti-Semitism and that in only one of the reported incidents did a professor exceed "commonly accepted bounds" of behavior.
According to CampusJ's Columbia blog, the University brokered a deal to give the story to the NYT as an exclusive, before the report was shown to any students, on condition that they do not interview any of the students who made the complaints. If this is true, beyond issues of ethics here, I find it strange and surprising that the NYT would accept such a deal, which severely compromises its reporting for what is honestly not such a big scoop. Follow the details/allegations here.
In any case, the blog makes the convincing case that the report was primarily oriented towards addressing media concerns:

The report also made clear that “no evidence of any statements made by the faculty that could reasonably be construed as anti-Semitic.” Yet, no charges of anti-Semitism were ever filed by students and CAF has never alleged anti-Semitism. The Sun, among other media outlets, has made such claims and is the claims and voice of the media to whom the report was clearly addressed.
The university's behavior in releasing the report is indicative of the committee's guiding philosophy that apparently places a higher value on Columbia's image than its students. Denying students the right to see the report before the New York Times had published an article summarizing and defining the report to the public (the Times article was in fact published online late last night before any students even read the report) underscores the fact that the university’s investigation was foremost a response to mounting outside pressure and not motivated by concern for students' grievances.

Clearly I haven't read the report. However, from the newspaper/blog reports, it's hard not to notice that while the professors are basically exonorated, the harsh language seems to be reserved for the students who lodged the complaints, for (allegedly) disrupting lectures and seminars (which probably means contradicting some blatantly anti-Israel remark by the professor) and creating an atmosphere on campus whereby professors felt 'spied upon'. I find it hard to believe, and it's statistically unlikely, that with 60 complaints against the professors, it's the students who deserve to get slammed whilst just one complaint is (partially) upheld. Talk about turning the tables.

It's your own fault

The Israeli High Court came to a historic decision today, when it chose to recognize the conversions of 16 tourists and foreign residents who had undergone the process of conversion in Israel, but were actually converted by Reform or Conservative outside the country.
This still does not allow Reform or Conservative conversions in Israel -- the court left the issue to the Knesset -- but the direction of travel is clear. To all the Orthodox MKs who are blaming the courts for 'creating divisions in the nation,' I say this. The division is not the fault of the judges, but the fault of the Israeli Rabbanut, which had (has) a monopoly on conversions which it abused. Had it not made conversions so uneccesarily difficult and miserable for so many genuine people, it is likely they would never have reached this situation. Moreover, the writing has been on the wall for quite a few years now, and despite numerous pleas and warning signs, they were too arrogant and obstinate to change. The result you see today, and I can't see that there's any way back.

Gary Rosenblatt vs. Jewishwhistleblower

Gary Rosenblatt dedicates an annoyed column this week to Jewish bloggers, mostly complaining about their lack of accountability and accuracy ("Various writers, often anonymous, claim to know what investigative stories I am working on, or not working on, and why, or why not, though none of them have ever asked me"). The whole thing seems to have been inspired by Jewishwhistleblower, who has really got under his skin:

More upsetting are the bloggers who criticize individuals by name, make accusations against rabbis and communal leaders, but don’t have the guts to identify themselves, or bother to interview the people they write about.
One of the better known Jewish reporting blogs calls for “accountability and transparency within our institutions and leadership,” a noble goal, indeed. But the “About me” area on the home page where the blogger usually posts some details about him or her self is empty. To demand full disclosure of others without identifying one’s self seems the height of chutzpah and hypocrisy to me.

I haven't been following JWB very closely so I'm not sure which particular episode sparked this off (something specific clearly did -- I'm sure someone will enlighten me in the comments section). Indeed, just because it's now appeared in two major Jewish newspapers two weeks in a row, I'm not sure you can call JWB 'one of the better known Jewish reporting blogs.' Interestingly, it has introduced a type of yellow journalism which is virtually unknown in the Diaspora Jewish print media, and thus has attracted a certain audience. In the context of the rather respectable J-blogosphere, however, it is regarded as peripheral by virtue of its reflexively 'guilty until proven innocent' attitude and incessant self-promotion, which I think have proven untypical and unpopular. Unfortunately, a compliment like Rosenblatt's will probably only encourage JWB and cause people to flock to his/her website, and will probably have the exact opposite effect that Rosenblatt intended with his column.
The question of anonymous blogging is, of course, as old as blogging itself, and there's not much new to be said about it. I find Rosenblatt's righteous tone here somewhat annoying -- there are more safeguards with the press, it's true, but it's not like the press are always accurate, as blogs have demonstrated again and again. He sounds really put out that he has to deal with pesky bloggers actually monitoring what his paper publishes.
Nevertheless, on his major point, blogs like Jewishwhistleblower -- whose raison d'etre is making accusations against others -- he is most certainly correct. JWB is really giving a good cause which I wholeheartedly support, accountability and transparancy, a bad name. Just this week we have seen a minor example, of Jewishwhistleblower making uninformed but very aggressive accusations all over the J-blogosphere against a man who has been vindicated in a court of law. This is not accountability at all, but persecution for which the anonymous JWB will never be asked to answer outside the virtual world of the Internet.
Why is JWB free to trample all over someone's name, while protecting their own? If JWB is so confident about his/her information, why are they scared to reveal their own identity? JWB, when are you going to put your own house in order?

The money quote

From our comments section, re: Kitniot: "We are the only people where you can identify someone's ethnic-religious group by their margarine."

A little harsh, don't you think?

Steven I. Weiss on the so-called Shidduch crisis:

[T]he downright foolishness of the claims of a "singles crisis" or "shidduch crisis" are something I just won't countenance. It is a product not of some profound problem in the larger Jewish community, but of a group of nebbishy singles who can't get their acts together; there's also the statistical weight of those who are intentionally unmarried as yet -- a position I cheer as representative of a personal choice that seems wholly grounded in a serious concern for self. The "shidduch crisis" is about being pathetic, timid and stupid.

Unfortunately, the 'shidduch crisis' has nothing to do with being pathetic, timid and stupid; I know too many pathetic, timid and stupid people who are married, and too many impressive, confident and clever people who want to be, but are not. Ah, to be young again, when the possibilities seem endless and open, and in your full control.

Medicine and modesty

Newsday asks, but doesn't really answer, "whether modesty among Jewish women might discourage breast cancer screenings."
One of the bases of the researcher's hypothesis was the idea that "relatively few Israeli women participated in breast screening programs, most likely because the procedure is thought to violate Orthodox rules of modesty by requiring a woman to disrobe and have physical contact with a technician. " While this is certainly a factor (as it is in other religious communites, as we've noted before), I would argue that simple lack of awareness -- partially for cultural reasons as well -- is just as important.

Forget strawberries ...... read this

I kid you not: Just an hour ago I went over the road to the Kosher bakery to get my salad (Greek, extra olives, no tomato). I met a senior Mashgiach of the Toronto kashrut supervisory agency, COR, and we started chatting. There are witnesses to this conversation. I mentioned strawberries, which he found amusing. He then went on to describe some of the problems that they are dealing with ........ including THE CHASHASH KITNIOT on Pesach Coca Cola BECAUSE OF THE ...... C A R B O N D I O X I D E (ie the bubbles!). THE BUBBLES ARE OSSUR (for Askkenazim). Apparently the CO2 may be generated from kitniyos. So -- the gas -- the AIR -- the bubbles -- are ossur. Makes the Kedassia / strawberry ban look, well, inflated ........

Closer

By now you may have heard that, just in time for summer, one of the UK's Kashrut authorities, Kedassia, has banned strawberries (or more accurately, rebanned strawberries, because I distinctly recall reading about this some months ago in the Jewish Chronicle's 'quirky' section):

Until now, the method of washing strawberries thoroughly in soapy water in order to remove any insects was considered halachically (by Jewish religious law) sufficient. However, recent tests have proven that even after this rigorous procedure, insects are still present.
Until this problem is solved therefore, fresh strawberries should not be eaten.

Recent tests? How many times did they have to test these strawberries, by how many times did they have to magnify the strawberries' surface in order to discover the bugs? And if you look closely enough, how many other types of fruit, vegetables, water (ahem) and other food should be banned? Probably a great number. If only our supervising authorities saw and cared about the big picture -- eg. the goings on at the Postville abattoir -- as well as they saw and cared about the micro-picture.
Thankfully, the London and Federation Beth Dins have not gone along with this mad misuse of technology. And if you hold by Kedassia -- well, until they come up with a better solution, you can always 'peel the strawberry like a potato'! Of-course...

*I'm a bit late on this because Blogger has been playing up for the past 24 hours. Sorry.

More Moscow madness

A couple of months ago, there was quite a stir amongst Jewish groups when a group of deputies from the Russian State Duma demanded a ban on all Jewish organizations in Russia. Putin, as you will recall, never really reacted to the letter, but the deputies ended up withdrawing it nevertheless.
No one seems to have really noticed that in the past few days, a very similar letter has been sent to the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, again demanding that Jewish organizations be banned. This time, it was signed by 5000 people, including former Chess champ Boris Spassky (what is it with former Chess champions, insanity and anti-Semitism?).

[The signatories] believe one of the basic Judaic books professes religious hatred, said a center that monitors religious freedom...
The signatories claim that "Kizur Shulkhan Arukh," an abbreviated version of a 16th-century book that lays out daily rules for Jews, teaches hatred toward non-Jews.

I'd be interested to know who else signed that letter.
I guess the lack of coverage means that we are really getting used to old-style Russian anti-Semitism again quickly.

Riding on a hope and a prayer

A British Christian woman is hoping to open a Biblical theme park in the UK. Visitors will be able to have "the experience of expulsion from the Garden of Eden, being swallowed by a whale, escaping from a lion’s den and walking on water."

To fund the development, which is scheduled to open in 2008, she hopes that a million Christians will donate £144 each. If believers cannot afford the money, they are being urged to pray for the park’s success.

Lady, you give people a choice like that, what do you think they're going to do??

Never been kissed

Directly relating to our discussion a few days ago about premarital sex in the Orthodox world, Renreb has linked to a new blog, Shomernegiah.blogspot.com. Its strapline: "I am 34 years old. An Orthodox Jew. Female, healthy, friendly, successful in my work. I have never been kissed. This blog is my primal scream."
From her opening post:

[W]hy am I making a blog about something so personal?
First, because in the last few years, being S.N. to me has become a little like living in jail. There is a world out there (my married friends, my not frum friends) who are enjoying being sexual people, and I am imprisoned in my single, religious, Nice Jewish Girl life. Sometimes I think that if I do not have sex I will explode. Sometimes I think that if I do not find out what it feels like to have a man’s hands on me, I will go crazy. Maybe this blog is the explosion! Maybe after all I have gone crazy!...
There is also the judgement from the religious side. Fifteen years ago I thought that single women who were “older” like in their late twenties who started down the slippery slope and became less frum were somehow not as good religiously as me. I thought that if they really believed in halacha they would never do that. It was easy to think that when I was younger and thought I could get married soon. Now however I see how hard it is to stay strong all this time. It is bad enough to be alone, but to be not sexual is almost as bad, and the two together is terrible. I have been on depression medication for a long time. I have had fantasies of killing myself. I have considered hiring a male prostitute and getting it over with. No, I have not tried either of those last two things, chas vishalom. But it shows how hard it is to be 34 and single and a nice Jewish girl. I cannot blame anyone who decides it is not worth it. To all the married people out there telling older singles that they should deny themselves, I wish I could respond "let he who is 34 and never been kissed cast the first stone."

Please do not rush over to her blog to lecture this genuine young woman about the halachic reality (not that any Bloghead readers would...). She knows. Please just listen to her story (best read from the bottom up) with a sympathetic ear and offer her support if you can.

[Related]

More nunsense from Madonna

Madonna celebrates Purim. Or Easter. Or something.

Justice, justice thou shalt pursue .....

I would like to make it clear that I have no personal knowledge whatever of the case that I am going to refere to in this posting, and nothing written here should be construed as any comment on anyone directly involved, other than conclusions or comment based on press reports. I am also deliberately not providing links.

A case recently reported on from the UK involves a teacher at a Jewish school accused of sexual impropriety with a girl student, but fully and quickly aquitted of the four charges against him. It should be noted that concerning one of the charges, which was quite specific, it was conclusively proven in court that the teacher could not have been in the place alleged at the time alleged, and also that courts in the UK and elsewhwere are generally notoriously unsympathetic to teachers accused of abusing the trust placed in them - which makes a complete aquittal, with costs, very unusual. From my reading of the press accounts, as someone who has dealt with similar issues on several occcasions, it sounds to me as though the teacher was:

a) young

b) relatively inexperienced

c) somewhat charismatic

d) very sincere, and from a 'kiruv' background

-- and therefore

e) exceptionally vulnerable.

What horrifies me, however, is the willingness of some bloggers and commentors to jump to conclusions about this case, ignore the aquittal and treat the teacher as though he is guilty. (I wrote a huge posting on this, but it's too long to post. ) Anyone in authority WHO IS REASONABLY PROVEN to have acted inappropriately deserves every consequence. [In fact, in schools in Ontario the level of proof required is less than in some other areas. The courts recognise the complexities of dealing with adolescents, and implicitly recognise the experience of school Principals in those situations, subject to further accountability. In Ontario law - the remarks of Mr. Justice Cory in the Canadian Supreme Court in M v R are the benchmark]. Where adolescent emotions are involved, the investigator must tread very, very carefully. An accusation by itself cannot ever be the basis for a presumption of guilt.

But justice is a two-way street. Were they themselves ever to be accused of anything -- shoplifting, for example - any of those who are baying for blood in this case would demand proof from their accusers. And an injudicious, and possibly professionally immature transgression of the laws of yichud does not mean that a person's name and reputation should be published on the internet. That is simply daft; possibly also irresponsible and cruel.

Finally, I am concerned that while a teacher's name can be published on the internet all over the place, and wild speculations and accusations made, his accusers hide behind anonymity.

The real thing

YNet in Hebrew now appears to be free of charge for readers outside Israel. Now that's good news!

The JAP is back -- and proud

Explains Alana Newhouse in the Boston Globe,

"The consumerist element that was criticized in the JAP has now been embraced by American society," says Riv-Ellen Prell, author of ''Fighting to Become Americans: Assimilation and the Trouble Between Jewish Women and Jewish Men'' (2000). "JAPs were the designated narcissists in the 1970s, but now we no longer feel shame about all being narcissists."
To some, JAP is just the latest slur to be embraced as a means of self-empowerment, much the way gay culture adopted "queer" and African-Americans use the n-word. JAP's comeback may signal a new era in identity politics, one in which Jewish women, feeling victorious after battling the double burden of misogyny and anti-Semitism, peel away many aspects of the old stereotype-the snobbishness, the dependency on daddy's Amex, the sexual frigidity-and keep... well, the shoes and the Chanel.

I still hate the idea that Jewish women are associated with money/consumerism, not so much for the sake of our 'outside image,' which is what the women in the article who object to the use of the term are concerned about, but for the sake of the very many Jewish women -- the majority -- who do not have endless supplies of money and who are left feeling inadequate.

Wolfowitz -- mixing business and pleasure

The world has suddenly woken up to the fact that Paul Wolfowitz, who's been nominated as next president of the World Bank, is conducting a romantic relationship with Tunisian-born Shaha Ali Riza, the bank’s former senior gender co-ordinator for the Middle East and North Africa and currently a communications advisor in the ME and NA Dept. Bloghead noted their relationship last August.
The prospect of Wolfowitz becoming head honcho is apparently making staff -- and others looking for any excuse to block his nomination -- uncomfortable:

World Bank regulations forbid couples to work on the staff if one reports directly to the other — an unlikely eventuality in their case. Through a spokesman, Wolfowitz stated enigmatically: “If a personal relationship presents a potential conflict of interest, I will comply with bank policies to resolve the issue.”

I hope that doesn't mean his girlfriend is going to end up giving up her job on his account.

And perhaps a few Kabbalah references too?

Demi Moore's boyfriend Ashton Kutcher tried to sneak some Jewish references into his upcoming movie, but they were all cut out in the final version:

"I decided that I wanted to play my character Jewish...," Kutcher says, telling Zap2it.com it was minor stuff, like saying, "Shabot Shalom, stuff like that."

Shabot Shalom? Sounds like he's been reading too many comics.

Purim Sameach

For me, Purim always brings memories of my Bat Mitzvah year, when each student in my class was supposed to create a project about a Biblical woman.
Most of the girls chose Sarah, Rifka, Rachel, Leah -- the usual suspects.
I chose Vashti.
My parents were called in for a long talk with the teacher and I narrowly avoided getting kicked out of school.
To this day, however, I believe Vashti is one of the most wronged characters in the Tanach. In the text, she is guilty of nothing more than trying to preserve her modesty -- surely a role model to us all -- and yet, she is villified by the Midrash. Perhaps there was room for only one female hero in this story; perhaps the Midrash felt the need to find some justification for her seemingly unjust fate. Either way, she is certainly more sinned against than sinning...

Let's talk about (premarital) sex

A few months ago I commented that the increasing number of Orthodox singles in their late 20s and 30s grappling with issues of negiah, and suffering real stress, guilt and difficulty as a result

is yet another issue which sooner or later the community will have to talk about more openly and more creatively. It's in the community's own interest to grapple with this, both because it has a duty not to neglect its singles who are in a truly impossible situation, and because facts are being created on the ground which soon will be impossible to reverse.

In just a few short months, the issue seems to have become the 'hot' topic. This week, both the Jerusalem Post and Ha'aretz are reporting on a symposium which took place in Jerusalem on sex in the Orthdox singles scene (although apparently the word 'sex' was never mentioned...). In addition, Sahrah Blau, one of the Orthodox community's most prominent single women in the Israeli media, held a discussion following the symposium on tv.
The best article to appear on the subject, however, appeared in Hebrew in De'ot, and in fact formed the basis for the discussion at the Jerusalem event. Apparently fully one third of Orthodox women are still single at 30; like it or not, there are thousands of Orthodox singles out there who are having premarital sex. What this article brings out clearly is that this is having a sociological impact, the full extent of which we probably don't even appreciate yet. At the very least, it is threatening the centrality of family in Jewish life, associating sexuality with guilt and stress for a large chunk of the Orthodox population even for many years after marriage, and driving a wedge between the rabbinical establishment and a large part of the community.
As I've said before, I have no idea what the answer is, but I am glad it is being discussed more openly, both for the sake of the community as a whole, which has a stake in this, and for the singles, who are in genuine distress.
Finally, I find it rather ironic that Ohel Nechama Synagogue, where the symposium took place, broke links with Ne'emanei Torah Va'avodah, which organized the event, because they found this particular topic too controversial. Ohel Nechama is one of Jerusalem's main 'meat markets' and probably the place where half the Orthodox singles having sex meet in the first place.

Putting Harry in perspective

Just a couple of months ago, the Jewish world threw up its arms in horror at pictures of Prince Harry dressed up as a Nazi soldier for a costume party.
It's hard to maintain righteous indignation, however, when Israeli teenagers have been captured on film arriving to Purim parties dressed up as concentration camp inmates and as suicide bombers. And while you may argue that they are still several years younger than Harry is, and so perhaps even more immature, you certainly cannot argue like you might have done for Harry, that

"[T]he kids didn't understand what they were doing," another youngster at the party said. "They obviously don't know much about the Holocaust, not like me, who did lose relatives; it was very sad."

Sorry, but I don't think it's possible to grow up in today's Israel, with Yom Hashoah, etc., 'not knowing much about the Holocaust.' Even more so the trauma and pain suicide bombers caused the entire Israeli society, which is still raw.
On the surface, what this shows is that silly, insensitive and ignorant behavior is the province of youngesters everywhere. On a deeper level, perhaps it also reflects a certain amount of desensitization in Israeli society, both to terror -- which is simply too hard to deal with so people switch off -- and the Holocaust -- discussion of which has perhaps become mundane. The real question in my mind is, where were these kids' parents? How on earth did they let their children out of the house dressed as suicide bombers and concentration camp inmates? At least they should know better.