YudelLine

Tuesday, June 29

"A report released last Friday by the United Jewish Communities and its educational arm, the Jewish Education Service of North America, says, ``No Jewish family that desires to send its child(ren) to a Jewish day school should be prevented from doing so due to financial reasons.

Day schools provide a Judaic and secular education for an estimated 212,000 children in North America, or about 40 percent of all children involved in some form of Jewish education.

Once primarily the domain of the Orthodox -- 660 of North America's 810 day schools are Orthodox -- day schools have earned increasing support among liberal Jews in the past decade."

Flashback 1994: Federation Allocations to Jewish Day Schools: Models, Principles and Funding Levels (JESNA)

Flashback 1990: A Time to Act? Mandel commission releases report (Long Island Jewish World)

Yudel's Lines: (1) Mocking a federation taskforce is akin to shooting fish in a barrel, but I felt I needed to do it anyway. Maybe I'm just annoyed at myself for the enthusiasm with which I covered some of the previous reports from these guys. Yudel's Lines: (2) Maybe the day I start filling out the financial aid form for my kids' day school is the wrong day to say this but: I'm not so convinced that across-the-board funding to day schools is the "continuity" catch-all its proponents claim it to be. Will the money be targeted at those wavering whether to enroll their kids, or will it result in a Reaganesque across-the-board tuition reduction, changing nobody's behavior? Will it move kids from no Jewish education, or supplementary education, into day schools? Or is this just another transfer of funds from non-Orthodox donors to Orthodox recipients? I think properly targeted, federation funds can make a difference; some of the capital program described in the JTA article sound worthwhile. But let's beware of the clamor of interested parties.

Big Brother: Uncle Sam Has All Your Numbers (Washington Post)

"As part of a new and aggressive effort to track down parents who owe child support, the federal government has created a vast computerized data-monitoring system that includes all individuals with new jobs and the names, addresses, Social Security numbers and wages of nearly every working adult in the United States."

Java Jive? Drinking coffee could protect people from radioactivity, according to scientists in India (New Scientist)

Saturday, June 26

Halfway There: It's been a lackadaisical June week here at YudelLine. Not coincidentally, I celebrated my 35th birthday Wednesday. Took the day off to visit the Bronx Zoo -- my first time there. If you're expecting deep zoological birthday metaphors, however, you're out of luck: I'm feeling too old for all that. Not too old, however, to revel in my Star Wars Legos. Thank you, Eve, Yael, Ariella & Sam -- you're making the second half worthwhile.

Celebrating With the Times: You're Not Older. Products Are Better.

With the last baby boomers turning 35, "industries from automobile makers to soft drink bottlers are developing sheep's clothing: a new generation of easier-to-use products specifically designed and marketed to a population that refuses to acknowledge the prospect of failing eyesight, hearing and dexterity. Boomers can believe that life hasn't changed, but the landscape of products is shifting subtly around them. "

Putting the Bed into Chabad: Love, Orthodox Style: A Rabbi's Kosher Sex Manual (Nerve)

"Okay, word association: I say "love," you think sex. I say "lust," you definitely think sex. I say "park bench," and you still think sex (tawdry sex, you little scamp, but sex all the same). Then I say "kosher." "

Don't Fry This at Home: Outrage greets man accused of killing parrot (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Alvarez is accused of killing Iago, a gray and green Quaker parrot who could speak about 20 words, at a UW fraternity May 4 because of a dispute between Alvarez and Iago's owner. If convicted, Alvarez faces a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Monday, June 21

Poetic Justice: Vegetarians plan campaign to convert Southern Baptists (Star Telegram)

Philosophical Justice: Revisiting John Rawls' Theory of Justice (Prospect)

"In 1971 a reclusive American academic revived liberal political philosophy with A Theory of Justice. Why did he write it? And why was it applauded and then ignored by the left?

...At the centre of Rawls's system is the inviolability of basic civil and political rights. ..."Justice," Rawls insists in the first rousing paragraphs of A Theory of Justice, "is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust... Justice denies that the loss of freedom for some can ever be made right by a greater good shared by others."

Thespian Rabbi: Speaking of Evil -- and of Acting (Rabbi Debra Orenstein in LA Jewish Journal)

"Acting and religion, in the interpretations I advocate, ask practitioners to be profoundly truthful in their readings of text, without being literal."

The Real Menace: "Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists (Award winning science fiction writer David Brin in Salon)

"A blithe contentment with genetic determinism is one thread this "Star Wars" universe shares with most ancient tales -- and with the Nazis.

[In the mythology of George Lucas,] elites have an inherent right to arbitrary rule; common citizens needn't be consulted. They may only choose which elite to follow.

"Good" elites should act on their subjective whims, without evidence, argument or accountability."

Sunday, June 20

Father's Day (1): Why we like Ann Landers (Washington Post)

Father's Day (2): Why we don't watch TV (Star Tribune)

"A study of the prime-time offerings of the five major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and WB) has found that only five programs -- an average of one per network, all week long -- portray a father as competent and involved with his family."

Father's Day (3): The New Jewish Family (Jewish Week)

" Debbie numbers among a small yet growing group of single woman in their 30s and 40s — many of them Jewish and living on the Upper West Side — who have chosen to raise children without a partner. Her story forms the narrative backbone of “And Baby Makes Two,” a new film by Oren Rudavsky and Judy Katz that premieres at the Quad Cinema on June 25."

Yudel's Line: Why did Rep. Ben Gilman spike a perfunctory Mazel Tov resolution to incoming Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak? James Besser reports that it might be because Gilman was miffed he wasn't consulted; or because he's a friend of the defeated Bibi. But could it perhaps be that his district includes the Orthodox shtetl of Monsey, where leading Rabbi Moshe Tendler considers the Labor party and its peace process an abomination before the Lord? In other words, miffing Barak is as much a no-effort gesture to his Jewish constituency as the mazel tov was for the other congresscritters.

The Jock Mafia: Dissecting Columbine's Cult of the Athlete (Washington Post)

"Some parents and students believe a schoolwide indulgence of certain jocks -- their criminal convictions, physical abuse, sexual and racial bullying -- intensified the killers' feelings of powerlessness and galvanized their fantasies of revenge."

Guerilla Marketing? Microsoft Opens In Beirut On Anti-Piracy Pledges

Goring Gore: The Debate Over ‘Charitable Choice’ (Marc Stern, NY Jewish Week)

"Charitable choice could raise the specter (not present since last century) of largely government-funded Christian social welfare establishment, where Jews will be welcome only at the price of accepting either Christian religious values, or second-rate government programs. "

Friday, June 18

Remembrance of Things Past: Two Hours ($25) at the Last No-Tell Hotel (Sandy Lawrence Edry in the New York Observer)

The Elk represents one of the few surviving remnants of 42nd Street’s seamy and seedy side, a barely living connection to the gray days when Times Square was the reigning kingdom of sex and sin.

Sometimes it Pays to Publish on Time Delay: X-Ray Rabbi charges may have been phony (Ha'aretz)

It seems that allegations of molestation against an Israel rabbi were a frameup job. Under investigation for bribing women for false affidavits: a senior aide to the alleged molester's rabbinical rival, Rabbi Baruch Abuhatzeira, better known as the Baba Baruch.

How Deri: New York police to reopen investigation into death of Deri's mother-in-law (Ha'aretz)

Deri's alibi in his corruption trial was that unaccounted moneys in his bank account were a gift from his adopted mother-in-law, Mrs. Verdber. Verdber was killed by a hit-and-run driver shortly after refusing to sign an affidavit prepared by Deri's lawyer.

One source told Ha'aretz that "several different people had told the police that the driver who hit Verdber was a former Israeli who had close ties with Moshe Reich, a Jewish millionaire and a known supporter and confidante of Deri."

Dr. McCoy is rolling over in his grave: New research indicates that travel faster than the speed of light is theoretically possible. (Wired News) Actually, a good deal less theoretically impossible than had been previously assumed. Here's the original paper promising a `warp drive' with reasonable total energy requirements.

Why we don't forward chain letters: The Email Read Around the World (Wired News)

"Fifth-grade teacher Glynda Wimmer of Mill Cove District School, near Halifax, Nova Scotia, hopes the tidal wave she sparked will stop by the time school ends in late June. But she's not sure it will."

Wednesday, June 16

Bugs Juiced: People Are Dying Because Antibiotics Can't Keep Up With Resistant Bugs. (Salon)

"Already, drug-resistant bacteria are killing thousands of people each year....

We're starting to see the closing of the window, of the antibiotic era. The question is how fast it closes."

Making America Safe for Carnivores: Arming for the Cause (Salt Lake City Weekly)

"The Jordan School Board and its administrators won’t let students wear T-shirts or other clothing bearing the word “vegan,” because they contend it is “gang related” and could lead to violence."

Happy Hasids: Nachman on their mind (Ha'aretz)

"A fringe group of Breslau Hasidim is tempting young people into the intoxicating world of Rabbi Nachman. "

Sunday, June 13

Cracking up with Gary Rosenblatt (1): Drug Use Is A Reality (JWeek)

"During a class trip to Canada this week, eight seniors at a local yeshiva high school were detained by security officials at a park after being suspected of possessing marijuana."

Cracking up with Gary Rosenblatt (2): A Crack In Israel’s Religious Status Quo? (JWeek)

"By reaching out to the Conservative/Masorti movement, which is halachic in practice, and excluding the Reform movement, which is not, the Orthodox establishment could employ a divide-and-conquer strategy that might stem the effort to separate religion and politics in Israel."

Yudel's Line: Reading the article, one has to wonder: Is this an attempt at serious analysis, or self-serving wishful thinking? Rosenblatt is the Jewish Week's editor-in-chief, publisher, and highest-ranked Yeshiva U. grad -- roles that to this observer at least he has a hard time separating. And as the paper's defacto spokesman for Y.U. Orthodoxy at the Jewish Week, Rosenblatt has the a vested interest in the proposed divide-and-conquer strategy. By asserting that Orthodoxy's problem with non-Orthodoxy is simply a "principled" adherence to Jewish law, not a fanatic desire for monopolistic domination over this planet's oldest monotheistic religion, Rosenblatt is able to in effect say, "we Orthodox are really good, tolerant people, just pushed to the limit by Reform horrible embrace of deviancy." What makes this essay cum trial balloon so phony is its deliberate elision of the core of the "Who is a Jew" debate, which is not about the form and halachic act of the conversion, but about the type of Judaism one has to embrace to be an Israeli taxpayer in good standing. Can one accept a woman as a rabbi? Can one count a women in a minyan? Can one have a woman as a cantor? (And one is tempted to add: Can one ignore all the "halachic pronouncements" of Orthodox leaders, in Israel and America, and vote for Ehud Barak as prime minister?) It really matters not whether there remain a smattering of "right-wing Conservative" rabbis as fuddy-duddy in their psak and persona as the worst of the Orthodox peers, nor whether Rosenblatt's brothers-in-black would accept such a compromise (the essense of Modern Orthodox "moderation," it often seems, is to proudly assert a metaphysical openness while sadly, reluctantly, and ever-so-smugly assenting to the intra-Orthodox politics that render it moot.) The question of Who is a Jew remains this: Will the State of Israel continue to accept as Jewish those who dunk in a mikveh and affirm fealty to the rabbis who aim to tear down the democratic, Zionist state, while rejecting those who dunk in a mikveh and affirm adherence to a Judaism that accepts democracy in the synagogue and in the Knesset?

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