(Kosher) Food For Thought

American Religion

2007-12-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

This story has to be one of the weirder ones I've seen on the front page of the Tribune Perspectives section. It is written by a Jewish woman who the reader presumes is in her 70s, and begins with the words: "Our mistake was sending our children to Hebrew school." She goes on to talk about her life as a Jewish woman married to a Jewish man, and yet erecting a Christmas tree in her home. When their kids came home from Hebrew school and pointed out that it didn't make so much sense, she couldn't really understand it. You kind of have to read it for yourself.

Thoughts?

The best Jewish engagement program out there

2007-11-25T17:22:00.001-08:00

Okay, I'm a little biased (my wife is a program director of this initiative) but in my professional opinion this is the most cost-effective, most strategic program out there for engaging Jewish families. The story speaks for itself.

AskBigQuestions convergence: What do you say no to? And what are you thankful for?

2007-11-22T12:26:00.000-08:00

My biggest project of this academic year has been launching and developing an initiative AskBigQuestions (and its website, www.askbigquestions.com). ABQ attempts to fill a void on Northwestern's campus, one which exists on many other university campuses too: We don't talk about life's Big Questions, the questions of ultimate concern with which all human beings are ultimately concerned. Who am I? Where do I come from? What's my story? What will be my vocation? Who will be my partners? What will be my legacy? These are the questions that make life worth living.

Among the many faith and philosophical traditions that address these questions, Judaism and Jewish life is a world class culture of unparalleled thickness. And by presenting a Judaism that answers the most important questions of human life, students who are rooted in the narrative of universal humanism can find a Jewish voice that feels real and that resonates.

In addition to the website, ABQ regularly sponsors salons with popular NU professors in a coffee shop. The format is usually that they will offer some perspectives on the question, I will respond with some Jewish resonances, and then the students, the prof and I engage in a lively give-and-take.

This column by Roger Cohen in today's New York Times brings together two of the Big Questions we've addressed this fall: "What do you say no to?" and "What are you thankful for?" Check out the story at the end:

"When Stanley Cohen, the friend and attorney to the artist Alexander Calder, moved to Paris in the 1960s, he ordered The Sunday New York Times. It would arrive the following Wednesday. He would take the paper and store it unread until Saturday night. Then he would place it outside his door so that, on Sunday morning, he had the illusion of finding his beloved paper waiting.

"I like that story. It’s a reminder of how not to be a slave to time, of the need to be imaginative and humble in our thankfulness, and of the fact that news can wait a week. A day off to read it is dandy. Turn off, tune out, drop in. And a decent-sized turkey takes five hours to cook."

Cohen reminds us that Thanksgiving attempts to be a version of Shabbat: A day to say no to the small stuff so that we can say yes, say thanks, and give blessing, to the big stuff. Saying thank you requires turning off a lot of the stuff that chains us to work, chains us to thin relationships, in order that we can say yes to our families, to other human beings.

Andrew Sullivan Endorses Obama (!)

2007-11-10T18:13:00.000-08:00

This is pretty amazing. Sullivan, a conservative, argues that Obama is the right man for the times. He has two primary points:

1. Obama would be, in his words, the best weapon the U.S. could possibly deploy to change the calculus of the "War on Terror":

"Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close."

2. Obama is the only candidate who can transcend another round of Baby Boomer cultural warfare, which would be the inevitable result of a Clinton-Guilani/Romney (though not necessarily McCain) matchup, and in so doing provide a way out of Iraq and a host of other problems:

"The man who opposed the war for the right reasons is for that reason the potential president with the most flexibility in dealing with it. Clinton is hemmed in by her past and her generation. If she pulls out too quickly, she will fall prey to the usual browbeating from the right—the same theme that has played relentlessly since 1968. If she stays in too long, the antiwar base of her own party, already suspicious of her, will pounce. The Boomer legacy imprisons her—and so it may continue to imprison us. The debate about the war in the next four years needs to be about the practical and difficult choices ahead of us—not about the symbolism or whether it’s a second Vietnam."

As Sullivan goes on to discuss, Obama's generational stance--post-Boomer, that is--enables him to move beyond the divides of religion and race and culture that have been played out in every election since at least 1988 (not to mention 1968 and 1972). The notes on religion jibe with a post I wrote in this space earlier this year: Obama offers a third way, beyond the either/or choice of belief or science, and instead points the way to a "both/and" approach--science is true, and so is faith.

As I have already written to friends, I am on the Obama bandwagon. And after this piece from Sullivan, I am even more committed. Friends, his time has come.

Harvey Cox and the Secular-Religious Divide

2007-10-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

One of the core assumptions I bring to my work on campus is that we are entering a new moment in American society. Simply put, people today are hungry for a way to be intellectually honest and still use the language of belief. As a culture, we have come to sense that the insistent secularism of the last generation, while it brought much good, also threw out the baby with the bathwater. There has to be a way to be a smart person who recognizes and believes in science and reason, but who can still have faith in religious traditions and have a relationship with God (albeit a more sophisticated version of the Creator than was perhaps articulated in previous, more authoritarian, generations). As one student so marvelously put it to me a couple of years ago, "We're looking for coherence without codependence." The Democrats are talking about God, for crying out loud; and there's no question in my mind that this is a major part of the appeal of Barack Obama (see a previous post).

On her radio program "Speaking of Faith" this morning, Krista Tippet interviewed Harvard Prof. Harvey Cox. The title of the program is "Beyond the Atheism-Religion Divide," and it's fantastic. Cox offers a wonderful, sensible counterpoint to the strident anti-religion rhetoric of Sam Harris, Daniel Dennet, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, on the one hand, and the strident, anti-modernist fundamentalism of the religious right (and others). Highly recommended.

Peoplehood and Genealogy

2007-08-18T21:06:00.000-07:00

This piece in the New Republic offers a fascinating take on the real and perceived issues of genealogy. In a nutshell, it addresses one of the major questions I find on college campuses these days: How can you explain the idea of Jewish Peoplehood in anything but tribal terms? (The unspoken question behind this one is: "Isn't tribalism a bad thing?")

The author, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, summarizes the facts about how geneaology works: After you get past the great-great-grandparent stage, the level of diluation (remember, you have 16 g-g-ps) is enormous, and leads to the inevitable conclusion that we're all related. So hooray for humanism, and boo to tribalsim.

And yet: Pinker reminds us that in most traditional societies, people generally married their cousins. While there is a slight increase in the risk of genetic disease in this, the social effects are enormous. In fact, Pinker says that the modern concept of society is built on the creation of a trans-family, anti-tribal, national (or even international) identity:

"In the struggle between society and family, the exponential mathematics of kinship ordinarily works to the advantage of society. As time passes or groups get larger, family trees intertwine, dynasties dissipate, and nepotistic emotions get diluted. But families can defend themselves with a potent tactic: they can graft the twig tips of the family tree together by cousin marriage... Not only does cousin marriage amplify the average degree of relatedness among members of the clan, but it enmeshes them in a network of triangular relationships, with kinsmen valuing each other because of their many mutual kin as well as their own relatedness. As a result, the extended family, clan, or tribe can emerge as a powerfully cohesive bloc--and one with little common cause with other families, clans, or tribes in the larger polity that comprises them. The anthropologist Nancy Thornhill has shown that the prohibitions against incestuous marriages in most societies are not public-health measures aimed at reducing birth defects but the society's way of fighting back against extended families. "

Now take this and read the story of the assimilation of American Jews (or any ethnic group in America). Tribal=Arranged-Marriage=Bad, American=Love-Conquers-All=Good, at least in the narrative of American values. And we wonder why base appeals against interfaith marriages from traditional Jews sound, well... racist? (Yet we can't argue with Pinker's logic. In fact he's not making an argument about genes, but about family: common history, language, and values. This is in fact the basis on which I talk to people about marriage choices. If you're interested in building a home in which Jewish life, holidays, and values play a central part, you probably want to choose a partner who does as well.)

Because it's too good to pass up, here's Pinker's conclusion:

"In January 2003, during the buildup to the war in Iraq, the journalist and blogger Steven Sailer published an article in The American Conservative in which he warned readers about a feature of that country that had been ignored in the ongoing debate. As in many traditional Middle Eastern societies, Iraqis tend to marry their cousins. About half of all marriages are consanguineous (including that of Saddam Hussein, who filled many government positions with his relatives from Tikrit). The connection between Iraqis' strong family ties and their tribalism, corruption, and lack of commitment to an overarching nation had long been noted by those familiar with the country. In 1931, King Faisal described his subjects as "devoid of any patriotic idea ... connected by no common tie, giving ear to evil; prone to anarchy, and perpetually ready to rise against any government whatsoever." Sailer presciently suggested that Iraqi family structure and its mismatch with the sensibilities of civil society would frustrate any attempt at democratic nation-building."

Dude.

Revising

2007-05-10T04:50:00.000-07:00

This has been an interesting exercise. I will be the first to admit that I wrote my original letter in haste, and in the age of email, it's always a mistake to press send before you've had 24 hours to think on something like this. I thank everyone who has expressed concern with the tone--including my Rebbeim. You were of course right, and I appreciate your care and willingness to offer tochacha (rebuke). Here's a revised version:

To the editor:

Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu is a great Torah sage. We deeply respect his many contributions to the betterment of the Jewish people and Torah over the course of his life.

That is why we were so saddened to read of the remarks attributed to Rabbi Eliyahu that blamed the Holocaust on the rise of Reform Judaism in Germany. Those words were hurtful to the memory of the victims of the Nazis, survivors of the Shoah, their children and grandchildren. They were also deeply and wrongly offensive to millions for whom the Reform movement constitutes a meaningful and vibrant Jewish community.

Though Rabbi Eliyahu is an Orthodox rabbi and a former Chief Rabbi of Israel, he obviously does not speak for all Orthodox rabbis. So, to Rabbi David Ellenson and to the many Jews offended by Rabbi Eliyahu's words, we wish to state clearly that, though we respect Rabbi Eliyahu's accomplishments, the words attributed to him espoused a theology deeply at odds with our understanding of Torah.

For our part, we are working to bring about the day when Jews, and rabbinic leaders, of all denominational backgrounds can teach and learn from one another, and make common cause in building a people that is a light unto nations.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Joshua Feigelson, Northwestern University Hillel

Speaking up against R' Eliyahu

2007-05-08T07:32:00.000-07:00

See the following article (http://www.forward.com/articles/obscene-orthodox-hatred-demands-a-clear-denunciati/). I will be sending the following to the Forward. Any and all Orthodox rabbis are welcome to sign (please indicate your plan to do so by posting a comment or sending me an email at rabbijosh@northwestern.edu). I will not list institutional afflilation unless explicitly given permission to do so.

To the Editor:

In response to Rabbi David Ellenson's challenge to the Orthodox rabbinate, we, the undersigned Orthodox rabbis, unequivocally condemn the comments of Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu casting blame for the Holocaust at the feet of Reform Jews in Germany. We respect Rabbi Eliyahu as a great Torah sage, his words in this matter were not only hurtful and repugnant, they were a chillul Hashem, a desecration of God's name. They have no place in Orthodoxy or in Torah Judaism.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Joshua Feigelson, Fiedler Hillel at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

'Top Chef' Winner Whips Up Kosher Meal For Hillel - Campus

2007-04-25T05:40:00.000-07:00

'Top Chef' Winner Whips Up Kosher Meal For Hillel - Campus

Jewish Identity

2007-04-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

This interview with Tahl Raz, editor of www.jewcy.com, is one of the most interesting and fun reads on contemporary trends in Jewish identity that I've seen in a while. Check it out.

Maybe it was just one frog?

2007-03-29T05:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2007/03/28/australian_toad_the_size_of_a_small_dog/?p1=MEWell_Pos3

There's an ancient dispute among the Rabbis of the Talmud about whether the plague of frogs in Egypt was a swarming mass of frogs (the dominant opinion) or perhaps one giant frog (the opinion of Rabbi Akiba). While Rabbi Akiba is dismissed even within rabbinic literature on this point--who would think a giant frog would roam the banks of the Nile?--this story out of Australia seems to give him a bit of support. Check out the size of this thing! (Also--I think I'm going to join Frogwatch just to say I'm a member...)

Thoughts on Obama

2007-02-11T12:57:00.000-08:00

What makes Barack so appealing?

1. He's a person of integrity. Not integrity in the sense that he's incorruptible, though there's that. No, it's a deeper sort of integrity that comes across--this sense that he can be a person of deep religious faith (note that he started his speech yesterday by giving "praises and glory to God for bringing us together today") and at the same time be so with it: Intellectually honest, critical, self-aware, a believer in science. He's not a fundamentalist, and he's not a secular rejectionist. To many, he seems to represent the possibility that you can have a deep, tested, and committed sense of faith, without being a wacko.

2. He can communicate with everyone. In the Torah portion that Jews read worldwide yesterday, we recounted the story of the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. Jewish textual tradition provides some amazing images of the paradoxical unity and variety that occurred at the moment of revelation--every person heard God in his or her own voice, and yet they all experienced the revelation the same way. This is related to the integrity point above: Obama is able to communicate with all sorts of people and be genuine; there doesn't--yet, anyway--seem to be the 'black Obama' and the 'white Obama' or the 'Christian Obama' and the 'secular Obama.' It's just him.

3. He inspires people. The NYT pointed out today that Obama's opponents are starting to call him on his lack of details. (Edwards said "Have you seen his health care proposal? I haven't.") But as much as details are important, the greater thing that people want in a president is inspiration, and Obama delivers on this, of course. Yet one has to wonder: hasn't Bush been inspiring Republicans for 6 years (at least certain ones)? Isn't his whole problem the lack of detailed planning? And are we perhaps headed down the same road? This seems like it will be the test for Barack: Give us a reason to trust you.

David Brooks on the pragmatism of today's young people

2007-02-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

So where have I been for the last several months? As much as I'd like to say that starting today I'll be back on my blog regularly, it's a hard promise to keep: blogging takes a regular commitment. But I'll try.

What brings me back today is a nice piece in this morning's New York Times by David Brooks about today's college students and their political attitudes. In particular, Brooks highlights their rejection of ideology in favor of pragmatism, and traces the origins of this attitudes to the ideological battles of the 1990s, which today's young adults seem to reject.

Some questions: While I agree with the shift, do you think that Brooks' diagnosis of the cause is accurate? What about the 'bowling alone' effect: the increasing individualism and corrosion of community-building forces, which have helped create a generation so oriented around self? Is that a part of this at all?

What I find remarkable about the emerging adults I work with is not the attitudes of "I'm spiritual but not religious" or "I'm liberal but not a Democrat"--those attitudes have been around for a long time, and reflect general late adolescent searching for self. What's new, in my estimation, is the general unease this generation has with insititutional identification, whether that's ideology (religious, political, philosophical) or about relationships (marriage, family, etc.).

This is what it means to be a people. This is what makes us different.

2006-07-17T09:32:00.000-07:00

I have to admit I'm very conflicted about all that is taking place in Israel and Lebanon these days. I have recently been reading a lot of William Sloane Coffin, who in many ways I see as a professional role model when it comes to embracing the role of a campus chaplain for the sake of advancing the human condition. And Coffin was clear: War and violence are categorically bad. Nonviolence is the answer. And whether it was in the Civil Rights Movement or the antiwar movement or the anti-nuclear movement, Coffin always preached the gospel of nonviolence. He of course would be condemning Israel right now for killing civilians.

There is a large part of me that finds Coffin's attitude admirable, just as there is much in me that finds admirable teachings in the Christian scriptures. As I put it in an earlier post, I believe we all must weep when a Tzelem Elokim, an Image of God, is wiped out. The idea that human beings are created in God's image is the foundation of Torah, of our idea and respect for and love of life. So to see life destroyed, to see violence done to human beings, to human bodies, to the minds and spirits of children--we must weep in the face of these things.

And yet one of the key differences between Judaism and Christianity is that we as Jews tend to pay more attention to the world as it is experienced. Our utopian, messianic vision awaits fulfillment. And while we strive for it every day, we also value the continued existence of our people and our Torah. There are those who would try to separate the two--who believe that the Torah of Judaism would never allow the kind of exercise of power by Jews that we are witnessing these days. And at one time in my life, I believed that too. But while I do believe that the maintenance and continued vitality of Torah is our paramount value and greatest task, I have also come to believe that the maintenance and continued vitality of the Jewish people is indepsensable to and inseparable from it. You can't have one without the other--you can't have Am Yisrael without Torat Yisrael, the people of Israel without the Torah of Israel; just as you can't have Torat Yisrael without Am Yisrael, the Torah of Israel without the people of Israel.

Jewish identity is therefore dialectical--between the experienced present and the longed-for future; between the Godly ideals of the Torah and the human reality of the Jewish People. And because of that, we wrestle, as our namesake Jacob-Israel did. We are destined to a life of occasional contentment, but more often struggle--because the world as it is requires so much mending. When to side with the messianic and when to side with the realistic--this is the difficult choice Jews constantly face. For Christians the answer is obvious: You side with the messiah, you side with Jesus, you turn the other cheek. Would that it were so simple for the people Israel, for the nation of Israel.

Just before Jacob wrestles with the angel in the book of Genesis, the Torah recounts that heard that his twin brother Esau was on his way to meet him with an army of men. The verse reads, "And Jacob feared, and it troubled him greatly." The great medieval commentator Rashi writes on the seeming redundancy of the verse that, "Jacob feared--that he would be killed; and it troubled him greatly--that he might come to kill." And so Jacob prepared himself for both war and peace, and he prayed.

This is our dilemma in a nutshell. Anyone who has watched the news must be struck by how physically similar the Israelis and the Lebanese (and the Palestinians) look. By virtue of their humanity they are our brothers. And yet the story of Genesis--the story of brothers striving to figure out how to live with one another--continues to ring true.

So for all those reasons, I believe that this a moment like few others when Israel needs our support, our solidarity, and our compassion--but not our critique. Critique can come later. Right now Israel, and the entire Jewish people, is confronting what it means to be a real state in the real world. We are wrestling with God and with man, and we pray that, like Jacob, we will prove ourselves worthy of the task.

Start over - Haaretz - Israel News

2006-07-17T06:23:00.000-07:00

This column by Ari Shavit in today's Haaretz is another important read for anyone conflicted about Israel's military action. Shavit begins by criticizing the performance of the government, and he calls for a unilateral three-day cease-fire from Israel to re-establish the moral high ground and "start the war over" on the right moral footing. But his main point should not be missed:

"The main problem is political. Israel is currently waging the most just war in its history. Not a war of occupation, but rather a war of defense. Not a settlements war, but rather a Green Line war. A war over the validity of an international border that was drawn, defined and recognized by the United Nations. Therefore, anyone who yearns for Israel to withdraw in future from occupied territories to recognized permanent borders must stand by Israel in this war. Anyone who wants peace, stability and an end to the occupation must back up Israel in its just war. The alternative is a violent and hemorrhaging Middle East chaos. "

Overcoming our Inhibitions

2006-07-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

It is a truism (at least to me) that many liberal American Jews are uncomfortable with having power. Support for Israel in these trying times is frequently caveated with words like, "While it's important to support Israel, it's also important to remember our victims."

I admit to being torn myself. I cannot *not* weep for the destruction of a tzelem elohim, an image of God, particularly one in the form of an innocent child.

But let's be clear: This is not a moment for half-hearted support of Israel. This is a moment--particularly for those of us who supported disengagement--to loudly, publicly, and clearly support Israel and her right to use overwhelming force to restore the balance of power.

If you need convincing from the ranks of one of our own, take a look at this article in today's New York Times, which may be the most sympathetic piece of military coverage I have come across in the NYT. This is what it boils down to:

"What seems to be unfolding is an acid test of Israel’s recent strategy of seeking to extricate itself from conflict by building a barrier and generally going it alone, rather than negotiating with its adversaries. On two fronts, its antagonists have found a way to draw Israel back into the gyre. And the Israelis are again trying to extricate themselves — by making the fight even more painful than its enemies had thought it could be."

Yes, it sucks to be the ones dropping bombs and killing people. But you know what sucks more? To be occupying them for decades, and sending our own children to be corrupted by that cancer for a generation. This was the logic of disengagement, that Israel would retreat to internationally-recognized borders, and that when those borders were violated, the response would be immediate, swift, and ruthless. I would rather have these problems than the problems of the past.

Nevertheless, the present moment is scary, for the originating address of both Hamas and Hezbollah is Tehran. None of these guys obeys the normal rules of deterrence. So even as Israel inflicts unheard-of damage on Lebanon (and note how low the civilian death toll is considering the ferocity of the onslaught), you have to wonder what will come next. In the meantime, this is a moment to be a proud and loud Zionist.

Bedfellows

2006-07-04T04:24:00.000-07:00

Check out this article from Haaretz today by Akiva Eldar, particularly the second half, where he points out the beginnings of what could be an interesting development in the relationship of Christians and Israel:

"It is important that we know that the evangelists who are called 'Zionist Christians' are not really 'friends of Israel.' According to them, Jerry Falwell, Gary Bauer and their associates represent at most 25 million people, approximately one quarter of all evangelists. In their books and articles, Steven Sizer, Don Wagner and Ann Helmke cite evidence that fundamentalist Christian doctrine, which does not recognize the rights of the Palestinians, does not contain any form of concern for the welfare of the State of Israel. And the same is true of Jesus' doctrine. Sizer argues that behind the love of Israel, the Zionist Christians are concealing an intense anti-Semitism. His organization is behind the boycott of American companies, such as bulldozer manufacturer Caterpillar, whose equipment is being used to harm the population of the occupied territories.

Even in the U.S. Congress, several loyal evangelists have started raising their voices against Israel's policy toward the Palestinian civilians. Harm to the rights of Muslims is not keeping them awake at night. When the bulldozers disrupt the lives of faithful Christians, the chairman of the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Henry Hyde, a Catholic, cannot restrain himself. Last Friday, he quoted in Congress from a State Department report that said the concrete wall around Jerusalem is hindering the path of the Palm Sunday procession, which commemorates Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem.

'I have been unable to understand how the currently routed barrier in Jerusalem - which rips asunder the existential poles of Christian belief, the Nativity and the Resurrection, and encloses 200,000 Palestinians on the Jerusalem side of the barrier ? will improve the security of Israel's citizens,' the senior Republican represen"

The New Republic: Darfur

2006-05-16T13:29:00.000-07:00

Last week's issue of The New Republic was entirely devoted to Darfur, including a stark front-cover editorial that begins with: "Never again? What nonsense. Again and again is more like it. In Darfur, we are witnessing a genocide again, and again we are witnessing ourselves witnessing it and doing nothing to stop it." This is a powerful piece, and worth taking a long look at.

On a related note, check out today's New York Times which reports on an encouraging Security Council resolution that puts some teeth into the U.N. peacekeeping role.

Slavery and Kashrut

2006-05-15T12:34:00.000-07:00

This review of "Inhuman Bondage" by Prof. David Davis of Yale is well worth a read. Prof. Davis has been one of the most important people in putting the discussion of slavery onto the world's agenda, and this book gets a glowing review.

The most interesting graf to me is this one:

"Tracing slavery back to its beginnings, Davis links it to the domestication of wild animals. Associations with animals range from Aristotle's musing that an ox is a poor man's slave to the brutish treatment of enslaved people — throughout history, slaves, like domesticated beasts, have been given the names of barnyard animals and household pets, branded with hot irons and forced to wear collars, making it easy for slave masters to dehumanize them. Although the masters often rationalized slavery as a variation of patriarchal paternalism, Davis sees bestialization as the means by which slaveholders elevated themselves, creating the illusion that they enjoyed 'something approaching divine power.'"

The French philosopher Emanuel Levinas, among others, finds the center of Judaism in the attempt to condition human beings away from abusing one another and towards concern and empathy with beings beyond ourselves. Hence the story of liberation from slavery becomes the central narrative of Jewish life. In this paragraph, Davis appears to be arguing that slavery--one of the ultimate expressions of dehuanization--finds its roots in humans' treatment of animals. Levinas would argue that the laws of Kashrut and rules against cruelty to animals are part of the broader Jewish vision of promoting mercy. In light of recent revelations of abuses at kosher slaughterhouses, I find this message particularly powerful. If we turn a blind eye to inhumane practices of animal treatment and slaughter, can our meat really be kosher? Are we being true to the deepest essence of Torah?

Organ Donation

2006-05-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

Here's an important question and answer I recently had from a student, on a subject of utmost importance.

Shalom Rabbi Josh,I was wondering, what does the Judaism (or if the opinions are split what domain branches of it) say about being an organ donor? And what do youhonestly think? I'm not exactly sure of Judaism's stance on after life butwould organ donation affect any aspect of this in any way (so let's say if alot of a person was disassembled. how would it affect the preservation ofthe soul in your opinion). And lastly independent of the above ( and sorryif this is personal, you don't have to answer) would you become an organ donor?

Dear____,

Thanks for your question. I'm actually considering speaking about this next fall during Yom Kippur. Judaism's approach to organ donation is fundamentally a conflict between the overriding principle of 'pikuach nefesh,' or the duty to protect and save human life, versus another important principle of 'nivul ha-met,' or treating a human corpse with the utmost respect. There is virtually no disagreement that organ donation after death, when it leads to saving a life, is at least commendable and possibly obligatory. The disagreement among Orthodox authorities has to do with the definition of death--whether it occurs with the cessation of brain activity (brain death) or the cessation of heart beat. If the latter, there are many fewer organs that can be harvested; if the former, virtually all organs are usable.

I personally subscribe to the view that the end of brain activity marks death, and have myself signed up to be an organ donor. More information on this topic can be found at www.hods.org, the Halakhic Organ Donor Society.

As to the question of what this does to the soul, resurrection, etc.: On eschatological topics such as these, there are a wide range of opinions. In general, however, the ability to save a life in this world always trumps open-ended questions about our existence in the next. The Torah famously says 'v'chai bahem'--we are supposed to live by the mitzvot, to which Rabbi Akiba added, 'v'lo yamutu,' and not to die by them. Our tradition is one that upholds the value of human life above anything else.

Best,

Rabbi Josh

Perceptions III

2006-05-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

One final thought, which has to do with how the Jewish community responds to criticism of Israel, of support for Israel (as in the Walt-Mearsheimer paper), of Holocaust scholarship (as in the recent visit of Norman Finkelstein to NU's campus): A lot of this boils down to how we each individually, and collectively, answer the question, "Are Jews powerful?"

For my parents' generation, which lived through the Six-Day War, which grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust, which lived with the remnants of quotas in universities, the answer to that question seemed, for a long time at least, to be emphatically "No." For people of my generation, however, who have grown up with an Israel that dwarfs its neighbors in military power and economic output; in an America in which Jewish wealth and political power have achieved unprecedented levels; and an academic setting in which 85 percent of American Jews go to college, and 20 to 25 percent of the student population at many of America's best universities are Jews, the answer feels much more like, "Of course Jews are powerful."

Depending on how we answer this question--and it's never so simple as "yes" or "no"--we assume a posture vis-a-vis the rest of the world. If we say Jews are weak, we invest much more in shoring up the Jewish community and its institutions, and we respond to criticism and perceived threats with all our might, with our loudest and shrillest voice. But if we say Jews are strong, we begin to think about investing our efforts outside the Jewish community--because the Jews don't need us, right?. We respond to criticism and perceived threats strategically, sometimes avoiding them or dealing with them quietly, rather than loudly and publicly.

In the past few months at NU, we have endured Arthur Butz and Norman Finkelstein. We have also had the occasional letter to the editor (see below) which paints a very negative portrait of Israel and potentially of Jewish power. Some alums and concerned parties write me emails asking, "Where is Hillel's loud and vociferous reponse?"

Perhaps because I am a child of the generation into which I was born, perhaps for other reasons, I believe our best response is not an argument or debate, but putting on our best face. So I rode on the bus with 100 NU students coming back to Chicago from the DC rally to save Darfur; and Hillel sponsored the Israel IndepenDANCE party, where 500 kids danced and moved and rocked to Israeli music.

The public consciousness--at least the one I'm familiar with--has tired of the debates of victimhood, and who suffered more. It's time to end the suffering, of the Jews, of the Palestinians, of the Darfuri. We all agree on that. So let's end the suffering. Let's get out of Gaza, let's get out of the West Bank, let's do what we can to help the Palestinians succeed--it's in our own interest--and let's demand some responsibility from them. But let's not kid ourselves or let our neighbors kid themselves--we may be powerful, and we will do everything we can, but at the end of the day, the victim has to want to stop being a victim if he is ever going to be whole.

Perceptions II: Letters in the Daily

2006-05-11T19:10:00.000-07:00

A series of Letters to the Editor in the Daily Northwestern over the last few days have underscored some essential issues in the question of how different communities perceive reality. Two letters have appeared which accuse Israel of perpetuating crimes against the Palestinian people.

Okay, nothing new there. But the letters seem to be written in a reality before August 2005--neither makes any mention of the Gaza disengagement, of the political earthquake that has occurred in Israel since Ariel Sharon left the Likud in December 2005, or of the election in Israel in which the public voted for a Prime Minister committed to withdrawing Israelis from most of the West Bank by 2008.

When Nitesh Gandhi writes of the numbers of Israeli soldiers who have committed suicide in the last ten years, he doesn't take the next step and say: Yes, and this is why Israeli soceity has realized it's time to get out of the territories! Israelis are tired of sending their children to die for an ideology they no longer believe in, and a mission they no longer support. Hence Kadima, hence Olmert, hence the "Big Bang" of Israeli politics.

Perception of Jews I: Muslims and Darfur

2006-05-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

Apologies again for a long absence. A number of articles to tie together on the theme of Jewish self-perception and perception of Jews by others, starting with this one:

From the Toronto Globe and Mail

Wednesday, May 3, 2006

Darfur: Why Are We Muslims So Silent?
By Tarek Fatah

Tarek Fatah is host of a weekly TV show on CTS-TV, The Muslim Chronicle, and is the communication director of the Muslim Canadian Congress.

The remark by a prominent Muslim refugee-rights activist troubled me greatly: "Zionists [are] abusing this issue," he announced curtly when he said he would not be joining me and hundreds of other people on Sunday at a "Scream for Darfur" rally at Queen's Park in Toronto.

This line of thinking, that Jews have somehow stolen the issue of Darfur's genocide by actively campaigning against it, has been making the rounds in cyberspace and needs a rebuttal.The fact that more than 200,000 Darfurians, almost all of them Muslims, have been killed in an ongoing genocide; the fact that more than a million Muslim Darfurians are displaced refugees living in squalor and fear, appears not to have registered with the leadership of traditional Muslim organizations and mosques in this country.

One would have expected Muslim organizations to be leading the call for this week's debate on Darfur in Parliament. One expected them this past weekend to stand in solidarity with their fellow Muslims suffering in Sudan, but that did not happen. The city's Muslim elite was conspicuous by its absence.

Elfadl Elsharief, the Muslim Sudanese who organized the rally, angrily dismissed the notion that the Darfur tragedy is an exaggeration and that he and his organizers were being used by Zionists."It is nonsense to suggest that the death, destruction and the suffering of the Darfurian people is imaginary or that Zionists are using us as propaganda," he told me at the rally. "The Sudanese government-backed militias are the people who are killing their fellow Sudanese. The tragedy is that it is Muslims who are killing other Muslims."

Indeed, it certainly appears that some kind of Arabic-Islamic ideology is being used in Sudan to ethnically cleanse marginalized citizens who are not considered true Muslims by virtue of being black. "To suggest that this is some sort of a U.S.-Israel conspiracy is ludicrous and insane," said Mr. Elsharief. "Muslims of Arab background should stand shoulder to shoulder with the Darfurian Muslims; unfortunately, they are not. That is a shame," he added, as he walked away shaking his head in despair.

Mr. Elsharief's frustration was shared by Mohamed Haroun, the eloquent president of the [Darfur] Association of Canada. "A lot of us feel that some Muslims, who dominate the community, do not consider us African Muslims as equals. I am afraid there is widespread racism against African Muslims by other Muslims. How many more Darfuri Muslims should die before other Muslims will stand up against the Sudanese government?"

The sentiments of hurt expressed by my two Sudanese Muslim colleagues are shared by Muslims across the world, but do not find expression in the Muslim leadership. Last month, Fatema Abdul Rasul wrote angrily in The Daily Star of Lebanon: "For the entire Muslim and Arab world to remain silent when thousands of people in Darfur continue to be killed is shameful and hypocritical."El-Farouk Khaki, the immigration lawyer who was accused of being used by Zionists because he had sent out the invitation to Sunday's rally, agreed that there is widespread internal discrimination within some Muslim societies. "This is racism at its worst. I am an African-Canadian; I can tell you in no uncertain terms that the Darfur crisis has not made news in the traditional Muslim organizations because Darfurians are black. Had they been Bosnian, Kosovar, Arab, Pakistani or Iranian, I can bet you, these grounds would have been full of slogan-chanting Muslims demanding justice. Muslims need to address their internalized racism before they ask others to respect us," said Mr. Khaki, who is secretary-general of the Muslim Canadian Congress.

How to read the Bible

2006-03-23T13:39:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, Rabbi David Wolpe got into a heap of trouble after he gave a sermon on Passover. I honestly don't remember whether the question that got him in trouble was, "Did the Exodus happen?" or "Does it matter if the Exodus happened?" I'd be more inclined to ask the latter than the former. Regardless, the reaction of many was fierce and swift: "Off with his head."

The thing is, Wolpe is right to ask the question. And now that we find ourselves in an historical moment with the notions of faith and history, belief and science, are at odds; when the idea of faith itself is subject to all sorts of understandings; and when the clash-of-civilizations-that-doesn't-exist (ahem) is consuming lives and resources--it is a prescient question, an important and central question as we prepare to observe Passover.

Let's cut to the chase: It doesn't matter whether there is archaeological evidence to support the Biblical account of the Exodus, just as it frankly doesn't matter if there is cosmic evidence to support the Biblical account of Creation. I'm with Leon Wieseltier and the many others who less pugnaciously say that to subject faith to science cheapens both faith and science. The point of the Exodus is less whether or not it happened than the fact that the Jewish people has made the story of its enslavement and liberation the central story of its existence. Yosef Yerushalmi wrote a whole book on this subject, the difference between history and memory (Zakhor, which if you haven't read, you should immediately). It is memory, the stories we choose to tell ourselves, that motivates faith and the world of the spirit, not its confirmation in the world of fact.

This review of Garry Wills's latests book, What Jesus Meant, eloquently makes the point: 'To read the Gospels in teh pirit with which they were written, it is not enough to ask what Jesus did or said,' Wills writes, 'We must ask what Jesus meant by his strange words and deeds... Trying to find a construct, like the historical Jesus, is... mixing categories, or rather wholly different worlds of discourse. The only Jesus we have is the Jesus of faith. If you reject the faith, there is no reason to trust anything the Gospels say.'

Okay, so replace 'Jesus' with 'Moses' and 'Gospels' with 'Torah.' The point remains: It's all well and good to study the history of the Exodus or the Israelites. In fact, it's important, and it informs our reading of the Bible. But, that's not the stuff that motivates faith. It is not the stuff you put at the core of religious experience, as the Conservative movement has all to painfully learned over the last generation. As one of my teachers used to say, "It's religion--it's supposed to be spooky." Or as another said, "At the center of religion must be religious experience." It's about God, it's about the spirit; it's about the complex stuff that lies beyond language, beyond numbers, beyond facts.

The theology of wikipedia?

2006-03-21T05:26:00.000-08:00

Wikipedia, the open-source knowledge base that has become the most-used encyclopedia in the world, has been in the news a lot of late, with a number of stories about the limits of open-sourcing knowledge. This article from today's New York Times is just the latest to mention some of the issues.

The idea behind wikipedia is open-source, a concept that works well in the software world, in which a software writer allows his or her product to be tinkered with and improved upon by anyone and everyone in an attempt to create the most usable product possible. Wiki just takes it one step further--rather than open-sourcing computer code, it open-sources knowledge. Why have a single editor when you can have millions of people responsible for the content of a shared knowledge base?

There are some major philosophical, and even theological issues, raised here. In many ways the wiki movement represents the apotheosis of modernity--we have shaken off the shackles of religious and political power concentration in the hands of the few, and now we set our sights on knowledge itself. Knowledge has become democratized. Wonderful.

But, as any number of stories in recent months have illustrated, this is not a failsafe system. Like any large organism, there are unwanted parts that impinge on the purity of the wiki enterprise. Not to mention the question of the individual user, who has to ask, "Do I trust some guy in Kansas City to tell me about the history of Rhodesia or the molecular composition of feldspar?" We presumably have to ask the same question about the editor at Brittanica, too, but someone's livelihood is at stake in that case, so presumably we can put more stock in what they have to say.

From a theological perspective, one wonders whether the Wiki phenomenon represents the fruition of the understanding of the Revelation at Sinai conveyed in the midrash: That God spoke to 600,000 people simultaneously, and yet everyone heard the voice of God in the voice appropriate for them--old people in the voice of old people, babies in the voice of babies, etc. Or, as the Talmud mentions, the notion that the voice of God was the voice of Moses. Does Wiki mark our entrance into a world in which the subjective and objective are joined? Where knowledge--which we have for so long thought of as objectively true or false--is still true or false, but dependent, and indeed the product of, thousands of human minds?

The benefit of believing in revelation, when it comes to stuff like this, is that it posits the existence of some absolute in which to ground our knowledge (and our morality). Does Wiki represent a step towards or away from God? Is it a a moment of Sinai, or a new incarnation of the Tower of Babel?

Edah Editorial on Dialogue

2006-03-19T05:53:00.000-08:00

My apologies for the lack of posts in recent days. I have a backlog of material to get through, so there should be a lot coming in the next week.

To start with, here is a piece of mine that appeared as this week's "Edah Editorial," on the necessity of dialogue.

The Four Sons: Foreign Policy Edition

2006-03-10T09:41:00.000-08:00

As we approach the Passover season, this piece from New Republic Editor Peter Beinart is well worth a read. We often spend lots of time at our Passover Seders talking about the Four Sons--The wise, the wicked, the simple and the one who does not know how to ask. The point of the exercise, in many seders, is to develop typologies of learning, to emphasize that one size does not fit all.

Now why does a foreign policy piece in TNR remind me of the Seder? Beinart paraphrases Walter Russell Mead and brings the following typology:

"Wilsonians believe America must make the world safe for liberty. Hamiltonians believe America must make the world safe for commerce. Jeffersonians fear that both of these crusades threaten liberty at home. And Jacksonians believe in destroying America's enemies and defending America's sovereignty, no matter what the rest of the world thinks. "

In the aftermath of 9/11, nationalism (Jacksonianism here) was rampant. But, "when it turned out Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, the Jacksonian rationale for war collapsed. The Hamiltonian one--that we needed Iraq's oil because we could no longer rely on a decaying Saudi Arabia--dared not speak its name. So Bush drifted in an increasingly Wilsonian direction. By 2005, freeing the Middle East had become his central rhetorical thrust. And, ever since, Bush's foreign policy has had three characteristics: Wilsonian (the crusade for democracy), Hamiltonian (securing oil), and Jacksonian (doing "whatever it takes" to defeat the terrorists, civil liberties and international opinion be damned). "

Which brings us to the Dubai ports deal that fell apart for good this morning: "for Jacksonians, it is never worth sacrificing concrete U.S. interests to make foreigners feel better. A couple of years ago, that was the dominant sentiment in Bush foreign policy. Today, however, with Cheney's influence waning, Condoleezza Rice trying to mend fences with U.S. allies, and Bush obsessed with spreading freedom, the administration's Wilsonianism seems to be eclipsing its Jacksonianism.

"Considering that Jacksonianism has been Bush's political trump card since September 11, this is a big change. And it has created exactly the opening that Mead envisioned at the end of his book: for Jacksonians to make common cause with Jeffersonians and turn the foreign policy coalition of the '90s on its head."

The appeal to the Four Sons is obviously a cheap one. But there are some deeper questions of Passover that all this raises, for Passover is the holiday of Jewish nationalism, the day on which we focus on indoctrinating our national story to ourselves and the next generation. Foreigners are not allowed to eat of the Passover sacrifice, according to Exodus. So Passover is our most particularistic holiday.

And yet, the messages of Passover--liberation, freedom, human rights--have become the bedrock of liberalism and democracy. How then is that story a Jewish story? Does particularlism necessitate exclusivity? How do we maintain our specialness as Jews while integrating ourselves into the world? These questions are very much alive and well (Zionism is still in need of defense), and they percolate here in the background.

Bring Back Shabbat

2006-03-05T06:21:00.000-08:00

So far I have used this blog primarily to talk about political stuff, eschewing the religious. But I'm a rabbi, after all, so it was only a matter of time before I wrote something about Judaism and not only Jewishness.

Over this past Shabbat there was a moment when my wife and kids were having a relaxed lunch together, and I turned to Natalie and said, "You know, this (family time, that is) wouldn't really be possible without the way we observe Shabbat." By which I meant that, without our commitment--yes, religious commitment--to not turning on the TV or answering the phone or using the computer or going out places, our regular instincts to do those things would most certainly overtake us. In the world in which we live, in which our many relationships with other people and things drive so many of our lives, the holy space made possible by Shabbat really is, as Abraham Joshua Heschel called it, a palace in time.

A few years ago, on this weekend, the New York Times ran a piece by Judith Shulevitz called "Bring Back Shabbat." The whole text is available here (or at the NYT website, for a fee). It's a wonderful essay, and the following paragraphs are especially worth reading:

"The Israelite Sabbath institutionalized an astonishing, hitherto undreamed-of notion: that every single creature has the right to rest, not just the rich and the privileged. Covered under the Fourth Commandment are women, slaves, strangers and, improbably, animals. The verse in Deuteronomy that elaborates on this aspect of the Sabbath repeats, twice, that slaves were not to work, as if to drive home what must have been very hard to understand in the ancient world. The Jews were meant to perceive the Sabbath not only as a way to honor God but also as the central vehicle of their liberation theology, a weekly reminder of their escape from their servitude in Egypt.

"In other words, we have the Sabbath to thank for labor legislation and for our belief that it is wrong for employers to drive their employees until they drop from exhaustion. So what do we do, today, with this remarkable heritage, which in the last century expanded to a generous two days, rather than just one? Much more than our ancestors could ever have imagined, and much, much less. We relax on the run and, in rare bursts of free time, we recreate. We choose from a dizzying array of leisure options and pursue them with an exemplary degree of professionalism and perfectionism. We rush our children from activity to activity, their days a blur of tight connections.

"And yet there are important ways in which even our impressive recreational creativity fails to reproduce the benefits of the Sabbath. Few elective activities will ever rise to a status higher than work in our minds, and therefore cannot be relied upon to counterbalance our neurotic drive to achieve. Most of us will jettison plans to go skiing if a deadline looms near. We will assign a high priority to a non-work-related hobby only if we have committed to it in some public manner, as we do when we join a volleyball team or a choir. (Oddly, one of the few times a parent can truly relax is when lingering on the sidelines of a child's baseball or soccer game; there is nothing like being forced to be somewhere and do very little for an hour and a half to declench the muscles of the mind.)"

Shulevitz goes on, and it's worth reading the whole piece. But my point is simply that, in whatever way you observe Shabbat, observing Shabbat religiously is important, perhaps more important than ever.

George Will on David Irving

2006-02-27T12:17:00.000-08:00

George Will always deserves reading--his thought is honest, and his writing is clear and thoughtful. This piece, from yesterday's Washington Post, is no exception. Will shows the folly of Europe's laws banning Holocaust denial--as he says in the opening line, "In some recess of David Irving's reptile brain, he knows that his indefensible imprisonment is helping his side."

Will takes his sentiments to their logical conclusion, arguing against any limitations on speech, including--his pet issue--campaign finance laws. He also objects to the category of hate crimes, which draws its justification from the same well.

I happen to agree with most of Will's column (as, to my surprise, I frequently do; would that all conservatives were as seemingly honest and wrote as clearly). Though I would open up the question on hate crimes: Doesn't the motivation for hate crimes--to give the less-powerful ammunition against the more-powerful (think lynchings in the South)--stem from a similar place as the victims' rights movement?

Will's point is that simply enforcing our laws equitably is what ensures the greatest liberty for the greatest number. True. So we shouldn't be making any special provisions for the less powerful (minorities--or victims). I want to believe that such an approach works. But Will assumes perfect efficiency the administration of the law, something our history does not reflect. In the words of Colin Powell, "Power corrupts, and absolute power is pretty neat."

The effect of hate crime, or victims rights, or Holocaust denial legislation is to move public sentiment--to carry out crimes is bad enough, to do so with these narratives becomes worse. But to twist legitimate power according to these narratives is also bad (see "Wallace, George"). I agree with Will that criminal legislation is not the way to educate; yet our law codes do necessarily reflect our social values. The question for George Will, and all of us who value freedom of speech above nearly everything else, is: How do we educate the public towards tolerance, respect, a liberal ideals (small L) in ways that don't involve government coercion?

Dubai: The Dems hit the bottom, and Bush finds a graceful exit strategy

2006-02-27T10:01:00.000-08:00

It was refreshing to hear of a graceful leadership move on the part of the Bush Administration this morning, as the Dubai-based company seeking management of six U.S. ports voluntarily (nudge-nudge, wink-wink, as reported in yesterday's NYT) asked for a full review of the deal. Everyone's interest is served: Congress, who gets to say they were tough on security; Bush, who gets to say he was right all along; and Dubai, which will get the contract at the end of the day.

There are two frustrating elements to this story: One is that Bush brought this upon himself by not doing the review process publicly to begin with. Yes, this kind of thing goes on all the time in the running of the U.S. government, but as Daniel Shor said last week on NPR, these days, when the word 'Arab' is involved, you have to be careful. Sad but true. It was Bush's stupidity or hubris (take your pick) that led to this situation.

But I could expect secrecy from the president. What else is new? What was more disturbing was the scaremongering of the Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Exclude a company from a contract simply because they're Arab-owned? Jews have a special role to play here in being sensitive to this kind of thing: The issue should be one of merit, not ethnicity. If you can do the job--which includes making sure security isn't breached--at the lowest price, you get the job, case closed. Good for Congress that it spoke up, but shame for the way much of it was done.

Never Again Campaign passes 5,000 signatures!

2006-02-26T11:20:00.000-08:00

Hats off to the over 5,000 people who have signed the Never Again Campaign petition! This is a major achievement for the organizers of the campaign, and a tremendous statement of support for the students of Northwestern. How soon will it reach 10,000?

What other country needs a right to exist?

2006-02-26T11:17:00.000-08:00

Here's a great piece from today's issue of Haaretz that points up the singular status of Israel in the world. About what other nation do we ask the question, "Does it have a right to exist?" To quote: "Hamas must now come to grips with the possibility that if it insists on withholding recognition of Israel's right to exist as a nation, some of the Palestinians' traditional allies in Europe and elsewhere may begin to withhold recognition of the right of Palestine to exist as a future nation." Or maybe not.

Slavery Still Exists--In Israel of All Places

2006-02-20T13:06:00.000-08:00

Every year on Passover Jews recite a text from the Haggadah that reads, "In every generation one is commanded to view himself as if he personally had left Egypt." It takes a lot for us to make those words meaningful, because we are fortunate to live in good conditions, with unprecedented access to food, water, shelter, health care, and education. We psychologize about what slavery means: "You can't be a slave to work:" or "Liberate yourself from your addiction to money."

But the truth is, slavery still exists, all over the world. What is perhaps most shocking for many Jews is that slavery exists in our very own state. This is a story that has not gotten much publicity, but one which needs to be told. It is a cause I have been involved with for a few years, particularly through my mentor and friend Rabbi Levi Lauer, founder of ATZUM (www.atzum.org). And so it was very heartening to see the following editorial in this week's Jewish Week.

2006-02-20T10:19:00.000-08:00

Rabbi Josh

One of Butz's comrades admits his errors in court--again

2006-02-20T09:11:00.000-08:00

Irving admits Holocaust 'mistake'
The timing really couldn't be any better. We can quibble about whether or not it's a good idea for Holocaust denial to be illegal in Europe, but we can't argue about the truth. Seems neither can David Irving anymore.

Very important article from NYT on Palestinian elections

2006-02-20T05:51:00.000-08:00

Check out this piece by James Glanz from yesterday's Week in Review section of The New York Times. Glanz quotes extensively from Jarret Blanc, an American elections expert, who points out that, in fact, Hamas received fewer votes overall than Fatah in nearly every district, including in Gaza. Yet, because of the "bloc voting" mechanism that Fatah originally stuck into the election law in order to ensure their hegemony, Hamas was able to sweep the vote.

There are potentially some important implications here: If the Hamas vote really was about protesting the corruption of the PA, as many have suggested, then this gives Israel ammunition to stick to a hard-line policy. On that score, I would also recommend this very interesting article from the New Republic a couple of weeks ago that argues for just such a policy. In shades of the Cold War strategy of spending the USSR into oblivion, Joseph Braude argues for letting Hamas turn to Iran for support.

Arab "views" of the Holocaust

2006-02-20T05:44:00.000-08:00

On this afternoon's edition of The World on NPR, listen in for a segment on how the Holocaust is viewed in Egypt, as embelmatic of many Arab countries. Suffice it to say that, while our local Holocaust denier here at Northwestern can cause (hopefully) a limited amount of confusion, in the hands of government and educators Holocaust denial can be and is used for hateful and destructive purposes.

Lipstadt Weighs In

2006-02-20T05:41:00.000-08:00

This article from today's Daily Northwestern is by preeminent Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt. I hope it effectively puts to rest any confusion that Arthur Butz's academic credentials may have brought about. She went to court to prove his falsehoods, and those of his cronies, were just that--devoid of any legitimacy, and she won. Case closed.

Why The Daily Editorial Was Wrong

2006-02-16T09:07:00.000-08:00

Ever since the entire Arthur Butz episode erupted (see the website www.neveragaincampaign.org for links to all the relevant materials), the overarching question has focused not so much on Butz's views (which are overwhelmingly discredited) but on free speech. In the background of the discussion is the current furor in Europe which aims to pit the right to freedom of the press against respect for religious sensibilities. And further in the background we have some meta-questions about the distinction between fact and story (see Oprah v. James Frey, or reality television, or critiques of the Iraq war). I want to engage some of these questions over this blog.

But that's a lot to tackle right now. In the meantime, let's look at one manifestation of these issues, in this morning's editorial from the The Daily Northwestern, explaining their decision to invite Arthur Butz to write a column:

"By publishing Butz, we hope readers looked past the byline and read the content. People hear the term “Holocaust revisionist” and jump to their own conclusions. If Butz’s comments were violent and or hateful, we wouldn’t have run them. Through the column, The Daily hoped to facilitate a more educated debate over Butz’s beliefs. If the comments on dailynorthwestern.com are any indication, that debate has begun."

Some unpacking, please:
1. "we hope readers looked past the byline and read the content." But isn't the issue here precisely the fact that Butz uses his Northwestern credential as his ticket to legitimacy? If he wasn't an NU prof., we wouldn't bothering with any of this. So you can't look past the byline in this case. No one, including the Daily, disputes the facts. So then why dispute the facts? The issue, as we all know, is the byline.

2. "People hear the term “Holocaust revisionist” and jump to their own conclusions." Yes, and people hear the term 'journalist' and jump to their own conclusions. Just because Armstrong Williams presents himself as a journalist doesn't mean he abides by the standards of journalism; and just because Arthur Butz presents himself as an (armchair) historian doesn't mean he abides by the standards of historical study. Would the Daily have published a piece, claiming to be factual (and was it claiming to be factual when it was printed on the opinion page? Interesting question.), by a discredited journalist? I would hope not. So why publish a piece by a discredited historian?

Additionally, the Daily was played here just like so many others: There is a difference between 'revisionism,' which is a legitimate form of historical inquiry, and 'denial,' which rejects facts that have been univeresally accepted by the community of scholars. Arthur Butz is a denier who presents himself as a revisionist, a wolf in sheep's clothing.

3. "If Butz’s comments were violent and or hateful, we wouldn’t have run them." What's the standard here? For many people, whose parents and grandparents still wake up with nightmares about Nazi deathcamps, Butz's words are violent and hateful. At best the Daily editors display insensitivity to many people.

4. "Through the column, The Daily hoped to facilitate a more educated debate over Butz’s beliefs." Which means you found his beliefs worthy of debate. Like one of today's letter writers, I would prefer to see the Daily's precious resources--the "Forum" on campus!--devoted to serious discussion. A debate about free speech is interesting and worthwhile. A debate about Arthur Butz's discredited delusions is another, and doesn't belong in the Daily.