A Note on the Khazar-origin Theory of Hungarian Jewry

An advantage of davening in a minyan in a local yeshiva is that you never know what seforim might turn up or what you might find in them.

This past Shabbat I found a copy of Mateh Levi (it's a bit different from the standard printed volume; much fewer responsa). This book, which is mainly about writing Gittin but also contains responsa on all sorts of issues, was written by R. Dr. Mordechai (Markus) Halevi Horovitz, a Hungarian rav who eventually became the rabbi of general (i.e., non-secessionist) Orthodox community in Frankfurt (or Vrankvurt, as it is spelled in this book). That is, he was a rival and critic of RSR Hirsch.

As you can see from the stamp, this particular volume, printed in 1891, belonged to the library of the Berlin Jewish community. There are actually stamps indicating that it was checked out of that library several times in the early 1920s. It eventually found its way to the yeshiva high school in Modiin, where I peruse it on Shabbat.

The first responsum begins with a question from R. Asher Grossberg of Eszlar. 

R. Asher begins the query by reintroducing himself, reminding R. Horowitz that they studied together in Ujhely (a major Hungarian yeshiva) and met again at the famed Jewish Congress that took place in the winter of 1868-9. He also mentions that R. Horovitz was then working on a treatise to prove that Hungarian Jews are descendants of the Khazars.

That may be surprising, so a bit of background. When the Dual Monarchy was established in 1867, Hungarians became a minority within their own kingdom. To help alleviate that, they extended full civil rights to the Jews, on condition that the Jews would declare "Magyar" (=Hungarian) as their nationality. The Jews, by and large, saw the opportunity and went along with it. Some, like R. Akiva Yosef Schlesinger, were strongly opposed, maintaining that this is a betrayal of Jewish nationhood (he was a Haredi and a Zionist, by any definition of either). Eventually, it became popular to claim that Hungarian Jews were descendants of the Khazars who migrated westward along with the other Hungarian tribes in the Middle Ages - that is, that Hungarian Jews are indeed as Hungarian as any Hungarian.

It is surprising to me that such theories were being propounded by respected rabbanim so soon after the process of Magyarization began.

To dispel doubt: I do not believe that Hungarian Jews, or any other Jews, are the descendants of the Khazars, nor do I believe that there was ever a mass conversion of Khazars to Judaism.

My Profile of Joseph Cedar - and More

The most recent issue of Jewish Action features a large section on English-speaking olim to Israel. It profiles several communities and several olim who have had an impact on broader Israeli society. I was asked to write about being an oleh in Modiin, and was also asked to write two of the personal profiles. One - my profile of Rav Lichtenstein (scroll down)- was published. I also profiled filmmaker Joseph Cedar, but unfortunately the profile was ultimately left out, mainly because he simply does not consider himself an oleh. I really enjoyed my conversation with him, anyway. The editor has permitted me to post my profile of Cedar else here, so here it is:

Filmmaker Joseph Cedar has won awards and acclaim in Israel, Europe, and the United States, and has twice been a finalist for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. Yet the day before the Academy Awards, a Shabbat, he walked several miles to a media event and addressed the crowd from a seat to which a microphone had been affixed beforehand, while his fellow panelists used hand-held microphones. This might make him seem like an American Orthodox dream come true, yet Cedar himself often wonders if the same avenues would have been open to him had his parents not made aliyah in 1973, when he was five. He looks at American Orthodoxy and sees that it has largely given up on attempting this balancing act, either by leaving the religion to assimilate and pursue ambitions, or by withdrawing from the broader cultural and professional world into a more exclusivist religious environment. He credits his sense of balance to his parents and the environment they chose to raise their family: “Their move to Israel meant I grew up with a values system that turned out to be superior to the one I would have adopted had they not made aliyah.”

Cedar does not consider himself an oleh. Aliyah, implies choice, and, as he puts it, “Nobody asked me.” He does not even consider himself American-Israeli, as his social milieu growing up in Jerusalem’s Bayit Vegan neighborhood was almost entirely Hebrew-speaking. As Joseph and his five younger siblings grew up, even his parents’ home became Israeli. Yet American and world culture remained part and parcel of the home. “My parents exposed me to everything,” Joseph recalls, “not just American culture. The soundtrack of our house consisted of Broadway musicals, an American art form, but there were other things as well.”

Though he envisions a primarily Israeli audience when he makes his films, he acknowledges that this exposure, plus the additional years Joseph spent living in the US – as a student at NYU and when his father, a renowned molecular biologist, was on sabbatical – helped him consider a broader audience. His first two films (“Time of Favor”, 2000, and “Campfire”, 2004) explore aspects of the religious Zionist culture in which he was raised. They were acclaimed in Israel, but registered mild interest outside. His third film (“Beaufort”, 2007) examined the futility of Israel’s military presence in Lebanon. It won awards at major international film festivals. “Footnote” (2011), Cedar’s most acclaimed film, to date, is set in Hebrew University’s Talmud department and depicts the petty rivalries, competing theories, and sense of futility that characterize arcane academic disciplines. It won the award for best screenplay at Cannes and, like “Beaufort”, was an Oscar finalist.

Cedar made aliyah young enough to become a full-fledged, unhyphenated Israeli, a home-grown insider, but one who has been enriched by the culture, values, and religious sensibilities of his parents’ home. In this vein, he reminds us that the most profound way that Anglo olim make a difference in Israel is through their children and unborn generations who will be part of the Jewish future in the Jewish state.

The New Chief Rabbi: One Week, Two Controversies

Last week the newly minted Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Lau was embroiled in a controversy for using a racial slur when moralizing to a bunch of yeshiva students about cutting class to watch basketball games (he referred to the basketball players as "kushim" a slur that does not have the historical baggage of the n-word, and has only been a slur for a few decades, but, with all due respect to Yaacov Lozowick, is clearly and blatantly a slur of which there is no way he was unaware; maybe I'll have another post on that word). When confronted, he said he was joking, but did not apologize.

Now it is being reported that Rabbi Lau was caught cheating (this hasn't even been reported in English yet) on a written semikha exam 20 years ago. It should be noted that there are a lot of unanswered questions about this report, but it is backed up by R. Dov Lior, a rabbi of significant stature who has very little to gain and an awful lot to lose by lying about this.

Here in Israel, we don't even need steroids scandals.

A Proposal for Modiin's Future

Now that Modiin has no Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi, we have an opportunity. Instead of searching for a new Ashkenazic rabbi (in addition to the two Sephardic rabbis we still have, and because such searches are always political in nature and do not always take into consideration the needs of the city’s residents), I propose that the money for the Ashkenazic rabbi’s salary (c. 40,000 NIS per month!) be used to subsidize and encourage the hiring of community rabbis in Modiin.

It would work like this:  synagogue communities that have rabbis under employ will be eligible for a subsidy under the following conditions:

a.       These rabbis will be accessible to members of the broader community, particularly in their neighborhoods;

b.       No subsidy will exceed half of the salary that the rabbi already gets from his community;

c.        No community will be subsidized for more than 5,000 NIS per month.

d.       The rabbis of all synagogue communities – Chabad, Conservative, Masorti, Orthodox, Reform – will be eligible to apply for the subsidy.

As Anglos, we appreciate the value of cohesive communities with strong religious leadership. We know that the best way to build a rabbinate is not through political appointments from the top down, but by building supportive communities from the grassroots up. We know that eliminating the positions at the top and promoting communities as the basic building blocks of our civic society is the way to build a strong city, and ultimately a strong nation.

Municipal elections are coming up. Let’s put this issue on the agenda. Let’s make Modiin the site of a pilot program that every city in the country will want to emulate.

Where Every Day is Black Friday

A recent post at TOI on how doing business with Haredim has multiple benefits for all involved:

Perhaps most importantly, these transactions take place between equals. The shekels that flow from my wallet into Kiryat Sefer are not charity and are not taken by force. They generate neither feelings of superiority nor feelings of resentment. Each party enters the relationship without sacrificing freedom or dignity, without threatening or feeling threatened by the other.

Read it all here.

Double Vindication in the Fight against Modiin Bigotry

Many readers might remember that this past October, the city of Modiin closed the spacious and beautiful Anabe Park to out-of-town guests during Hol Ha-mo'ed Sukkot. The background was a minor incident the previous Pesach and an ongoing pissing contest between the respective mayors of Modi'in and its Haredi neighbor, Modi'in Illit.

To make a long story short, I went to the park on Sukkot and invited a Haredi family that I met at the entrance into the park as my personal guests (guests of Modi'in residents were allowed in). A Haaretz reporter happened to be there, and so I was in the Israeli press. The municipal spokesman even called me a "provocateur."

All of this information appears in news that appeared around that time, and I wrote two blog posts on the subject.

The story did not end there, nor did my (indirect) involvement in it. In the first place, the stupid exclusionary policy was lifted before Pesach. I'd like to think that my actions, the involvement of several Israeli civil rights groups, and the opposition of a majority of the city council contributed to the mayor seeing the error of his ways. Alas, according to local blogger Yaki Beja, it seems that the real reason for the change was the fact that the park's concessionaires were losing considerable business (ironically, it turns out that the park's upkeep was funded through the concessionaire dues, which means that a Haredi who came and bought a popsicle was in fact helping to fund the park). Whatever the reason, I'm glad that the policy was reversed, and I'm happy to have been on the right side of this one.

It gets better, though.

A week after the Haaretz article, a local paper ran a column by one Koby Or, which smeared a local attorney named Eli Fisher. Or assumed that the "Eli Fischer" in the article was this somewhat well-known local personage, and then he drew all sorts of wild conclusions about what Adv. Fisher was trying to accomplish by conspiring with a Haaretz reporter to manufacture a headline (it should be noted that Mr. Or, by his own admission, was in Eilat for Sukkot, far away from the action).

Although Mr. Or apologized in print the next week and made some modifications to the online article, Adv. Fisher, being a lawyer, sued Mr. Or and the publication that ran his article without editing it, checking facts, or asking for a statement from Adv. Fisher (or me, for that matter). The verdict was handed down a few weeks ago: Adv. Fischer won 36,000 NIS in damages from Mr. Or and the paper. Additionally, Mr. Or - who seems to be an old-school secularist type who is grumpy about anyone not like him coming along to do things differently - stopped writing for this or any other local paper. It is explained in the court protocols that Mr. Or quit the paper after it became clear that he would now be subjected to annoying little things like editing and fact-checking. To be honest, he's not that much different from today's armchair journalists who fact-check on Wikipedia, but whatever.

This has been summarized from a long blog post by Yaki Beja on the issue. He's got all of the courtroom drama. I'm just happy that a small battle in the fight against bigotry has been won. In any event, I'm going out for coffee later this week with my new friend, Eli Fisher.

He's paying.

More Provocations

Ha'aretz's "Anglo File" has an article in its weekend edition on Anglo (i.e., American, pretty much) opposition and discomfort with Modi'in's policy of barring non-residents from Anabe Park.

The article is here. Here's the bit where I'm quoted:

When Baltimore native Elli Fischer drove past Modi'in's Anabeh Park during the Sukkot festival this week, he witnessed firsthand an ultra-Orthodox couple being denied entry due to a controversial new policy that restricts holiday admission to local residents.

Fischer, himself a Modi'in resident, stopped his car and arranged to have the family of five admitted as his guests - but not before arguing with park officials.

"The policy is nothing but thinly veiled anti-Haredi bigotry," Fischer, a writer, translator and ordained rabbi, chided the park officials.

Last week, before the onset of the seven-day Sukkot festival, the Modi'in-Maccabim-Reut municipality decided to close the popular park to nonresidents of the three communities in its jurisdiction, citing "overcrowding." It's the latest volley in a saga that has pitted the municipality against the mayor of the neighboring Haredi community of Modi'in Illit, Yaakov Gutterman, who recently announced that its archaeological sites would be closed to non-Haredi visitors.

Fischer, 36, suggests the new policy is linked to an incident that occurred in the park during this year's observance of Passover, when a female performer at a concert was asked to step off the stage by Haredi members of the audience.

Nothing, he says, can justify the exclusion of citizens - a principle to which many among Modi'in's burgeoning Anglo community are particularly sensitive, he explains. "Americans in particular grew up with the legacy of the fight for civil rights as a part of our cultural DNA," said Fischer, who invoked the images of separate water fountains for blacks and whites in the United States. "I think it very much affects the way that we relate to issues of discrimination and bigotry, whether it's against Haredim, Arabs or African migrants."

ADDeRabbi, Agent Provocateur

For those not following along at home, my fair hometown of Modiin has barred non-residents from visiting its spacious and beautiful Anabe Park during vacations and on Hol Ha-Mo'ed. This is a result of a pishing contest between Modiin's Mayor Haim Bibas and Modi'in Ilit's Mayor Yaakov Guterman, plus it plays into a strong anti-Haredi (and occasionally anti-religious) sentiment amongst a minority of Modiin residents (a political party, Modiin Hofshit, ran on an anti-religious platform and got only a few hundred votes for city council).

The new policy upsets me greatly, and I wanted to see how the policy was being implemented generally. As I got in line to enter the park, I could see that a few cars ahead of me the line was being held up by a Haredi family insisting on entering the park. Since the new regulations allow for Modiin residents to bring guests, I went and invited the family in as my guests. After a while, the guards let us in on that basis. Serendipitously, a reporter from Haaretz was there at the time. Her report is here (Hebrew) and here (English - paywall). The paragraphs relevant to my story are:

As the argument continued, a Modi’in resident, Eli Fischer, decided to see whether everyone was really being barred from the park, or only those in ultra-Orthodox garb.

“He’s my guest, let him in,” said Fischer, in an effort to help Tirnauer, at first without success. The guards checked Fischer’s identity card, and then started questioning Tirnauer and his family about their relationship. One of the ushers called a municipal security guard to help.

“He’s not really your guest, he’s here to make a provocation,” the security guard told Fischer. But Fischer persisted after the getting approval of his superiors the security guard allowed Fischer and his new acquaintances into the park.

“The park is empty, and I wanted to see what would happen, since according to the instructions that were publicized, [the park] is reserved for Modi’in residents and their guests,” said Fischer. “I don’t know why they were questioning me.”

The municipality said that the confrontation involving Tirnauer and Fischer was the first to occur since the instructions were issued, claiming it was a planned provocation by the media.
“During all the days that entrance to the park was restricted, there wasn’t a single incident, except for one in which a visitor who isn’t a city resident came with a reporter to create a provocation and get a headline,” the municipality said.

 The Hebrew version also includes a Gemara that I cited for the benefit of the reporter, from Sukkah 27b:
"All Israel are fit to dwell in a single sukkah."

Two Articles: One on Modiin and one on Baltimore

A few weeks ago, on the last day of Chanukkah, JID ran an article of mine on ancient and modern Modiin. I relate to Modiin as the Columbia, Maryland of Israel, but then move off of that to discuss a different dimension of my town. The article is here.

Today I posted on a Ravens fan blog, arguing (against conventional wisdom) that Joe Flacco actually played really well against the Texans. It's here.

I hope to post an update on my series about Eastern European rabbis in America this week.

Exploring the Sermons of Eastern European Rabbis in America

I've been giving a "parsha shiur" in the local synagogue for over a year now. I like exploring a different theme each year; this year we're studying sermons of Orthodox rabbis who came to America from Eastern Europe during the great wave of migration between 1881 and 1924. The goal is to appreciate the intersection between the old world and the new, to see how these rabbis responded to the intellectual and social climate of the day.

Today was the fourth class in the series, so here's a little recap of what we've studied so far. All of the texts we've studied are available on hebrewbooks.org, supplemented by biographical information from other sources.

Noach: We studied pp. 13-17 of R. Yehuda Leib Graubart's Yabia Omer. Discussed it as autobiographical, considering that these rabbonim might have seen Noach as a role model. given his status as a "lonely man of faith" in a corrupt world.

Lekh Lekha: We studied R. Gedalia Silverstone's speech commemorating the 100th yahrzeit of Thomas Kennedy in 1932. Kennedy was an early advocate of Jewish rights in Maryland, and paid a dear price for it.
pp. 26-29 of Matok Mi-dvash vol. III.

Vayera: We studied pp. 44-50 of R. Avraham Guranovsky's "Even Yisrael" (a bio appears at the beginning of the volume; he was Eastern European, but trained at the Hildesheimer Rabbinerseminary in Berlin and arrived in America in 1869). This (rather long-winded) sermon is an extended Lamarckian reading of the concept of Ma'aseh Avot Siman Le-banim - Avraham's trials were akin to the giraffe stretching its neck; acquired traits could be passed on from one generation to the next according to Lamarck - whose theories were quite popular when R. Guranovsky was speaking these words in the 1870s.

Chayei Sarah: Today we studied R. Moshe Shimon Sivitz's sermon on what to look for in a potential spouse (pp. 102-107 of Heker Da'at). He rails against men who are more concerned with how many languages his wife speaks than whether she will be a good mother, and criticizes women for being gold-diggers. He criticize those who marry because they fell in love, saying that marriage should precede love. He also criticizes men who let their wives participate in the bread-winning, quipping that Adam started the trend, and look where it got him.

It's been a thoroughly enjoyable series so far. I'll update how it's gone every month or so.

A Gilded Landsmanschaft

An article of mine was posted today on Ynet and eJewishPhilanthropy, and was excerpted in Haaretz. The occasion for the article is the dedication of Kehillat Shaarei Yonah Menachem this weekend, with much pomp and circumstance (guest speakers will include Natan Sharansky and R. Shlomo Riskin, as well as local politicians).

In the article, I made reference to an idea that I developed before: that Israel should be a "cholent pot" - not a melting pot or salad bowl. In a cholent pot, each ingredient remains distinct like in a salad bowl, but adds and receives flavor, scent, and texture to and from all of the other ingredients. So too, the different elements that constitute Jewish (and dare I say non-Jewish) diversity in Israel all (should) contribute to and also takes something from all the other elements.

Crown without a King

Like so many others, I have been drawn into the pageantry of last week’s royal wedding. At first I tried convincing myself that I really did not care, but ended up tuning in anyway, compelled, like billions of others, to gawk. In fact, instead of apathy, I find myself curiously offended by the events—and indeed, by the very notion of royalty—as an American, Israeli, and Jew.

As an Israeli and an American, I am a citizen of two countries who fought for independence against soldiers of the British Crown, and to whom the British Crown represents the type of hubris that made a still-festering mess of vast swaths of territory. Though the British Empire undoubtedly had its fine hours, its sun has thankfully set.
But it was not antipathy toward Britain that caused me to take offense. After all, the crown is a symbol. Although the Talmud (Berakhot 58a) states that “[One who sees] gentile kings says, ‘[Blessed are You, God, our Lord, King of the Universe] Who has granted of His glory to flesh and blood,” halakhic consensus excludes symbolic kings who do not truly rule their subjects. The trappings of royalty do not a king make.
This is the source of offense: I can understand why it is prudent for a subject to respect and venerate a truly powerful king, but I will never understand the adulation of a purely vestigial royalty, whose line of succession have done and need do nothing in order to attain their status.
As a Jew, I am an heir to a tradition and bearer of a pedigree much greater than that of the British royal line. The Talmud proclaims on several occasions that “every Israelite is a prince.” Benjamin Disraeli, an apostate Jew and British Prime Minister, quipped to Daniel O’Connell in a Parliamentary debate when the latter insulted the former’s lineage, “Yes, I am a Jew and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.”

And yet, Jewish pedigree has long been replaced by meritocracy. A vestigial priesthood and the primogeniture of certain Hasidic courts are all that remain of exclusive birthrights. “The crown of Torah,” writes Maimonides (Laws of Torah Study 3:1), “stands available and accessible to all, ‘the heritage of the community of Jacob’; whomever wants it may come and take it.” According to the Mishna (Avot 4:17), the crown of a good reputation surpasses the crowns of royalty, priesthood, and even Torah. I therefore find it offensive, as a Jew, that there are those whose stature stems wholly from pedigree.
As an American, I believe that veneration and honor must be earned, if not deserved. Admittedly, American cultural heroes often attain their status for their inherently trivial skill of throwing a ball through a hoop. And yet, even then, that respect is born of merit, of men gathering on the playing field to determine superiority through fair competition. I am proud that the country of my birth can elect a black man, the son of a foreigner, to its highest office. Men are judged not by the color of their skin (or blood), but by the content of their character. Israel, too, has seen the rise—and fall—of statesmen from a variety of origins. None are above the law, and none are beneath it.
A party was held in my neighborhood in Modi’in this past Friday night, celebrating the royal wedding. It garnered some significant media attention (in The Forward and the Jerusalem Post, among others), which is to say that they had good PR. As I considered how to succinctly explain why I would not be attending, I eventually hit on a quip that sums up several of the reasons outlined above: I would attend, but my Nazi costume is at the dry cleaner’s.

A Tribute to Marc Weinberg

UPDATES:
MP3s of hespedim, Learning in Marc's memory
Obituaries: Haaretz, JC

This is the story of how Marc Weinberg ob”m changed my life. It is not his life story; it is not a eulogy or obituary. It is a personal reflection on my relationship with a man who I did not know for very long, but who made a profound difference in my life. Others will tell of other parts of Marc's life (it's starting); I knew him just under 4 years, and he was engaged in his final battle for more than 2.5 of those.

I knew Marc as a neighbor, chavruta, and friend. They rented the home just downstairs from us after we all made aliyah in the summer of 2006, and the families became and remain close. He soon learned to tolerate and appreciate my non-New York Americanness, and I learned to tolerate his strolls through the common area, complaining about the heat, wearing nothing but shorts and purple crocs. Somehow, he did even that with class.

The Weinbergs moved into their own home a year later, in the summer of 2007. He changed my life soon after that, on Simchat Torah (I believe, though it may have been a Shabbat around that time). I had just started teaching at a seminary, and it was my first job in Israel with any kind of stability and satisfaction; I had been miserable for that first year and finally saw a bit of light. As we strolled down his street, he asked me, quite pointedly and mildly pedantically, after hearing about my seminary job: “Rabbi Fischer, is this what you see yourself doing in 10 years?” He rendered me speechless as I realized for the first time that the answer was “no.”

A few weeks later, Marc, Natalie, and the kids came to visit me at Hadassah-En Karem when I was hospitalized with Guillian-Barre Syndrome. By that point, I had done a good amount of thinking about my future and had tentative plans to change my career from education to writing and translating. We talked about it on that occasion and several others; Marc was a meticulous planner whose outlook emphasized pragmatic financial concerns while ensuring that such matters do not come at the expense of what was truly meaningful in life – for him, family and friends, learning and teaching. I'm not sure he realized how much his advice and encouragement meant. His clearheaded analysis forced me to realize that I would have to alter my aspirations in order to be successful in Israel, but he also expressed his faith that I could pull it off, and he expressed satisfaction whenever he heard that "business was going well."

Just a few weeks after he visited me in the hospital, I returned the favor. By that point he had been diagnosed with cancer. I stopped by his hospital room on my way to teach in Jerusalem, and we enjoyed caramel sufganiyot during the predawn hours of that first morning of Chanukah.

The following year, while he was trying to recover and I had begun working from home, we learned together weekly. Even in the best of times we probably would have done more schmoozing than learning, as we both had broad interests that frequently overlapped. Given his condition and frequent hospital visits, we did not end up learning much at all, though we talked about starting up again as soon as he felt up to it. That was not to be. He passed away last night at the age of 35.

ת. נ. צ. ב. ה

Second Annual Jahrzeit Shiur

Like last year, I will be giving a shiur Tuesday night (4/27) in memory of my maternal grandparents, Ruth and Eric Levi z"l, at 8:30 at the Ramat Modiin Synagogue (Glenwood) in Hashmonaim. The yahrzeits of both grandparents fall during sefirat ha-omer.

The topic of this year's shiur is:

When Judaism Confronts a New Culture - a Reading of the Talmudic Story of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his Colleagues (Shabbat 33b) 

Light refreshments will be served.

443

The High Court ruling regarding Route 443 was issued the week that my daughter Shlomit was born at Hadassah- Mt. Scopus, when I was using that road several times a day shuttling between the hospital and my home in Modi’in. The ruling predictably generated a large amount of protest in the Modi’in area, as evidenced by this petition and by the fact that the mayor of Modi’in issued a press release against the decision. My initial response to these protests was that they are alarmist, and to the mayor’s reaction that it is populist, but it has taken some time to articulate exactly why that is the case.

In the first place, this is not an easy issue. I tend to agree with fellow Modi’inite Uriel Procaccia that, reluctant as we may be about it, it is hard to justify, legally and morally, the discrimination applied to keep Palestinians off the road. Every step of the decision might be defensible, but the outcome, that eminent domain was utilized to take land for a highway that was ultimately closed to the original landowners, is simply an absurd situation. Closing the highway to many due to the actions of the few, even if defensible, is certainly far from clear cut. Security is obviously a paramount value, but it is not the only value.

That leads to the next point: 443 is a very convenient highway for Modi'inites like me to get to Jerusalem. I'm there is half an hour. There is, however, an alternate route - Route 1. There is only one Israeli community - Beit Horon - for which 443 is the 'lifeline' in and out. In other words, for the overwhelming majority of Israelis, using 443 is a matter of convenience. The most inconvenienced, aside from those from Beit Horon, would be residents of the Kiryat Sefer bloc, who would have to travel through Modiin to Route 1 if 443 were inaccessible or dangerous - adding perhaps 15 to 20 minutes to their journey, depending on their destination within Jerusalem.

Thus, framing the issue as one of Israeli security vs. Palestinian convenience is somewhat disingenuous: Israelis could obviate the security concern by taking the alternate route, admittedly an inconvenience, though Palestinians along the 443 corridor are inconvenienced to a much greater degree by being denied access to 443. I am not advocating closing 443 to Israeli drivers, simply pointing out that the current framing of the issue – Israeli security vs. Palestinian rights – is disingenuous.

Throughout Judea and Samaria, Palestinians and Israelis share roads. There are a number of roads closed to Israelis, but many that are shared by Israelis and Palestinians. Very few West Bank roads are for exclusive Israeli use. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that there are occasional incidents, security is pretty good and the risk of a car accident far outweighs the risk of terrorist incident. Route 443 would not be essentially different from those roads. Access was restricted at certain times at the height of hostilities 8-9 years ago, but those restrictions eased as things calmed down. That being the case, why is 443 so touchy? Why has access not been eased yet, and why is opposition in this instance so broad?

This gets us to the crux of my observation: as opposed to nearly every other road in Judea and Samaria, with the possible exceptions of certain stretches of Route 1 and Highway 90, the Israelis who travel on 443 are by and large NOT 'settlers'. The road simply takes a 20km 'shortcut' through the West Bank. As Aluf Benn wrote last week, most Israelis prefer to keep Palestinians out of sight and out of mind, to 'disengage' from the Palestinian population. It is these people whose sentiments are expressed by the mayor of Modi’in. It is these bourgeoisie commuters, not the settlers, who are horrified at the prospect of sharing a road with Palestinians.

443 follows the path of the ancient Beit Horon Descent (or Ascent, depending which way you're going), a key access point from the coastal plain to the interior highlands of the Land of Israel. This road can thus be seen as either a flashpoint for conflict or as a symbol of endurance in a patch of rough terrain. It seems that how we view it is our choice.

Rav Eliezer Melamed in Modiin

I attended two shiurim today; I cannot remember the last time I did that. The latter shiur was given by Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber on changing the liturgy. Although it was very broadening and informative, it was not very enlightening (for me, anyway), since I am somewhat aware of the history of Jewish liturgy. I had the opportunity to shmooze with him a bit afterward. I raised the issue (related to the parsha) of his grandfather's responsum regarding whether an otherwise Orthodox synagogue could call itself Neolog in order to gain government funding (Afarkasta De-Anya II YD 140) in which he relates to the value of names in general, but comes up with the insight (that I was excited about because it validated what I thought at the time that I saw it) that 'name, language, and dress' were only important in Egypt because there was no other way for the Israelites to preserve their identity. Later, once the Torah was give, these elements became much less important (see s.v. hen omnam here). He ultimately rejects this idea; after all, he was in the sphere of influence of the Chasam Sofer (he was a rabbi in Romania in the early 20th Century), upon whose ethical will the 'name, language, dress' narrative is based (see what I wrote here and here).

Earlier in the day, between mincha and ma'ariv, I went to hear R. Eliezer Melamed, who has been in the Israeli media a lot lately for ostensibly encouraging insubordination in the IDF and refusing to attend a hearing called by the Minister of Defense. R. Melamed' shiur was on oneg Shabbat and the balance between physical and spiritual oneg. Drawing from a variety of sources, he showed that Shabbat must be divided between spiritual and physical pursuits. He then engaged in an actual analysis of how time should be spent o Shabbat, concluding that aside from shul, one should spend about 6 hours learning on Shabbat so that the physical and spiritual pursuits are temporally even. I was unhappy with this conclusion for several reasons:
1) I am aware that there are groups, the Chaitniks for example, who are very serious about the whole chetzyo lachem/ chetzyo la-Shem deal. Nevertheless, I do not believe these statements to be of a halakhic nature; rather, the key is that some kind of balance is achieved between spiritual and material pursuits on Shabbat. I am aware that there has been a trend, since the time of the Chafetz Chaim, to quantify mussar and virtuous practice. I do not feel that this is the correct approach, though.
2) Even granting the legitimacy of the 'stopwatch approach' (which he clearly espoused, contrary to the protestations of some of the other attendees), I disagree with his math. I think he underestimated the amount of time that people spend in the 'higher' pursuits - for example, walking to shul or a shiur, etc. He also underestimated the amount of time that people spend on things that are neither 'lachem' or 'la-Shem'. He acknowledged that some sleep falls into this category, but there are so many other responsibilities that go into this. If someone takes the kids to the park so his/her spouse can get some sleep, what is that? There are other places where the lachem/la-Shem boundary is not so clear.
3) In general, I do not think he appreciated his audience. For the balebatim that formed the crowd, there is far more time spent in shul and learning Torah on Shabbat than during the week. Even if it's only listening to layning, the drasha, and reading a couple of shul rags, it is far more than is done during the week. I'm all for more learning; don't hold it over the heads of the balebatim, though.

Of course, at the time of the shiur I could hardly formulate all this, so I took a subtler approach, raised my hand, and asked: If one learns during chazarat ha-shatz, does it count double?

Rav Melamed spent a few minutes at the end addressing questions of insubordination. He reiterated that he is very against the army getting involved in dismantling settlements, independent of whether or not they should be dismantled. He also predicted that there would be a compromise wherein he is demoted from being Rosh Yeshiva at Har Bracha in return for the yeshiva returning to Hesder. He said that the end of Hesder would not be the end of the world, since the Tal law provisions are not that different. He reported that his approach is based on the written words of Rav Goren and Rav Avraham Kahana-Shapira. He claimed that his main concern in all of the controversy is that the IDF remain completely conducive to religious soldiers, who should not have to compromise one iota on their religiosity. He added the dubious claim that this is what is keeping thousands of Haredim out of the army, and that it is for the army's own good that he encourages his students to stand up for their rights. It was clear that he sees standing up for the highest standards of Shabbat and kashrut as fundamentally similar to the issue of settlement evacuations.

For me, his most controversial point (there were other points of disagreement, vut not as fundamental as the following) was his explanation of why he did not attend a hearing called by Ehud Barak. He claims that if it had been just a 'meeting', he'd have gone; a 'hearing' implies that the Rosh Yeshiva is subservient to the government, is not allowed to remain independent, and is merely a 'Rav Mita'am' ('puppet rabbi', essentially). Of course, I do not see the issue that way at all. Most rabbis in this world are answerable to someone and must navigate  tightrope between full independence of expression and the people who keep him employed, etc. It's very typical for Israeli rabbis to view any type of rabbinic accountability as some kind of weakness or unacceptable compromise.

Again, I could not offer a critique on the spot, so I asked: Is there not 'subservience' to others? For example, big donors? He distinguished, unconvincingly in my opinion, between government pressure and other pressures, likening it to a judge for whom predispositions are OK but bribery is not. I thought the question was better than the answer.

Finaly and unrelatedly, something else on the Rabbi Riskin issue - check out this link to a letter from R. Yaakov Emden. He's bashing the Frankists for blurring the lines between Judaism and Christianity, claiming that even Jesus and Paul did not wish to proselytize among the Jews or ask them to give u Jewish observance. He's generally fairly positive on Jesus and Paul, interestingly. R. Emden seems to have been quite well versed in the Christian testament. See here, about 1/2 to 2/3 the way down the page.

Affiliate Marketing as an Institutional Fundraiser

As part of my shul’s building campaign, I came up with the idea of creating a “virtual mall” to help with the fundraising effort. Thus far, in its 2 months of operation, it has generated about $113 – not a tremendous amount, but we’re just getting started. In truth, once its set up, there is very easy to maintain and it’s “passive income”. The trick is to get the members of your community to do their online shopping through your portal. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. I’ll explain from the beginning.

Most online vendors have affiliate marketing programs. The idea is that you create links to the vendor’s site, and then you get a certain percentage of any purchases generated by traffic that you drive (Amazon pays the best commissions). As a simple example, my shul has my own affiliate account with Amazon. This link to Amazon is a unique link that tells Amazon that the traffic was driven by me. There is no need for the buyer to enter any code or anything.

When it comes to institutions, it’s all about loyalty. If your constituents shop online, and you can educate and convince them to do their shopping through your affiliate links, then you can make money. The best thing about it is that it costs the buyer nothing. It’s essentially an advertising cost paid by the vendor. In fact, I’d say that if you shop online and DON’T go through some sort of affiliate link, then you’re leaving money on the floor.

Setting it up can be complicated. There are three main companies that manage affiliate programs for the most popular online vendors – Commission Junction, Linkshare, and Google Affiliates. The problem is, unless you have a lot of traffic, many affiliate programs will reject your application. Amazon, which has its own affiliate program, does not have an application process – they’re smart that way. You can, however, create links using other sites – such as visitourmall.com, onecause.com, and other “charity mall” sites. You can create your own site within those sites, or you can ‘harvest’ links and embed them in your own site. The problem with these “charity mall” sites is that they take a hefty chunk of your earnings. For example, if Vendor A pays 4% commissions, the charity mall site will take 50-60% of that, leaving you with 2% or even less. It’s better to set up your own accounts, but, like I mentioned, it’s not always so easy to get approved.

On my shul’s site, most of the links are through charity mall accounts; as we generate more traffic by getting friends and family to shop at our “mall”, we will hopefully get more and more of our own accounts approved, and our commissions will go up. Whoever sets it all up for the institution should spend some time learning the ins and outs of affiliate marketing.

There are no privacy concerns. The account manager can not see who buys what, and often not even what was bought.

In all, if your institution has a decent number of loyal constituents who do a decent amount of online shopping, it is worth exploring the possibility of creating a “virtual mall”. It could generate a decent amount of revenue. Until that time, however, feel free to shop at my shul’s mall. You’ll help a great young community in Israel.

Media Hound

I've been quoted in the English Haaretz twice in the past week, but in very different types of articles.
One it here.
The other is here.

Book Review: Siddur Shema Koleinu

I recently was introduced to this book because its publisher, Amit Sofer, is a friend and neighbor of mine in Modiin. As a musician, he often found himself in a situation that he was taking his kids to school late, and davening with them in the car because they would miss it in school. This situation gave rise to the Siddur Shema Koleinu.

Many contemporary children’s have sound filed embedded. This siddur has about 15 minutes worth of audio in it, and it contains most of the basic prayers that children say in school and at home. Some of its 16 tracks are simple recitations (Birkot ha-Shachar, Shema), but others are full-fledged songs (Adon Olam, Yigdal, Hamalach).

I’ve found that this siddur helps children with pronunciation and reading skills as they follow along in the text as they listen. It is highly recommended for a family contemplating aliyah that wants to get their kids used to the style of davening in Israeli preschools. It would also be a wonderful addition to Jewish preschools in America. I bought a few to give as gifts to preschoolers who are just learning the rudimentary prayers.

Batteries are not included.

Book Review: The Schechter Haggadah: Art, History, and Commentary

This review has now migrated to the Tradition Seforim blog (link)