Rabbi Jason Miller

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Top Rabbis & Ketuba Witnesses

Newsweek's second annual ranking of the top rabbis in the country has been posted to the Newsweek website. This year, the list is called "Top fifty influential rabbis in America" and the creators (media execs Michael Lynton, Gary Ginsberg, and Jay Sanderson) explain their point system (20 points for being "known," 10 points for communal leadership, and so on). They also have created a second listing of the top pulpit (congregational) rabbis in the country.

I was thrilled to see my extremely talented classmate, Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum, make that list. She is the founder and rabbi of Kavana in Seattle. It is also wonderful to see that my colleague, Rabbi Sharon Brous, made both lists. She is the founding rabbi of Ikar in Los Angeles.

Of course, Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in LA was ranked the #1 pulpit rabbi in the country and deservingly so. Rabbi Jack Moline, a Conservative rabbi in Alexandria, Virginia, was listed at #3. I've always admired Jack and am happy that he was recognized by being ranked so high on the list. I first met Jack in 1999 when I spoke at his congregation, Agudas Achim, for a Seminary Shabbat.

I recall a funny story Jack Moline told me about his first experience meeting President Bill Clinton. Jack visited the White House weekly to study Torah with his friend and congregant Rahm Emanuel (left), the Illinois Congressman. Emanuel, then senior advisor to President Clinton, had an office in the West Wing. Jack always went to the White House with Kosher corned beef sandwiches for Emanuel and him to enjoy. He was also always prepared to stand at a moment's notice and greet the President with the traditional Jewish blessing one says upon meeting a head of state. One day during a Moline-Emanuel chavruta session, the President walked into Rahm Emanuel's office to chat about a basketball game when Jack jumped up with a mouth full of corned beef trying to utter the blessing.

That story came to mind the other day when I read an article about Rep. Rahm Emanuel in Newsweek magazine. The article theorized that Emanuel ("Rahmbo") might be the most likely Democratic Party leader to be the one to encourage Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race should Barack Obama continue to be the front runner. Why Emanuel? Because, the article explains, he is close to the Clintons from his years campaining for them and serving in the Clinton White House. And he is close to the Obama campaign as well based on his long standing friendship with Obama's campaign strategist, David Axelrod.

How close is Emanuel with Axelrod? "So close," Newsweek states, "that Axelrod signed the ketuba, a Jewish marriage contract, at Emanuel's wedding, an honor that usually goes to a best friend."

So there you have it: Newsweek magazine... ranking rabbis and outing politicos as ketuba witnesses!

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Jewish, Politics, Rabbi

Monday, February 11, 2008

Rabbinical Assembly Speakers

Last month I blogged about Rep. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress, when he announced his retirement as a result of his being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. Tom Lantos passed away this morning in Bethesda naval hospital. He was 80-years-old. I feel fortunate to have had the chance to meet Rep. Lantos this past March at the AIPAC Policy Conference in D.C.

Tom Lantos was a real mentsch and an important voice for human rights in Congress, even if he would never have been allowed to speak at a Rabbinical Assembly convention. Since Tom Lantos was married to a non-Jewish woman (in photo), he would have been forbidden from addressing the Rabbinical Assembly during its annual convention. As a dues-paying member of the Conservative Movement's Rabbinical Assembly, I was surprised this week to learn of this policy.

A JTA article explains the little known RA policy prohibiting intermarried Jews from being speakers at the RA Convention. Therefore, the article states, it was difficult for the RA to maintain a balance between speakers on the right and left of the political aisle at this week's convention in D.C. So, while Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is speaking at the Convention, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (married to a non-Jew) will not be allowed to. The policy even applies to non-Jews who have married Jews making Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ineligible. Each of these men are married to Jewish women (to be fair, Reid's wife converted from Judaism to Mormonism so I'm not sure why he's still blacklisted).

I can understand the RA choosing not to invite intermarried speakers to address the Convention if they are only going to promote intermarriage as a virtuous decision, but I don't believe that choice has to be crafted into a written policy. I wonder if the RA asks all speakers at the Convention to disclose the religion of their spouse when they are invited to speak.

This policy would preclude a lot of politicians, business leaders, authors, and entertainers from speaking at RA conventions. For instance, Christina Aguilera would not be able to perform at an RA Convention (I'd pay to see that!) or speak about what it is like raising her son in the Jewish tradition (married to the Jewish Jordan Bratman, the couple's son recently had his bris). This policy would also prohibit Jon Stewart from speaking at the RA Convention since he married Tracey McShane, a non-Jewish woman.

As the Conservative Movement tries to reach out to interfaith families through edud (insiration and encouragement), it would be helpful for Conservative rabbis to hear from couples who are living in interfaith relationships. However, under this policy it would be impossible for speakers like Jim Keen, an outspoken gentile father committed to raising Jewish children, to be allowed to speak at an RA convention.

Rabbi Bradley Artson, dean of the Ziegler rabbinical school in Los Angeles, said "It's the right priority, but the policy isn't the right policy for the goal."

My sense is that this policy will soon be reversed. It is possible for the Rabbinical Assembly and Conservative Judaism to stand firmly against intermarriage without barring speakers who happen to be married to members of another religion.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Interfaith, Jewish, Politics, Rabbi

Friday, February 01, 2008

Mitzvah Children

There was a time when the Conservative Movement's law committee (the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards) did not publish its teshuvot (Jewish legal responsa). Twenty-five Conservative rabbis would sit in a room debating and eventually voting on matters of modern Jewish law, and the only people who would be able to read their decisions were other Conservative rabbis.

Today, the teshuvot of the law committee are available for public consumption on the Rabbinical Assembly's website. So when the CJLS passes what could be considered a controversial paper, one would think there would be much discussion about it. (Certainly no CJLS decision has garnered as much attention as the December 2006 teshuvot concerning homosexuality.)

However, a recent teshuva on a delicate matter co-authored by Rabbi Kassel Abelson and Rabbi Elliot Dorff, and passed by an overwhelming majority of the committee, has received little attention. The paper, titled "Mitzvah Children," was passed on December 12, 2007 and until today I had not seen any articles published about it.

The essense of Rabbis Abelson and Dorff's argument is that Jewish couples who are able to reproduce more than two children should do so, and Conservative rabbis should counsel couples in this manner during pre-maritial sessions.

In yesterday's Jerusalem Post, Rabbi Reuven Hammer (a CJLS member who voted in favor of the teshuva) wrote:

How many children should a Jewish couple have? Although that may seem like a strange question and one that impinges on the private and most intimate life of a couple, it has been addressed by Jewish law in the past and is now the subject of a new teshuva (responsum) issued recently by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the International Rabbinical Assembly of which I am pleased to be a member. Jewish law (Halacha) has dealt with this because the very first mitzva found in the Torah is: "And God blessed them; and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and replenish it...'" (Genesis 1:28). It should be noted that this is not phrased in the Torah as a command in a negative sense and certainly not as a punishment, but as a blessing. To understand how to fulfill this mitzva the sages discussed and debated it. Who is responsible to fulfill it? How many children and of what sex are required? Without going into details, suffice it to say that the traditional answer has been that the mitzva is fulfilled when a couple has had two children, one boy and one girl. The Talmud, however, determined that two children are the minimum, but that Jews should continue to have as many children as they can (B. Yevamot 62b), and Maimonides codified this as law.

Even though the authors of the "Mitzvah Children" paper did a very good job explaining their position while remaining sensitive to those couples unable to reproduce or unable to reproduce beyond one or two children, many will still take exception to rabbis imparting their beliefs on such a personal matter (even though the Torah and Jewish law codes certainly enter this arena).

Rabbis Abelson and Dorff propose that Jewish couples who can have children and do not suffer from specific physical, mental or other problems preventing it should have one or more additional children beyond the two required by Jewish law. These children would be called "mitzvah children" as they would assure future Jewish existence.

Rabbi Elliot Dorff (right), rector of the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, has been preaching this idea for many years. During my second year of rabbinical school he was on faculty at the Jewish Theological Seminary and spoke to my class about his views. While he was sensitive with his language, he nevertheless offended several of my classmates -- specifically the single women over a certain age -- when he argued that Jewish couples should start having children in their early 20's and have more than just two offspring. As he does in the teshuva, Rabbi Dorff surmised that it was the responsibilty of the Jewish grandparents (as well as the larger Jewish community) to help financially support these children and their Jewish education. His theory was that Jewish women are putting off starting a family until after their prime childbearing years because of their desire to fulfill their academic and professional aspirations first.

The Holocaust also factors into his belief. As he writes in the teshuva:

The world's Jewish community has not recovered numerically from the devastating losses during the Nazi era. Demographic studies point to a Jewish birthrate that will not maintain the Jewish population in the United States, with serious implications for the future of the American Jewish community, the Jewish people as a whole, and Judaism itself. It is essential that we encourage fertile Jewish couples to have at least two children in compliance with the early Halacha, and one or more additional children, who are mitzva children in the additional sense that they help the Jewish people replace those lost in the Holocaust and maintain our numbers now. Adopting children, converting them to Judaism, if necessary, and raising them as Jews helps in this effort as well.

This all makes good sense to me, but I maintain that the reaction will be mixed among Jewish couples. Everyone cares about the future vitality of the Jewish people, but among modern Jews I believe the response will be that rabbis should stay out of the personal family planning decisions of couples. And for that reason, the "Mitzvah Children" teshuva is a gutsy position paper.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Jewish, JTS, Rabbi

Friday, January 11, 2008

Hartman Institute

Many new rabbinical schools have opened in the past decade. The American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies ordained its first class of rabbis in 1999, the modern Orthodox Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) has been ordaining progressive Orthodox rabbis for a few years in New York, and the pluralistic Hebrew College will ordain its first rabbis this Spring.

Now, the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem has announced that it will open its own rabbinical school at its German Colony location. In a Jerusalem Post article titled "Hartman Institute to ordain women rabbis", Matthew Wagner writes:

In a step that marks a major change in gender roles within modern Orthodoxy, women will be ordained as Orthodox rabbis. Jerusalem's Shalom Hartman Institute, founded by Rabbi David Hartman (right), himself a modern Orthodox rabbi, will open a four-year program next year to prepare women and men of all denominations - Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and also Orthodox - for rabbinic ordination.

The decision to ordain women Orthodox rabbis will certainly be met with much criticism in the Orthodox community, especially since the rabbinical school will be in Jerusalem. Rabbi David Hartman's son Rabbi Donniel Hartman is the co-director of the Hartman Institute. He said, "For too long now we have been robbing ourselves of 50 percent of our potential leaders; people who can shape and inspire others. The classic distinctions between men and women are no longer relevant."

Each of these emerging rabbinical schools have had, and will continue to have, a major impact on the modern Jewish community. It will be interesting to see what role the first women rabbis to be ordained by the Hartman Institute will have in Israel and beyond. Best of luck to the Hartman Institute in this new endeavor.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Israel, Jewish, Orthodox Judaism, Rabbi, Reform Judaism

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Uganda Beit Midrash

Gershom Sizomu, Abuyadaya Uganda Jewish Community

I met Gershom Sizomu, the leader of the Ugandan Jewish community called the Abuyadaya, when he visited New Jersey several years ago. Now Gershom is about to be ordained as a Conservative rabbi at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles.

At the International Convention of United Synagogue Youth (USY) in Anaheim this week, it was announced that the Conservative movement will build an adult yeshiva for the Abayudaya. The 800 members of the Abayudaya, who had been living as Jews for years, were formally converted to Judaism in 2002 by a visiting delegation of Conservative rabbis.

The JTA reports that "the $15,000 gift was presented to Gershom Sizomu, the first member of the Abayudaya community to enter rabbinical school." Gershom is a research fellow at the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco.

Rabbi Jerome Epstein, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, said the gift of the yeshiva sustains the youth movement's support of the Abayudaya Jews begun last year with a donation for a Jewish library.The library will be housed in the new yeshiva, which is expected to be completed by summer. Four or five students will begin studying next fall, Epstein said. Other students are expected to follow, some from "lost" African Jewish communities elsewhere in Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria and southern Africa.

Labels: Conservative Judaism

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

The Mega-Shul

In my second year of Rabbinical School at the Jewish Theological Seminary, my seminar leader (a congregational rabbi in New Jersey at the time) predicted the death of the large, high-church American synagogue. The 1,000-plus households synagogue with the vast, ornate sanctuary and a stadium-sized parking lot would soon see its demise he assured me.

I figured he was right. The trend, at least among the younger generation, was toward smaller, more intimate congregations. After all, in the larger cities young Jews were flocking to the do-it-yourself minyans rather than to the large, institutional congregations. At least that was true among Conservative Jews.

However, at the recent Reform Movement's Bienniel Convention in San Diego, the focus was on the Mega-Church. The JTA featured this in its article "Reform finds inspiration in mega-church techniques".

I first read of the Jewish interest in the mega-church philosophy back in 2006 when the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles reported that Pastor Rick Warren (right) spoke at Sinai Temple's Friday Night Live. Jewschool then reprinted a press release from Jewish Women Watching about Pastor Rick Warren and Synagogue 3000 leader Dr. Ron Wolfson being strange bedfellows. Turns out that when Synagogue 3000 invited Rick Warren (author of "The Purpose Driven Life") to speak about building a spiritual community, Jewish Women Watching was outraged because of Warren's conservative views on abortion and homosexuality.

In November, the New York Times picked up on Synagogue 3000's analysis of Rick Warren's Saddleback Church with Samuel Freedman's article "An Unlikely Megachurch Lesson". Freedman writes:

One Sunday morning in 1995, Ron Wolfson and Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman braked to a halt in an oddly enlightening traffic jam. The line of cars was creeping toward Saddleback Church in Southern California, whose services were drawing thousands of worshipers. As two Jews, Mr. Wolfson and Rabbi Hoffman had crossed the sectarian divide to try to figure out how and why.

As they inched down the road, they spotted a sign marked "For First-Time Visitors." It directed them to pull into a separate lane and put on emergency blinkers. Bypassing the backup, they soon reached a lot with spaces reserved for newcomers. When Mr. Wolfson and Rabbi Hoffman emerged from their car, an official Saddleback greeter led them into the church.

Those first moments on the perimeter of the church set into motion a dozen years of increasing interaction between a Jewish organization devoted to reinvigorating synagogues and one of the most successful evangelical megachurches in the nation, the Rev. Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.

This has not been a studiously balanced bit of ecumenicism. Synagogue 3000, the group led by Mr. Wolfson, an education professor, and Rabbi Hoffman, a scholar of liturgy, went to the church to figure out what evangelical Christians were doing right that Jews were doing wrong or not at all.

"To put it bluntly," Mr. Wolfson said, "if there are thousands of people waiting to get in, I want to know what’s going on. I want to know what they’re doing that’s tapping those souls."

Now after more than a decade of Ron Wolfson (left) studying Saddleback Church's success, the entire Reform Movement is looking to Rick Warren for answers. The JTA reports that at the Bienniel, "the mega-church influence was felt as well during Friday night prayers, where 6,000 worshipers gathered in a cavernous room on the convention center's ground floor for a choreographed production of sight and sound. Multiple cameras projected the service on several enormous screens suspended over the hall. A live band buoyed a service that was conducted almost entirely in song."

Rick Warren was a speaker at an evening plenary session at the annual Reform Movement convention. He explained how he grew Saddleback so large that he expects 42,000 worshipers to attend his 14 Christmas services next week. And two years ago he rented out Anaheim Stadium on the occasion of his church's 25th anniversary so he could speak to his entire congregation at once.

I'm not sure that any baseball stadiums will be holding Kol Nidrei in the near future, but the idea of a mega-shul is intriguing.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Jewish, Reform Judaism, Spirituality

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Samuel Freedman on Hechsher Tzedek

In today's Jerusalem Post, Samuel Freedman, the author of Jew Vs. Jew, wrote the best article about the new Hechsher Tzedek that I have yet to see. Freedman does a balanced job of explaining the rationale behind Rabbi Morris Allen's idea for a "new form of kosher certification, which reflect[s] a commitment to justice on behalf of kosher food companies rather than solely their adherence to the laws of kashrut in food preparation."

What I liked most about Freedman's article is how he returned to the civil rights era and Martin Luther King, Jr. to portray the history of what we now call tikkun olam (social justice) in Judaism. The Jewish men and women who joined the Civil Rights Movement were passionate about their activism but, for the most part, dispassionate about the basis for their activism in their Jewish heritage. Freedman writes,

One of the whopping paradoxes of the civil rights movement was that the Jews who comprised a disproportionate share of white activists and volunteers were largely ignorant of the theological roots of their idealism. With some rare rabbinic exceptions like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Jack Rothschild, they had to learn their own Bible from the black Christians in the campaign.

As Freedman understands it, there has long been a disconnect among Jews between the social activism that is practiced and the textual tradition that promotes such activism.

In the parts of the Jewish spectrum with the strongest involvement in tikkun olam, particularly among the secular and unaffiliated, there is the least awareness of the Judaic foundations of that concept. (In fact, there is often an antipathy to religion itself as mere superstition.) In the parts with the deepest knowledge of text and tradition, particularly the Orthodox sector, a formidable apparatus of charities exists almost entirely to serve internal needs.

Freedman points to the American Jewish World Service, led by social justice trailblazer Ruth Messinger, which has become such a phenomenon because it has "overtly connected activism to a disciplined, ongoing study of Jewish texts." I agree. I would also add the work of two Conservative rabbis in two other Jewish organizations that are both successfully connecting their passion for activism with their devotion to Torah. Avodah: The Jewish Service Corps, started by Rabbi David Rosenn (left), integrates work for social change, Jewish learning, and community building. Rabbi Jill Jacob's work with Jewish Funds for Justice helps achieve social and economic security and opportunities for the poor in our country, but is deeply grounded in her scholarly and passionate Torah. Jill's ability to mesh her Torah with her Jewish values of tzedek are often expressed on the jspot blog (although I disagree with her take on Thanksgiving).

The Conservative Movement, through the Hechsher Tzedek, is also bridging the divide between justice work and the Torah's mandate to pursue justice (Deuteronomy 16:10). There is textual bases for the Hechsher Tzedek in our sifrei kodesh (the Jewish textual tradition from the Bible to the Talmud and through the rabbinic codes of law and modern-day commentaries). So rather than call Conservative Judaism a "wishy washy" branch on the American Jewish scene, I choose to look at it as the best of both worlds. We can have the commitment to social justice that is so prioritized in the Reform Movement while also having the commitment to Jewish law and lore (the Halakhic and Midrashic traditions), which is the primary focus of Orthodoxy.

Perhaps Samuel Freedman's article serves as the best response to the comments posted to this blog regarding my thoughts on Rabbi Harold Kushner's article in the recent Conservative Judaism journal.

How does the Conservative Judaism of today differ from an increasingly more traditional Reform Judaism? Conservative Judaism emphasizes a commitment to the system of mitzvot (Halakhah), while also emphasizing social justice and k'vod habriyot (human dignity). And while we're at it, How does Conservative Judaism differ from Orthodox Judaism? Conservative Judaism wants its adherents to be committed to the 613 mitzvot and to engage in an ongoing ascension up the ladder of Jewish commitments (Shabbat and holy days, Kashrut, prayer, study, tzedakah, etc.) while still being able to brush their teeth on Shabbat without buying one of these.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Jewish, Kosher, Orthodox Judaism, Pluralism, Reform Judaism

Friday, November 30, 2007

The Future of Conservative Judasim

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism Bienniel Convention commenced yesterday in Orlando and as the Forward pointed out, the Conservative Movement faces new realities.

The Conservative movement has struggled in recent years to maintain a sense of identity without abandoning its "big tent" philosophy and to boost its sagging membership. This turmoil has been exacerbated in the past year by the movement's change in policy toward gays and lesbians - and by a change in the leadership at the Conservative-affiliated Jewish Theological Seminary, which brought in a new chancellor, Arnold Eisen.

Everyone seems to be talking these days about the poor state of Conservative Judaism with the movement's decreasing membership numbers and some Conservative synagogues being forced to merge or close up completely. Personally, I see much excitement on the horizon for Conservative Judaism and something that resembles the renaissance that changed and strengthened the Jewish campus organization Hillel a decade ago.

At the end of the summer, The Forward published an article titled "Conservative Judaism at a Crossroads". The article, published the week before Prof. Arnie Eisen was officially installed as the new chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, quoted prominent Conservative Jewish leaders and some outside observers who weighed in on the future of the Conservative Movement.

Conservative rabbis including David Wolpe, Alan Silverstein, Naomi Levy, and Harold Kushner each gave their recommendations for the Conservative Movement's recovery from what the former chancellor of JTS, Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, referred to in his 2006 commencement address as suffering from "malaise" and a "grievous failure of nerve". Other respondents included Scott Shay (author of "Getting Our Groove Back: How to Energize American Jewry"), Douglas Rushkoff (author of "Nothing Sacred: The Case for Open Source Judaism"), and Jay Michaelson (Zeek.com).

These short summaries of the current state of Conservative Judaism and what can be done for the future serve as good food-for-thought for movement leaders. Chancellor Arnie Eisen's power-packed stump speeches that he's been delivering across the country for over a year have also infused Conservative Judaism's laity and leadership with newfound exhilaration and hope for the future. Top leadership changes will also force the movement on a new course for the future. Rabbi Jerry Epstein (Executive VP of United Synagogue) and Rabbi Joel Meyers (Executive VP of the Rabbinical Assembly) have both announced their retirements will take place in 2009. In addition to those two expected changes and the new JTS chancellor, there is a new dean of the JTS Rabbinical School (Rabbi Danny Nevins) and there will be a new dean of the William Davidson School of Education at the Seminary next year to replace departing dean Rabbi Steve Brown.

Rabbi Harold Kushner and Rabbi Jason Miller

The best, most concise vision for the future of Conservative Judaism is presented by Rabbi Harold Kushner (at right with me at the 2007 Rabbinical Assembly Convention) in his article that appears in the current issue of Conservative Judaism. Rabbi Kushner's article should be required reading for every Conservative Jew. Reading it I was reminded of Rabbi Neil Gillman's assertion that the Conservative Judaism treatise Emet Ve'Emunah is not a pareve (neutral) document, but rather is full of blockbuster statements. Rabbi Kushner's article, "Conservative Judaism in an Age of Democracy" is likewise full of blockbusters.

Rabbi Kushner writes, "In the absence of an enforcement mechanism, halakhic Judaism is no longer viable. To the commanding voice of halakhah, 'You shall do the following,' the modern non-Orthodox Jew responds, 'Why should I?' He need not be saying it dismissively. He may simply be asking for a persuasive reason, but the dimension of recognized obligation is no longer there."

Referring to Rabbi Hayim Herring's brilliant article "The Commanding Community and the Sovereign Self," Rabbi Kushner comments, "The end of the halakhic age for the vast majority of Conservative Jews may not be such a bad thing."

On the subject of Conservative Judaism not being able to effectively market its product or tweak its product to ensure success, Rabbi Kushner quotes Gil Mann who makes the following comparison: "If Procter and Gamble find that one of their household products is not selling well, they don't take out full-page ads chastising their customers for being too lazy of disloyal to do the right thing and buy what they are selling. They take out ads emphasizing the benefits of using their product, and if necessary tweak the product to make sure it lives up to their claims."

On halakhic changes that the movement has made, Rabbi Kushner writes, "We permitted driving to synagogue on the Sabbath, countenanced eating dairy foods in non-kosher restaurants and welcomed women as shelihot tzibur. None of those decisions can be justified by Orthodox halakhic criteria, but there would not be a Conservative movement today without them... When our movement was at its most creative and most relevant, our appeal was not to halakhah but to history, to the argument that the forms in which Jews lived their Jewishness had always changed as circumstances changed."

Rabbi Kushner clarifies his understanding of mitzvah, stating that in "in the 21st century, [mitzvah] can no longer mean 'commandment, obligation.' I would prefer not to translate the word mitzvah at all, but I would understand it to mean 'opportunity,' the opportunity to be in touch with God by transforming the ordinary into the sacred."

Conservative Judaism's numbers may continue to decline, but that is not a fair assessment of the state of this movement. There is much promise for Conservative Judaism in the coming decades of the 21st century. Excitement and success are sure to follow Arnie Eisen's vision, the emergence of new leadership, the rethinking of how to handle intermarriage and GLBT inclusion in Conservative synagogues, a new Ramah camp in the Rocky Mountains, and new grassroots projects (Elie Kaunfer's Mechon Hadar, Menachem Creditor's Shefa Network, etc.). The new rabbinical school curriculum at the American Jewish University and the expected new curriculum for the JTS rabbinical school will also have positive effects on the future of the Conservative Movement.

Rabbi Harold Kushner concludes his article as follows:

Our movement, our generation is called on to do what Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai and his colleagues did two thousand years ago, to reinvent Judaism in a way that will meet the needs of people today to fulfill their human destiny and make God a constant presence in their lives in an age when the currency of Jewish loyalty and faith will no longer be obedience but the pursuit of holiness.

May Conservative Judaism realize a revitalization and bring its adherents of all ages and all levels of observance closer to God and Torah. Ken Yehi Ratzon.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Jewish, Rabbi

Monday, November 19, 2007

Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu

The Jerusalem Post reported that the former Sephardi chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu explained in his book that "Reform and Conservative synagogues reek of hell and a Jew should not even come near their entrance." I don't think this rabbi will be invited to give a keynote address at any pluralism retreats any time soon.

Putting aside his deplorable comments, I found the story he recounts about having to enter a three-story building to attend a bris very comical. He describes the quandary he faced trying to get to an Orthodox synagogue on the third floor of a building in Israel where a Reform and Conservative synagogue occupy the first and second floor respectively. Hmmm... A three-story building with Reform, Conservative and Orthodox prayer services under one roof? Sounds like a campus Hillel building.

In response to his comments, the Masorti (Conservative) Movement in Israel said that it would sue Rabbi Eliyahu for slander.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Israel, Jewish, Orthodox Judaism, Pluralism, Reform Judaism

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Ann Coulter and Alan Colmes Square Off

I had to laugh today when an article on the Media Matters website was sent to me by way of my Google Alert for the term "Conservative Rabbi." This has been an effective Google Alert that sends me any articles or websites that mention a rabbinic colleague of mine from the Conservative Movement. However, the reason the Media Matters article was included in the Google Alert today was the mention of the Orthodox rabbi and TV personality Shmuley Boteach. The Media Matters article contains the transcripts of the October 30 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, when co-host Alan Colmes interviewed Ann Coulter. Colmes quotes his "good friend, the conservative rabbi Shmuley Boteach."

Yes, Shmuley Boteach is conservative (with a lower-case "c") and also a rabbi, but he is most certainly not a Conservative Rabbi!

I thought Colmes did a good job of questioning Ann Coulter about her controversial comments about Jews and Christians from her "Danny Deutsch Show" interview last month. Never one to miss an opportunity to say something outlandish, Coulter explained that she wears the criticism from Jewish groups like the ADL and the American Jewish Congress "as a badge of honor."

Rabbi Yehuda Levin, a spokesman for the Rabbinical Alliance for America and the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, came to Coulter's defense explaining that "She said nothing that in any way indicates anti-Semitism." Rabbi Levin's defense of Coulter was enough for her to claim the support of 1000 orthodox rabbis. Rabbi Yehuda Levin is the ultra-Orthodox rabbi who tried to ban the Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem. Rabbi Levin also has a website, Jews for Morality, that includes essays claiming that hurricane Katrina was God's Judgment on a sin-loving America.

Perhaps the only thing funnier that the phrase "conservative rabbi Shmuley Boteach" is the final exchange in the Coulter-Colmes interview. Even after watching the video of the interview (see below) it makes no sense. Just more ridiculousness from Ann Coulter. Oy!

ANN COULTER: How about eating soup? Is that a classic food of anti-Semites?

ALAN COLMES: Yeah, that's lovely, Ann. I'm going to move on in spite of yourself, and maybe save you from saying something else that's ridiculous.

Labels: Christianity, Conservative Judaism, Interfaith, Jewish, Politics

Monday, October 22, 2007

Is a Day School's Closing a Wake Up Call for the Conservative Movement?

With the recent closing of the Metropolitan Schechter Academy, a Solomon Schechter High School in New Jersey, questions are arising about the state of Conservative Jewish day schools in our country.

The Metro Schechter Academy was the result of a merger between the Schechter High School of New York and the Schechter Regional High School in Teaneck, New Jersey in 2005. The Manhattan-based high school began in 1992 at the Jewish Theological Seminary with the support of then Chancellor Ismar Schorsch. I remember how nice it was seeing the Schechter high school students in the Seminary halls on a daily basis when I began rabbinical school at JTS during the 1998-99 school year (and enjoying their annual theater productions each year in Feinberg Auditorium). The school moved to a Central Park West location in 2000.

As part of a Solomon Schechter Day School fellowship through the William Davidson Graduate School at JTS, I had the opportunity to work at the Schechter High School in Manhattan during the 2001-02 school year. I spent my time working with the admissions office and re-creating the school's website. I was very impressed with the school and surprised that the enrollment was not higher. Situated in New York City, however, this school had significant competition from other private Jewish day high schools (Ramaz, SAR, and the new Heschel High School).

It's a shame that the merged Schechter high school wasn't able to open for the currrent academic year. However, I must disagree with the New York Jewish Week article that this school closure might be a "wake up call" for Jewish education in the Conservative Movement. This case is clearly an anomaly due to financial issues that were beyond the school leaders' control.

Jewish day school education is growing in our country. My wife taught at the Schechter high school in West Orange, New Jersey and came home each day impressed by the high level of academics. In Michigan, the Frankel Jewish Academy of Metropolitan Detroit has grown significantly each year since its founding in 2000 with 34 students. While it is a non-denominational Jewish high school, the majority of its more than 210 students are from Conservative Jewish households and many are graduates of Detroit's Solomon Schechter-affiliated Hillel Day School, which is celebrating its 50th year. Other Conservative day schools around the country are also growing in enrollment.

With the support of the new Seminary Chancellor Arnie Eisen and the Davidson School's dean Rabbi Steve Brown (both quoted in the NJ Jewish Week article), Jewish day schools in the country will continue to grow.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Education

Friday, August 03, 2007

Noah Feldman-Gate

Now that Barry Bonds has tied Hank Aaron's home run record and everyone will be talking about what the reaction will be when he actually breaks the record, perhaps the debate over the Noah Feldman NY Times Magazine article will die down!

It's now been two weeks since Noah Feldman's "Orthodox Paradox" diatribe was published and just about every rabbi has given a response to it either in print or in speech. Every Jewish newspaper editor and blogger has sufficiently analyzed it. The Orthodox Union is even calling Noah Feldman "the Jewish Jayson Blair" and calling on the New York Times to apologize for publishing Feldman's article.

It is somewhat humorous that what has made Noah Feldman a household name and the water cooler conversation is not any of his impressive career accomplishments, but rather his frank bashing of modern Orthodoxy.

Here are some interesting responses to Noah's article (pro, con, and everywhere in between) with some quotes or my comments (in italics):

Gary Rosenblatt, Editor of The Jewish Week - New York
"Poor Noah, one may think on first read. How primitive and unfair for his former yeshiva to refuse to publicly acknowledge his successes. But as one continues to read Feldman’s essay, we see he is the one being unfair in expecting to be lauded by a community whose values he has rejected and in crafting an intellectually dishonest case for himself. Still, the implicit and more lasting question raised by the essay is how should the Jewish community in general, and the Orthodox community in particular, deal with Jews who have married out?"

Not all intermarried Jews are snubbed by the Orthodox (The Jewish Week NY)
Wait a second here. Aren't there several Orthodox organizations out there that honor and glorify intermarried Jews? The answer is yes -- especially if they are celebrities and/or wealthy. This article explains that while institutions like Aish HaTorah and Chabad might be opposed to intermarriage, they have no qualms about honoring intermarried Jews like Kirk Douglas, Barbra Streisand, Henry Kissinger or Ari Fleischer. Weren't King Solomon and Queen Esther intermarried Jews? There are some very interesting quotes in this article by my teacher Rabbi Irwin Kula of CLAL who explains his organization's decision to appoint an intermarried lay-leader as its new chairman. And while most Conservative synagogues wouldn't publicly acknowledge an intermarriage, this article mentions a Modern Orthodox shul in NYC that invites the non-Jewish spouse to the bimah for life-cycle events.

Photo wasn't cropped after all (The Jewish Week - NY)
Uh oh. Turns out that the Maimonides School didn't actually crop or Photoshop Noah and his Korean gentile girlfriend (now his wife Jeannie Suk) from the group photo at the alumni event. In actuality, several people were left out of the published photo because there were too many faces to fit into one photo. But does it really matter? Noah still made his point.

Avi Shafran on Noah Feldman and Shmuley Boteach (Jerusalem Post)
"To my lights, it doesn't seem extreme in the least for a Jewish school to make clear to an intermarried alumnus that, despite his secular accomplishments, it feels no pride in him for his choice to intermarry. I wouldn't expect an American Cancer Society gathering to smile politely at a chain smoking attendee either. It is painful, no doubt, to be spurned by one's community. It is painful, too, for a community to feel compelled to express its censure. Sometimes, though, in personal and communal life no less than in weightlifting, only pain can offer - in the larger, longer picture - hope of gain. "

An Open Letter to Noah Feldman by Rabbi Norman Lamm of Yeshiva University (The Forward)
"True, we no longer 'sit shivah' for a relative who married out. But all of us experience poignant anguish when a brilliant and once fully committed son of our people, who earnestly believes he is not rejecting his upbringing, effectively does just that in justifying his transgression and holding us up to ridicule."

Rabbi Benjamin Blech (Aish.com)
"Responding with no condemnation, the Jewish world would in effect be condoning. If we cherish Jewish survival, in this instance, that is an impossible alternative."

"[Noah Feldman's] words bring to mind Solomon Schechter's pithy response to a plea for religious moderation: "It reminds me of the American juror who said 'I am willing to give up some, and if necessary all, of the Constitution to preserve the remainder."

Shira Dicker rips Noah Feldman ("Bungalow Babe in the Big City" blog)
Shira Dicker, married to Columbia University prof and author Ari Goldman, is a writer and publicist who handles the PR for the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly.

"By the end of the magazine piece, any sympathy I might have had for him had evaporated and in its place was sheer disgust. Reading postings on the blogosphere, I know that I am hardly alone.

Oh, Noah, you meander through childhood memories that are hardly unique to anyone who attended Orthodox Jewish day school. So the Maimonides School had to cloak their obligatory sex ed in the prohibitions of negiah, hauling out the philosophy of Feinstein in a multi-volume set to suppress your teenage hard-on. Big freaking deal. So you got reprimanded for holding hands with a girl? Been there, done that. So, your rebbes said stupid, parochial things about...goyim? Wow. I never heard of that happening.

There is a Talmudic debate about saving the life of a non-Jew on Shabbat? How fascinating that this took place so many centuries ago! Of course it is as dated as most of the discussions in the Talmud about women. Isn't the proof of the pudding in the fact that Jewish doctors are a worldwide institution, saving the lives of Jews and non-Jews without discrimination on Shabbat, on Yom Kippur, on every day of the week????

Do you hope to reveal some ugly, hidden face of Judaism to your shocked readers who previously had such a positive view of Jews? A pile of gentile corpses outside of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, all the unlucky goyim in Upper Manhattan who had the misfortune to get sick on Shabbos?

Which readership are you writing for, anyway? The subscribers to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?" [Ouch!]

Andrew Silow Carrol, Editor of the New Jersey Jewish News (Jerusalem Post)
I once read an essay by a woman who said she "observes Shabbat." On Saturday mornings on the Upper West Side, she sat on a park bench with her newspaper and "observed" her friends and neighbors going to shul. Her joke came back to me as I read the now infamous essay on modern Orthodoxy by Harvard law professor Noah Feldman[...]. I'll leave it to others to debate the Jewish community's treatment of intermarriage. I was less intrigued by Feldman's relationship with his wife than I was by his relationship with Judaism.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Interfaith, Medicine, Orthodox Judaism, Pluralism

Thursday, July 26, 2007

United Synagogue Moves to New Digs and Gets Some International Neighbors

Rapaport House - 155 Fifth Avenue - Manhattan - Rabbi Jason Miller's Blog

In December 2006, I was one of the first to post about the announced sale of the headquarters building for United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ), the congregational arm of Conservative Judaism worldwide. Well, now it has been reported that USCJ sold the Rapaport House (155 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan) for $26.5 million and acquired new headquarters on two floors at 820 Second Avenue. I'm sure this was quite a return on investment for United Synagogue since it acquired 155 Fifth Avenue (pictured) some three decades ago.

USCJ plans to move into its new location in early 2008, but what is most interesting is who its neighbors in the building will be. The article at GlobeSt.com lists both Trinidad & Tobago's and Peru's permanent missions to the UN as well as the government of Croatia. I did a quick web search, however, and also learned that the permanent missions to the UN for Nepal, Nicaragua, Micronesia, Korea, Liberia, and Madagascar also rent space in this building. And, as if that's not enough global representation to make things interesting, Syria 's UN mission is also based in the building. In fact, there have been numerous rallies in front of this building demanding that Syria release Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit.

Furthermore, the United Nations Federal Credit Union now occupies floors 10 and 11 -- the two floors that will soon be USCJ's home, so the UN will become United Synagogue's temporary tenant until it relocates.

So not only will the international leaders of Conservative Judaism be sharing their elevator rides with the Peruvian ambassador (USY Peru/Israel Pilgrimage anyone?), they will also be the landlord to the United Nations' Bank. Interesting!

And I hear there's also a strong possibility that the Syrian Arab Republic can use United Synagogue's restroom key on all Jewish holidays when USCJ's offices are closed (sounds like an even trade if Israel can keep the Golan Heights). This could be the first step toward peace in the Middle East. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in that lobby.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Globalization, International Relations

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

PM Olmert gives Arnie Eisen Smicha

There was some controversy last year when the president of Israel refused to call Eric Yoffie "Rabbi" when the leader of the Reform movement visited his office. Now, in an effort not to repeat that controversy, the prime minister of Israel seems to be playing it safe and calling every religious leader "Rabbi" -- whether they are or not. An article in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports that when Arnie Eisen of the Jewish Theological Seminary, David Hartman of the Shalom Hartman Institute, and David Ellenson of Hebrew Union College visited Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this past week, all three men were called "Rabbi" even though Eisen is not an ordained rabbi.

The beginning of the article is quoted below. The complete article is here.

Until ignorance divides us

By Yair Ettinger (Haaretz.com)

Last Friday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert received three guests in his office, all with the double-barreled title of rabbi and professor: They are well-known scholars among American Jews and fairly well-known in Israel: Rabbi David Hartman, who heads the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and is associated with liberal Orthodoxy; Rabbi Arnie Eisen, the chancellor of the Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS); and Rabbi David Ellenson, the president of Hebrew Union College (HUC), the Reform Movement's rabbinic seminary.

Far from the discriminating eyes of the ultra-Orthodox, the earth beneath the prime minister's office did not tremble when Olmert addressed each of his conversants as "rabbi" and devoted time to those who would like to find loopholes in the wall put up by the rabbinic establishment.

The three found in Olmert a favorable view of initiatives to "increase Jewish identity among Jews" in Israel and abroad. They declined to elaborate on the content of the meeting, but a talk with Rabbi Ellenson, one of the most influential leaders among American Jewry, indicated which way the wind is blowing.

During his visit to Israel, Ellenson had a hard time getting over the depressing impression made by senior Israeli figures a few days before his departure from the United States at an international gathering of university presidents. On Saturday night, he related, a rabbi recited havdalahh [marking the conclusion of Shabbat] for all the participants, and Ellenson noticed the Israelis. "One of them, the president of a very large university in Israel, told me he had never seen such a service and never even heard of its existence."

He was greatly saddened, said Ellenson. "I hate the word ignorance, I prefer to be more gentle, but I know that's how it is. What does it mean that an intellectual doesn't know what havdalah is? How would you describe it? And he is not the only one among the Israelis."

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Israel, JTS, Reform Judaism

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Jewish Agency Prioritizes Acceptance of Reform & Conservative Conversions by Chief Rabbinate

This is an important Op-Ed from the Jerusalem Post about the Jewish Agency for Israel's (JAFI) new push for the Israeli Chief Rabbinate to finally recognize conversions performed by Reform and Conservative rabbis. The complete article can be accessed here.

Politics hurts religion

The Jewish Agency for Israel, whose Board of Governors is meeting in Jerusalem this week, is expected to consider a resolution calling for official Israeli recognition of non-Orthodox conversions.

Speaking more broadly on the issue of pluralism in a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post, JAFI Chairman Ze'ev Bielski said: "The time has come for the government and the rabbinate to show the millions of people from the Reform and Conservative movements that they are a part of us.

"I don't think that anyone can take the responsibility for losing out on so many people who might want to come on aliya and be integrated into Israeli society. ... There are, after all, so few Jews in the world. We should not all be fighting each other and we should look for common ground."

Orthodox representatives argue that it is the other streams that have compromised Jewish unity, by changing the standards for observance and conversion to such a degree that there is dwindling agreement over who is a Jew, let alone how to be Jewish.

Whether they are right or not, this response, together with Bielski's explanation that pluralism is needed to encourage aliya, show that the discussion of the issue continues to miss the point. Israel's Orthodox establishment has done more to discredit Judaism in the eyes of the non-observant than to advance it.

The Israeli rabbinate jealously guards its sole right to administer marriage and divorce for Israelis, so that even Orthodox rabbis who come from overseas to perform a marriage must stand beside - and pay - a representative of the rabbinate to gain official sanction for the wedding. It also holds the keys to kashrut certification and burial for all Jewish Israelis.

Yet this rabbinate, with its monopoly on life cycle events, expresses next-to-no view and offers little guidance on such deeply Jewish issues as social justice, the minimum wage, redeeming a captive soldier, the ethics of war, individual spirituality and much more besides. Where it isn't trying to enforce its jurisdiction as an institution, the rabbinate is almost always, tragically, silent. Indeed, the only encounter most Israelis have with Judaism is with a disinterested rabbinate clerk paid by taxpayers to whom he does not see himself accountable.

It would be better, both for Jewish unity and for the advancement of Judaism in Israel, if the Orthodox gave up their official monopoly over religion in Israel. Even better, there should be no official rabbinate to monopolize. Far from compromising the Jewishness of the state, eliminating the rabbinate would enhance it, since rabbis from three streams would be free to serve their own communities in Israel as they do in Diaspora.

But it isn't enough to call for a separation of religion and state. What's needed is a specific type of separation.[...]

The mixture of religion and politics has been harmful to Judaism here. For the sake of Jewish unity and the advancement of a religious agenda, the link should be severed.

We hope the Jewish Agency's Assembly and Board of Governors send this message to the Jewish world they represent. And we hope the Orthodox delegates, those who care deeply for the influence of tradition and ancient wisdom on modern Jewish life, courageously stand at the vanguard of this vital initiative.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Israel, Pluralism

Monday, May 28, 2007

Danny Nevins, Heksher Tzedek & Indiana Jew

There's a nice article in the Detroit News about my rabbi, Danny Nevins. He will become the next dean of the Rabbinical School at the Jewish Theological Seminary this summer.

The sidebar of the article links to his personal website, the teshuvah (responsum) he co-authored on Homosexuality in Judaism, and even a Detroit News audio file of him being interviewed by the Detroit News reporter.

Of course, the author had to provide the requisite pessimism about Conservative Judaism: "Nevins comes to the position at a time when the population of Jews is declining in Metro Detroit and across the country. It also is a time when Conservative Judaism has lost some of its appeal as a logical alternative to the more liberal Reform Judaism and the strict interpretations of Orthodox Judaism."

Thankfully, Rabbi Nevins countered this sentiment with an optimistic view of the Seminary's objectives for the future. He said, "Every challenge is an opportunity, [and] I think at the Jewish Theological Seminary we are viewing this as an opportunity to re-examine our message, our structure and also the quality of what we are producing." This positive outlook is exactly what the new chancellor, Arnie Eisen, has been preaching since accepting the chancellorship.

Perhaps the recent New York Times article about the Conservative Movement's new Heksher Tzedek was the best news coverage Conservative Judaism has received in years. Kudos to Rabbi Morris Allen for working on making this new certification for food produced in a socially just way a reality.

I wouldn't call it negative publicity, but I did find it funny that the History Channel's Josh Bernstein ("Indiana Jew") explained that he didn't go to JTS for rabbinical school because he was turned off by the fluorescent lights. In an article by Suzanne Kurtz on the Hillel website, the star of the hit show "Digging for the Truth" and the author of a book by the same name, describes studying Jewish texts at Pardes in Jerusalem for twelve hours a day.

"So satisfying was the [Pardes] experience, when his year of study was up, Bernstein paid a visit to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York to see if rabbinical school might be his next move.

'But the fluorescent lights ruined it for me,' he explains. 'I told the rabbis at Pardes I'm going to get my wisdom in the desert.' Their reply: 'It was good enough for the Patriarchs.' "

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Detroit, Education, JTS

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Conservative Movement's Kosher/Justice Stamp of Approval in New York Times

A great article was published in the NY Times today about the hechsher tzedek of the Conservative Movement. Last month at the Rabbinical Assembly Convention in Boston, the hechsher tzedek received formal endorsement from the RA, the national association of Conservative rabbis. The article can be accessed here.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Kosher

Friday, March 23, 2007

Quoted in the Wall Street Journal

I was quoted in the Wall Street Journal today in an article about the mechitza (the physical barrier that separates men and women in an Orthodox synagogue. Like many other times when I've been interviewed for a newspaper article, I spoke with this reporter for well over an hour on about three separate occasions only to have a few words actually attributed to me. However, it is a well-written article about an interesting subject. Based on the article, one might think that I had something to do with the decision at Agudas Achim to not use a mechitza, but I arrived on the scene years after that decision was made and the shul decided to affiliate with the Conservative Movement.

HOUSES OF WORSHIP

Prayer Behind the Partition
By LUCETTE LAGNADO
March 23, 2007; Page W13

As a little girl, I was both enamored of the women's section at the back of my Orthodox synagogue and tormented by it. I lived for Saturday mornings, when my mother and I left our Brooklyn apartment and walked around the corner to sweet, friendly Young Magen David and the cozy partitioned area reserved for women only. It was its own world: intimate, charming, a place that encouraged friendship as well as prayer. Safe at last, I'd think, as I put the rough schoolweek behind me.

I'd take a seat next to my mother behind the wooden filigreed divider with clover-shaped holes. My immigrant congregation, made up of families who came from the Middle East, was so small that it was easy to follow the service from our area, and when the Torah scrolls were passed around you'd see women's hands poking through the holes to touch the holy scrolls. Yet I also bristled at the divider and longed to escape to the men's section. The men seemed to have such fun taking part in the sacraments and being counted as part of a "minyan," or quorum of 10, necessary for the service.

The purpose of a divider -- or "mehitzah," as it is known in Hebrew -- is to make sure that men aren't distracted from their prayers. The custom of separate seating dates back to the Second Temple in Jerusalem, when congregants became so lighthearted at a Jewish festival that it was deemed necessary to segregate the sexes.

Fast-forward to 20th-century America, where the Reform and Conservative movements made a point of allowing families to sit together. The mehitzah all but vanished from their grand new temples sprouting in suburbia. With the rise of the women's movement, the divider became almost a symbol of female oppression -- antiquated and vaguely contemptible. Even some Orthodox shuls did without a formal partition, according to Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb of the Orthodox Union in New York.

They've made an odd and tortuous comeback, these dividers, fueled in part by a resurgence of Orthodox Judaism. Some other branches of Judaism, including ones that did much to try to include women, are hurting -- while Orthodox Judaism is booming. "People in this crazy world are looking to be anchored...they are looking for greater discipline," says Rabbi Marc Schneier, who runs the Hampton Synagogue in chic Westhampton Beach.

In the past few years, the Orthodox Union, which oversees hundreds of synagogues in America, formally decreed that any congregation calling itself Orthodox must have a formal divider. The OU's decision has been convulsive in some places. Congregation Agudas Achim, in Columbus, Ohio, thought of itself as Orthodox, yet didn't have a mehitzah. When confronted on the issue by the OU it engaged in a passionate debate, according to its rabbi, Jason Miller, and ultimately refused to put in a divider. It even switched to the Conservative movement. These days, says Rabbi Miller, the thriving Agudas Achim is "100% egalitarian."

Beth Tfiloh in Baltimore went in the other direction. Years back, when it relocated to the suburbs from downtown, the congregation decided on separate seating but no partition. The concern was that a divider might alienate young families lured by synagogues where everyone sat together. But the tide has turned, says Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, and a new, more observant, generation would have left if it were not for the partition. At the same time, he adds, congregants "didn't want to see women move to the back of the bus." The solution? A "tasteful" mehitzah made of glass, wood and brass.

Rabbi Wohlberg is impatient with complainers. "Many of the people who say they want to sit with their husbands and wives at services, they don't play golf together, they don't have weeknights together," he remarks. "All of a sudden, they can't live without each other when they come to service?"

The OU's partition policy calls for women to sit apart from men with a "tangible, physical separation." But debate rages: Should it be six feet tall, or four? Should it be opaque, or allow for some transparency? Meeting the requirements of Jewish, or Halachic, law, isn't as daunting as it seems, says Westhampton's Rabbi Schneier. His mehitzah is so discreet as to barely be noticeable.

Rabbi Raphael Benchimol, of the Manhattan Sephardic Congregation, points out that the partition isn't only important for men: "Women shouldn't be distracted either." Yet I learned early on that dividers did little to stop flirting between the sexes and have often wondered if separation didn't encourage romance. I mean, what is more desirable than a forbidden object, the person you glimpse beyond a divider?

These days, with no little shul around the corner, and no mother to lead me there, I have the choice to go and pray anywhere. I can go to one of those vast and fashionable egalitarian temples; yet I choose to attend the same type of intimate service I did as a child. I am always on a quest for the ideal women's section. I may have found it in my little shul, Chabad of Southampton Jewish Center, on Long Island. A few plastic potted plants make up the divider. It's Halachic, but not intimidating.

When I come in the Rabbi waves hello. I put the rough workweek behind me and begin to pray.

Ms. Lagnado, a Journal reporter, is author of "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit," a memoir, to be published in June by Ecco/HarperCollins.

Labels: Conservative Judaism, Orthodox Judaism

Monday, February 19, 2007

Rusted Root has Cantorial Roots

In July 2005 I saw one of my favorite bands, Rusted Root, in concert at The House of Blues at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas. Following the show, the members of the group signed autographs and met with their fans as they usually do. The first one to come sign autographs was Liz Berlin (in photo), one of the singers of the group.

I spoke to her for a few minutes and she signed a CD insert to "Rabbi Jason." One might think that signing an autograph for a rabbi would prompt her to mention that her father is a cantor (a Conservative cantor no less).

I only learned that her dad was a cantor after getting a link to an article about her on the PittsburghLive.com website. I received the link in a Google Alert because the words "Jewish Theological Seminary" appeared in the article. Apparently, Liz Berlin's dad, Rick Berlin, decided to attend cantorial school at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1996. That means that we must have overlapped by a couple years since I started rabbinical school in 1998. I searched the Web for a photo of Cantor Rick Berlin (in photo) and sure enough... I remember him. He was ordained in 2000.