The Jewish Chronicle Blog

Link dump

• Heeb's 11th issue is out -- the theme is food
• Wild pop culture rumour of the day (Via)
• Feel-good story of the week
• Most diverse synagogue ever
• Changing face of Tel Aviv
• Late succot story -- funny punchline
• The BBC publishes its guidelines for language in stories about the Middle East; the BBC blog explains some of the choices
• Heard of Conservadox Jews? Here come the Flexidox
• Lubavitch communities across the globe often build buildings that look like 770 Eastern Parkway, Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn. A new photographic exhibition in NY documents the phenomenon, and the Washington Post reproduces some of the images. (Via)

This post was written by Miriam Shaviv

Beginning of the end

Israel Radio’s opinionated broadcaster Gabi Gazit decided not to voice his thoughts this morning concerning the police recommendation to indict President Moshe Katsav on charges of rape, sexual harassment and breach of trust. Instead, he opened his popular talk show with what he described as a specially chosen song: “This is the end” by the Doors. Actually, it’s not quite the end, but we’re definitely getting there. Firstly, President Katsav, at the last minute, has decided not to attend this afternoon’s festive opening of the Knesset’s winter session. The president traditionally enters the Knesset to the sound of trumpets: this time around the president’s entrance would have been marked by a number of Knesset members leaving the chamber in protest. Secondly, according to the president’s lawyer, Zion Amir, the president will resign the moment the attorney-general announces his intention to indict him which, according to most reports, will be by the end of the month. After President Katsav’s predecessor, Ezer Weizman, left the office in disgrace, having received questionable cash gifts, Mr Katsav’s successor, regardless of whether the present president is charged and found guilty, will not have an easy task in restoring the glory of the presidency.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Shul on Simchat Torah -- it's a riot

It's Simchat Torah this weekend, and it's worth noting that there are (at least) two fascinating descriptions of the festival in diaries from the 17th and 18th centuries.

The first is by Samuel Pepys, who popped into Bevis Marks* in 1663 to see a Jewish service -- without realising it was Simchat Torah. Here is his horrified description of the goings on:

Thence home and after dinner my wife and I, by Mr. Rawlinson's conduct, to the Jewish Synagogue: where the men and boys in their vayles, and the women behind a lattice out of sight; and some things stand up, which I believe is their Law, in a press to which all coming in do bow; and at the putting on their vayles do say something, to which others that hear him do cry Amen, and the party do kiss his vayle. Their service all in a singing way, and in Hebrew. And anon their Laws that they take out of the press are carried by several men, four or five several burthens in all, and they do relieve one another; and whether it is that every one desires to have the carrying of it, I cannot tell, thus they carried it round about the room while such a service is singing. And in the end they had a prayer for the King, which they pronounced his name in Portugall; but the prayer, like the rest, in Hebrew. But, Lord! to see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention, but confusion in all their service, more like brutes than people knowing the true God, would make a man forswear ever seeing them more and indeed I never did see so much, or could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this. Away thence with my mind strongly disturbed with them, by coach and set down my wife in Westminster Hall, and I to White Hall...

It would be fair to say that probably not much has changed in 2006!

The second description, of a real riot in shul, comes from the diary of Gluckel of Hameln -- her very last entry, in fact. She relates that in her synagogue on Simchat Torah in 1715,

As usual, all the Scrolls of the Law had been taken from the Holy Ark and seven placed on the desk when a brawl began among the women. In the fray they tore one another's head-coverings from their heads so that they stood bare-headed in the synagogue! Then the men began to quarrel and fight one another. Though the great Rabbi Abraham Broda in a loud voice threatened them with excommunication, to make them keep their peace and not desecrate the festival, it was of no use. The rabbi and the parnass left the synagogue quickly to arrange what each one's fines should be.

Chag sameach!

* Actually, the Spanish & Portuguese synagogue in Creechurch Lane -- the community moved into Bevis Marks a few years later.

This post was written by Miriam Shaviv

Jews on the (You)Tube

This week in the JC, Alex Kasriel picks her top 10 Jewish-themed videos on YouTube.

As a side note, the fourth most viewed video on YouTube is actually a dance routine by two Israeli girls from Ramle, lip-synching to "Hey" by the Pixies. It's been seen by more than 10 million people to date, and generated an astounding 7,000 comments. It's not exactly Jewish-themed -- however, one of the girls in the video told The Jerusalem Post she was

shocked when her Israeli nationality began to attract negative attention from viewers.

"We were hurt and deeply upset when people began to write comments about the video attacking Israel," she said. "The clip we made has nothing to do with all that. It's just not political, it's a rock song... The universal popularity of the video shows how people all over the world can understand this kind of fun."

(Via)

This post was written by Miriam Shaviv

Can't get lazier than this

Found that putting up a succah took too much time and effort? Next year, try the pop-up succah (also being sold on eBay).

(Via)

UPDATE: Better a pop-up succah than this one, on a third-floor building near Haifa. Where are the police? (Via)

This post was written by Miriam Shaviv

"Israel lobby" authors get book contract

Last March, Harvard's Stephen Walt and the University of Chicago's John Mearsheimer published a paper in the London Review of Books claiming that "the Israel Lobby" --  a "loose coalition of individuals and organizations" -- is steering US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction, away from American interests, thus jeopardising America. This amorphous lobby, they added, was also responsible for the Iraq war and for  "controlling debate" on the subject.

The paper received enormous attention in the UK and US and although it's hardly the first to propose such inflammatory ideas, which critics claim border on the antisemitic, it did much to spread them. Now, according to The Forward, its authors have secured a book deal -- with FSG, a very respectable publisher.

The newspaper points out that the publisher's stellar reputation is likely to add weight and credibility to Walt and Mearsheimer's arguments. Sadly, the fact that the authors -- who once argued that it “is hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States” printing their work -- were able to get a contract with FSG shows just how acceptable such views are already in polite society.

Related: The JC on a public debate with one of the paper's authors last week.

This post was written by Miriam Shaviv

Signs of desperation

You can always tell when an Israeli government is in trouble: it starts talking about a “civil agenda.” After the failure of the Camp David talks in the summer of 2000, then prime minister Ehud Barak launched his civil revolution. Suddenly, all the talk was of civil marriage, public transport on Shabbat, Shabbat shopping, and so forth. But this was a case of too little too late for Barak and, thanks to the second intifada, he was out of office within half-a-year. Now Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, after the failure of his realignment plan – the nation’s priorities have changed, he said – is deep in talks with Yisrael Beiteinu’s Avigdor Lieberman to bring that right-wing party into the coalition. Among the items being discussed by Messrs Olmert and Lieberman are civil marriage and a reform of the Israeli electoral system. Some things never change.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Succot shakedown

For those looking for a secure job in Israeli agriculture, growing palm trees to provide the lulav branch for Succot seems a good bet. Israel’s Agriculture Ministry has set aside NIS 1 million (£123,000) to buy unsold lulavim from any Israeli grower who fails to sell his stock before Succot begins. As Industry Minister Eli Yishai, the leader of the strictly Orthodox Shas Party said, “Israeli lulav producers must be protected.” This year, despite rumours to the contrary, the lulav market has been saturated, with over 650,000 on the market. Half the lulavim are local, with the others coming from Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Prices range from NIS 50 to NIS 150 (£6 to £18) for an imported lulav, or from NIS 80 to NIS 300 (£10 to £37) for a local one.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

                                 

Crime racquet

It seems that crime doesn't take a break in Israel - not even for Yom Kippur

Workers returning to the Ramat Hasharon Tennis Centre the day after the fast were astounded to find that the late Yitzhak Rabin's racquet had been nicked on the Holiest Day. Rabin, assassinated by Jewish extremist Yigal Amir on November 4, 1994, was an avid tennis player and his late wife, Leah, bequeathed the racquet to the centre.

Still, the tea leaf/leaves have until next Yom Kippur to ask for forgiveness for their dirty deed.

This post was written by Joseph Millis

Jews on the tube

I am in Canada for the chagim, and after several years in England, am completely bowled over by just how Jewish North American television is.

I’ve watched a popular non-Jewish comedian, Stephen Colbert, open his nightly show with a running Rosh Hashanah gag, urging Jewish celebrities who wouldn’t appear on his show, Jewish tv critics who slammed him etc to phone 1-800-OOPS-JEW. They're supposed to use the ‘days of repentance hotline’ to apologise to him.  Then came the revelation that Brad Carlton, one of the main characters on North America’s top-rated soap opera, The Young and The Restless, is actually a Jew called George Kaplan who had to hide his real identity all these years because Nazis were after his mother (don’t ask). On erev Rosh Hashanah, millions of viewers watched said mother, Rachel, bake challahs, and Brad recite the blessing over the Shabbat candles (in a good Hebrew accent – the actor playing him really is Jewish).  Can you imagine this happening on Coronation Street?

Last week Oprah Winfrey exposed sexual predators operating over the internet; one of the men caught arranging a rendezvous with an underage boy confessed to the camera, “I’m a rabbi” (and sadly, indeed he was). Later this week ABC’s Nightline will discuss the issue of abuse in the Jewish community. Another channel features Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s family therapy show, “Shalom in the Home” -– he’s also going to be on Oprah on Friday -– while a character on hit show Grey’s Anatomy promoted the benefits of sitting shivah, and on Monday night, talkshow host Jay Leno complained that his monologue was falling flat because all his Jewish joke-writers were off for Yom Kippur… And so on and so forth.

Meanwhile, last month, some entrepreneurs in the US launched Shalom TV, a Jewish television network. In light of the above, I have to ask –- why bother?

This post was written by Miriam Shaviv