Synagogue Becomes Gift Shop in Minor League Baseball Stadium

I love Minor League baseball stadiums. And I love synagogue architecture. But never did I ever think those two passions would connect. My colleague and teacher Rabbi Hayim Herring told me about an old synagogue building that has been incorporated to a new Minor League baseball park.

Jonathan Eig reports in the New Yorker that the Sons of Israel synagogue, which was built in 1901, is now the gift shop at Coveleski Stadium, home to the South Bend Silver Hawks (the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Class A affiliate). The former Orthodox synagogue is located just beyond the left-field fence at the ballpark.

Apparently the gift shop's doing pretty well and most Silver Hawks fans don't even notice that they're in a former shul when they're shopping for their souvenirs. Berlin is beginning to promote the space in new ways, too. The team's owner even wants to book weddings and bar mitzvahs in the off-season.

The gift shop at the Arizona Diamondback's Class A affiliate's ballpark was once an Orthodox synagogue

Andrew Berlin, who is Jewish, purchased the Silver Hawks in 2011 and didn't notice the old synagogue building. During renovations on Coveleski Stadium he wondered about the shul building which hadn't been used in years. That's when he decided to preserve it and incorporate it into the Minor League ballpark. When he bought the team, he held a meeting with members of the local Jewish community and proposed moving the perimeter of the stadium to enclose the synagogue. Berlin already pledged to spend $2.5 million of his own money on ballpark improvements so he decided he'd invest an additional million dollars on the synagogue building's restoration. The city of South Bend transferred ownership of the shul to Berlin.

According to the article, "on May 16th, the Silver Hawks will unveil a new plaque near the entrance to the gift shop, calling more attention to the synagogue's heritage, including its recent addition to the National Register of Historic Places. The team, which reached the league’s championship series last year, and has started strongly this season with twenty wins and seventeen losses, will be playing the Fort Wayne TinCaps that night. Berlin hopes that fans will come for the ceremony and stay for the baseball, the free Gallo wine tasting, and the post-game fireworks. That day also happens to be a Friday, which means that if Jewish fans would like to visit the gift shop at sundown to offer their private Sabbath prayers, they’re welcome to do so."

Detroit Jewish News Archives - So Much Nostalgia

Nostalgia is in. One of the most common memes on Facebook these days is the Throwback Thursday, in which individuals and organizations post old photos from yesteryear and allow viewers to tag people they recognize and be amused at how things have changed over the years including hairstyles and fashion. One local company making good use of this is Joe Cornell Entertainment, which has been posting photos from their archives of Joe Cornell’s pre-bar mitzvah dance classes from the past few decades.

Metro Detroiters, as well as former Metro Detroiters, have found themselves getting lost in time on the Web since the Detroit Jewish News Foundation launched its digital archives in mid-November. Residing on the DJN Foundation’s website at www.djnfoundation.org, the archives have allowed local members of the Jewish community to scratch their nostalgia itch by searching for friends and family in the archives’ search function. Every weekly issue of the Detroit Jewish News over the past seven decades is included in the digital archives and even advertisements can be searched.

Arthur Horwitz, publisher of the Detroit Jewish News, recognized the importance of digitizing the thousands of old issues of the paper after a devastating fire occurred in the Detroit Jewish News offices back in 2002 and destroyed nearly all of the paper’s print archives. Horwitz and the new nonprofit foundation turned to Media Genesis, an internet services provider, to create the searchable index on the new website which lets users perform quick and accurate searches on the more than 260,000 dating back to 1942. The archives are available to the public at no cost and they have already proven useful to local historians, educators, students and community leaders.

Like internet search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing, the DJN Foundation’s digital archives are fully searchable by date, name, and other keyword searches including advanced Boolean searches, which are a type of search allowing users to combine keywords with operators such as “and,” “not” and “nor” to produce more relevant results.

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.

Keep the Han in Hanukkah

Just like some Conservative Christians want to ensure that people keep the "Christ" in Christmas, I think it's important to keep the Han in Hanukkah (Han Solo and the Han Dynasty that is):

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.

What to Wear

A couple weeks ago, my wife and I attended a Purim party. I had no idea what to wear. In past years I was able to figure out what to wear based on the theme. Black tie? Got it covered. Western attire? No problem (jeans, flannel and cowboy hat). 70's Disco attire? That's easy (and fun!).

This year, however, the invitation said "Gem Tones." Say what? I was clueless and my wife wasn't much help on this one. I started calling other guys to find out what they were going to wear. One friend was more clueless than the next. Were jeans too casual? Did I need a sport coat? Did my outfit have to be certain colors. I don't think I've ever looked in my closet and thought, "Gee, some of my clothes bear a striking resemblance to the tones of gems!" I would have been less stressed had the invitation instructed us to dress like a favorite Disney character (well, there's always next year!).

It's usually easy for men to decide what to wear to parties. Weddings are either a black tuxedo or a dark suit. "Casual" can be jeans or slacks and a button-down shirt. I'm really not complaining because I know it's much more challenging for women.

In this week's Torah portion, Tzav, the details about the clothing of the priests continues. Even God's instructions concerning the sacrificial burnt offering have a great deal to do with the special vestments of the high priest, Aaron, and the other priests. "The priest shall dress in linen raiment, with linen breeches next to his body." After the priest has taken up the ashes of the burnt offering he has to do a costume change. Even the priests' clothes get anointed with oil and some of the blood from the sacrifice.

The late biblical scholar Nahum Sarna writes about the details of the priestly clothing: "Just as sacred space must be differentiated from profane space, so the occupants of the sacred office must be distinguishable from the laity. Hence, special attire, the insignia of office, is ordained for Aaron, the archetypal High Priest, and for his sons, the priests of lower rank."

The reason for such minutiae when it comes the clothing of these holy men is l'chavod ultifaret (for dignity, honor, and splendor). The medieval commentator Sforno explains the use of these two Hebrew words. The vestments, he writes, "were for the dignity of God and to lend splendor to the office of the priest so that he would be revered by the people."  I think that the vestments were as much for the dignity of the priests, of the wearer that is, as they were for God’s dignity.

This teaches us that what we wear says a great deal about us. All of these details about the priestly clothing reminds me of the famous dress code that was in effect for many years at IBM. Men had to dress in a dark colored suit, could only wear a white dress shirt, and could select a necktie of any conventional color; so long as it was solid – no patterns. For women, it was mostly the same – A dark, solid colored skirt and a white blouse. IBM believed that the way its workforce dressed portrayed the specific image that they wanted associated with their company. Apparently, they held the belief that it’s “the clothing that makes the man."

And this belief was just as true in the 1990s, as companies like IBM shifted from strict, conservative dress codes to less-formal attire. Casual dress in the workplace became the new trend and "Dress down Fridays" became a popular section in most clothing stores. Companies like IBM believe that the way one dresses helps contribute to the way one works, behaves, and acts toward others. It also contributes to the way others view the wearer. When we get dressed in the morning, don’t we think about what type of image we want to portray for that day? Don’t we pick out our clothes for the day based on more than just the weather?

What we wear is representative of who we are, and indeed, where we come from. It speaks volumes about what we stand for and our own level of self-dignity. Styles do change. And society’s attitudes toward standards of proper attire do too. I might never fully comprehend how to dress in a "gem tones" attire, but I understand that our clothing is important.

Let us dress for success. Let us dress for style. And most important, let us dress l’chavod ultif’aret – for dignity, honor, and splendor.

Shabbat Shalom!

Wimbledon: Longest Match Ever

At Wimbledon, John Isner won the fifth set, 70-68, finally beating Nicolas Mahut in the longest tennis match ever recorded in tennis history.

I was curious whether Isner might be Jewish based on his last name, but a quick Web search answered that question.

On Isner's personal website, he answered the following question from a fan:

YOU ARE A GREAT ROLE MODEL, BY ANY CHANCE, ARE YOU OF JEWISH DESCENT?
Submitted by Judith Meyer, Briarcliff, New York

Isner: "I'm glad to hear that you think I'm a good role model, i appreciate that comment. Actually I am not of jewish decent but I get asked that frequently I guess because my last name sounds somewhat jewish."

Fauxtographing the News: From Herzl to the Flotilla

Cross-posted at Jewish Techs

Photoshop might not have been around a century ago, but the altering of images to change history has been around for a very long time.

A couple weeks ago I ventured into the basement floor of the Steimatzky's flagship bookstore in the Mamilla Mall in Jerusalem. The three-story store is located in the building that once belonged to the Stern family, who hosted Theodor Herzl on his one and only visit to Jerusalem and the basement is now a mini museum devoted to the founder of modern Zionism.

Looking at several photographs of Herzl with famous leaders in Jerusalem, my attention was directed to what looked like a Photoshopped photo from over 100 years ago. In the next display case, hung a series of photos that remind us that we can't always trust photographs.

Here's the story: On the morning of October 28, 1898 outside of the agricultural school at Mikve Israel, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, astride a white stallion and wearing a gold helmet, stopped for a moment on his way to Jerusalem. By the roadside stood Theodor Herzl, who considered the Kaiser’s recognition crucial for international approval of his plan to resettle the Jews in the land of Israel.

The original photograph of Herzl and the Kaiser was not acceptable as only Herzl's left foot could be seen in the photo. Herzl, aware of the importance of the photo, ordered its reconstruction. A photo of Herzl was taken on the roof of the school and superimposed onto the photo after seating Kaiser Wilhelm II on the dark horse (instead of the original white stallion).

There are many examples of such photo manipulation. Time magazine's website lists its choices for the Top Ten Doctored Photos and warns that “photographers have been manipulating imagery since the medium was invented".

Doctored photos have been in the news lately following the Reuters scandal concerning its manipulation of photos from aboard the Mavi Marmara, one of the ships in the flotilla that tried to break the Israeli/Egyptian Gaza blockade last week.

Reuters is claiming that doctored photos that it published, which fail to show individuals aboard the Mavi Marmara holding weapons are the result of an "editing error." According to the Israel Matzav blog, the agency has said the absence of the activists holding knives in the pictures it originally published to its wire was an editing error.

In a statement given to Journalism.co.uk they said, "Reuters is committed to accurate and impartial reporting. All images that pass over our wire follow a strict editorial evaluation and selection process. The images in question were made available in Istanbul, and following normal editorial practice were prepared for dissemination which included cropping at the edges."

The uncropped images have now been reinstated as part of the agency's package of images from the aid ship attack.

The moral of the story is that while a photo may tell a thousand words, you might want to take those words with a grain of salt.

Introducing Shek 2

It is appropriate that Israel unveiled its new two shekel coin last Tuesday on the first night of Hanukkah. As reported on The New Jew blog, "The new two shekel coin features a pomegranate and horn of plenty symbol, modeled after an ancient insignia by Johanan Horcanus. Horcanus (also known by the Greek name John Hyrcanus) was the Jewish high priest from 135 to 105 BCE. He was the son of Simeon Maccabaeus, one of the original Maccabees from the Hanukkah story."

Two Israeli shekels are currently worth fifty cents.

Interestingly, the the new two shekel coins are not made in Israel. Rather, like all Israeli currency they are produced in South Korea and shipped to Israel for circulation since Israel has no mint in operation.

Unfortunately, Israel will now be phasing out the five-shek coin, which next to the ten-shek is my favorite shekel coin.