Finally a Modern Textbook About Judaisms (Yes, Judaisms Plural)

Judaism is a millennia-old faith rooted in tradition, but the makeup of its adherents is diverse and continues to change. I don't believe the way its taught in university courses has adapted to those changes. I've been teaching the same course about Judaism at Oakland University in suburban Michigan for the past eight years, sometimes for as many as three semesters in the same year. I created the syllabus based on a similar course I personally took as an undergraduate student at Michigan State University where I later returned and taught the same course as a visiting professor. In all those many semesters I never updated the required texts for the course. It wasn't for a lack of desire, but no updated texts have been published that I feel provide a modern survey of the Jewish community.

Until now. Aaron Hahn Tapper, an associate professor in Jewish studies at the University of San Francisco and a Fulbright Senior Scholarship winner, must have recognized such a contribution was long overdue. Hahn Tapper's book "Judaisms: A Twenty-First-Century Introduction to Jews and Jewish Identities" (University of California Press) successfully frames the Jewish faith in the context of its peoplehood and shows the variety of communities and theologies that make up the Jewish people today. Brilliantly, Hahn Tapper pluralizes the term "Judaism" in recognition that the modern adherents of the Jewish faith are not merely a diverse group, but we are made up of diverse groups within our diverse groups.

We've all been taught not to judge a book by its cover, but the cover images of "Judaisms" alert the reader that this is not your typical course reader on the Jewish religion. A photo of an ethnically diverse group lighting a menorah at a biracial Hanukkah event is joined on the page with women at the Western Wall adorned in tallit (prayer shawl) and tefillin (phylacteries) along with a gender transition ceremony at a Jewish day school. This book, which serves both as an easy-to-read text for undergrads as well as a more advanced selection for graduate students (footnotes are available online), articulates that today's Jewish community is vastly different than the one at the turn of the last century let alone a century ago.

Denial Brings Deborah Lipstadt's Victory Over Holocaust Denying Bully to Big Screen

I had the opportunity to see an advanced screening of the new movie "Denial" last week. It was the night before Erev Yom Kippur and my wife tried to convince me to stay home and finish writing my Yom Kippur sermons. However, knowing my Kol Nidrei sermon was on the topic of bullying, and being familiar with the story of how Professor Deborah Lipstadt was bullied by a menacing, Holocaust denier, it seemed like a wise idea to see the film. And I was correct.

There aren't many Hollywood feature movies that are made about college professors. The best of them can be counted on one hand: "Dead Poet's Society," "Good Will Hunting" and "A Beautiful Mind." In "Denial," Rachel Weisz brilliantly plays Emory University Holocaust historian and author Deborah Lipstadt. The film is based on Lipstadt's book and focuses on her legal defense against a noted Holocaust denier, David Irving.

I first encountered Professor Lipstadt during my undergraduate years when I took several Holocaust courses as part of my minor in Jewish Studies when I read her book and scholarly articles. I also had the chance to attend a lecture she gave at a Rabbinical Assembly convention, where I first met her in person. This was following her long trial in London after she had published History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier -- her memoir of the experience defending herself against this libel charge from the Holocaust denier. I've since had the chance to talk with her on a few occasions and each time I feel blessed just to be in her presence. She's brilliant, charismatic and has arguably done more than any other Holocaust historian to ensure the Nazis don't get a posthumous victory.

Actress Rachel Weisz with Professor Deborah Lipstadt

"Denial" a very well done film and even though we already know the outcome, there's a good deal of suspense throughout. The acting is excellent and Rachel Weisz, herself Jewish, does an Oscar-worthy job as Lipstadt.

Jesus, We Can Finally Talk About Jesus

I've always said that the only times Jewish people mention Jesus are when they stub their toe, miss the bus, or tell you about their theater tickets to a certain Andrew Lloyd Webber rock opera. Two new books will change that. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's Kosher Jesus and The Jewish Annotated New Testament (edited by Marc Z. Brettler and Amy-Jill Levine). The former discusses the Jewish life of Jesus of Nazareth and the latter is a newly revised edition of the Christian Scriptures with notes and essays from Jewish scholars in the hope of making the "New Testament" accessible to Jews.

In my final years of rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, I was living and working in Caldwell, New Jersey as a rabbinic intern. One of the congregants at the synagogue, Agudath Israel, was a professor at the College of St. Elizabeth in Morristown, New Jersey. She asked me to give a presentation about Judaism to the women in her undergraduate class. In preparation for my visit she asked the students to submit a list of five questions each that they would like me to consider. Without any exaggeration, a full 90% of the students included at least one question about Jesus Christ in their list.

I had received questions from Christians in the past concerning the Jewish view of Jesus, but that experience confirmed for me just how curious Christians are about how Jews understand Jesus in both historical and theological perspectives. Many of the women in that class at the College of St. Elizabeth were surprised to learn that Jews do not consider Jesus to be the messiah and the entire class was shocked to discover that Jesus' teachings were not part of the required coursework I was doing in my rabbinical school studies. By far, to this day the most frequent questions I receive from Christians all have to do with the Jewish understanding of Jesus.

The topic of the contemporary view of Jesus among Jews has long been stuck somewhere between taboo and "we just don't talk about it". But now, thanks to two new books it is front and center. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who refers to himself as "America's Rabbi" has written a new controversial book that will be released next week. For those who thought Boteach's Kosher Sex was too radical, his new Kosher Jesus is sure to ruffle feathers. With Boteach, it is difficult to know if he writes these provocative books and articles because he's genuinely passionate about the scholarly discussion it will generate or if he just lusts after the spotlight. Still playing up his friendship with the late Michael Jackson and very passively campaigning to be the next Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has been busy publicly questioning what all this fuss is about with his new book. In truth, Boteach knows that every Orthodox rabbi and scholar -- from Chabad Lubavitch to the Haredim -- who attack Kosher Jesus as blasphemous and its author as a heretic are only helping his book sales.

Dead Sea Scrolls Go Online

After the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in a cave in Qumran in the winter of 1946–47 by Muhammed edh-Dhib, a Bedouin boy, and his cousin, it still took two decades until they were placed on display in a museum. Now, about 65 years after their discovery they can now be accessed online.

Today, the Israel Museum launched the Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Project, which provides access to high-resolution images of the scrolls, as well as additional data and background information. This is a joint project between the Israel Antiquities Authority and Google, which has a research and development center in Israel.

So far, five scrolls have been digitized: the Great Isaiah Scroll, the Community Rule Scroll, the Commentary on Habakkuk Scroll, the Temple Scroll and the War Scroll. It marks the first time that the collection of scrolls is being photographed in its entirety since the 1950s. The entire collection includes 900 manuscripts comprising about 30,000 Dead Sea Scrolls fragments.

“We are privileged to house in the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book the best preserved and most complete Dead Sea Scrolls ever discovered,” said James Snyder, Anne and Jerome Fisher director of the Israel Museum. “They are of paramount importance among the touchstones of monotheistic world culture, and they represent unique highlights of our Museum’s encyclopedic holdings. Now, through our partnership with Google, we are able to bring these treasures to the broadest possible public.”

The site allows for comments from users and offers insightful videos to further ones understanding of the scroll being viewed. The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library project is being funded with a major gift from the Leon Levy Foundation, with additional major funding from the Arcadia Foundation and the Yad Hanadiv Foundation.

Academics once had to travel to Israel to research the Dead Sea Scrolls, but the scrolls' accessibility online should now yield an even greater amount of higher biblical scholarship in the coming years. This is not Google's first time being involved in digitization project of this nature. Past projects have included the Google Art Project, Yad Vashem Holocaust Collection and the Prado Museum in Madrid. The scrolls are accessible online.

The Cap & Gown Section

I've long had a love-hate relationship with the Detroit Jewish News' "Cap & Gown Yearbook." Started in the late 1980's, the JN includes an entire section in one of its late-May issues devoted to the "best and brightest" high school graduates in the area.

Before I comment on this year's change in the submission rules, allow me to explain the love-hate relationship I've had. [Full disclosure: I cannot include the Cap & Gown issue on my CV.]

I loved the Cap & Gown issue when I was working at the University of Michigan Hillel Foundation in Ann Arbor. At the end of each graduating senior's bio (AKA "Brag Paragraph"), it listed where they were headed for college. The vast majority were either going to Michigan or Michigan State with a couple handfuls of Ivy Leaguers. Each year when the Cap & Gown section was published, I immediately tore out the pages from the newspaper and marked the incoming class of Jewish kids at U-M with my yellow highlighter. These would be the first freshmen I'd welcome to campus in the fall. Their high school accomplishments were listed right there. I knew who the Jewish youth group leaders were and which of these 18-year-olds had volunteerism in their DNA. The Jewish News was doing my reconnaissance work for me.

Working with high school students is a different story. They are already under such pressure to succeed in high school that making the cut for the Jewish High School Academic Hall of Fame only adds to the stress. Over the past couple decades, the standards for inclusion in the Cap & Gown section have changed. When I was in high school (Andover Class of 1994 for those of you scoring at home), seniors needed a minimum grade point average (GPA) and had to be chosen by their school. That meant it was much more difficult to be one of the top Semites at predominantly Jewish schools like West Bloomfield, Bloomfield Hills Andover, and North Farmington than it was at say Birmingham Seaholm, Detroit Country Day, or any of the Walled Lake schools (this was the 90s after all). In fact, I remember one of my peers from West Bloomfield High School complaining to the Jewish News that she should have been included even though her GPA wasn't at the newspaper's standard. She was the editor of the school paper, president of her Jewish youth group, and had a handful of other notable credentials. The paper caved and printed her bio the week after the Cap & Gown issue alongside her irate letter complaining of the unfair selection process.

In the past decade, the standards have eased and there are a lot more graduates included in the Cap & Gown issue. Only 40-some Jewish teens were honored in the first Cap & Gown Yearbook in the late 1980's, but last year's section included 224. Even with that many star teens included, there are still many talented and accomplished teens who are left on the sidelines.

As the paper explained in a March 2010 blurb: "[E]very year, whatever criteria the newspaper used to determine eligibility would leave out many deserving students. This year, the Jewish News is inviting every Jewish student who is graduating from a Michigan high school to be part of our new Cap & Gown Yearbook. Publisher Arthur Horwitz said, "We've grown from several dozen entries to well over 200 of our community's high school seniors who attained a qualifying grade point average. It has been one of our most popular issues and a keepsake."

So, the question is: Why after 20 years of a competitive process (on varying levels), has the Detroit Jewish News decided to include every graduating Jewish high school student into the Cap & Gown Yearbook? Here are some theories:

1) It's the Economy Stupid: It's no secret that print media is in hospice care. Newspapers are ending home delivery and magazines are closing (Newsweek was put up for sale just yesterday). The Jewish News has laid off most of its workforce and reduced the hours of those who are left. The Cap & Gown issue generates a lot of money from proud parents, bubbies and zaydies who take out paid advertisements to congratulate their graduates. I'm sure the thinking was that the more teens who are included in the Cap & Gown Yearbook the more ad revenue. And that's just business -- plain and simple.

2) Everyone's a Winner: In the 21st Century, we've become more politically correct and therefore uncomfortable to proclaim winners. The Jewish News simply doesn't want to be put in a position to say that this young person is an achiever while this one is not. It's not good for PR (or for selling newspaper subscriptions for that matter) when people perceive that the community's paper has rejected their daughter.

3) Whose Standards?: I'm hoping that this was ultimately the reason the JN decided to let all who have graduated come and be recognized. Ideally, the Jewish News has realized what most employers realized a long time ago. A person's GPA only tells part of their story. The many high school graduates who lacked book smarts but spent their high school careers volunteering with disabled children, working part-time jobs, and starring in school theater productions should be celebrated alongside the bookworms who carried 4.0 averages with little extra-curricular notches in their belts.

I'm sure that the Jewish News' decision to not exclude any Jewish teen from this yearbook was based on a combination of all three of these theories (and likely others too). After all, this also put the Jewish community's newspaper in the awkward position of deciding who is a Jewish teen. Of course, with every graduating senior being included, the Cap & Gown Yearbook will undoubtedly lose its clout. Will parents be as honored when they see their 3.9 GPA varsity soccer captain who's headed to Penn listed in the paper next to a 2.0 GPA kid who's off to Oakland Community College in the fall? We'll see about that.

The paper articulated the mission of its new Cap & Gown section, explaining, "In recognition of the achievements of all of our high school graduates, this year's Cap & Gown will be expanded. Think of it as a community-wide version of a high school yearbook. It will show the continuing vitality and promise of our community's future generation, and the array of higher education choices they are making."

I'm all for showcasing the promise of our Jewish community's future generations. I'm just wondering if the lack of a selection process will make this issue too heavy to hold... which I guess is a really good thing for both our community and the Detroit Jewish News. Mazel Tov to all of this year's high school graduates. You're all winners!