ABAYUDAYA COMMUNITY UPDATES • Be`chol Lashon launches

Transcription

Be’chol Lashon (In Every Tongue)
A program of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research seeks to grow and
strengthen the Jewish people through ethnic, cultural, and racial inclusiveness.
www.JewishResearch.org
ABAYUDAYA COMMUNITY UPDATES
• Be'chol Lashon launches Abayudaya Community Health Project
• Water, The Gift of Life
• Letter from Chair, Medical Advisory
COMMUNITY UPDATES
• Carolivia Herron: Nappy Hair is Beautiful, Calling Names Isn't
• Black Jew Illuminates Diversity of Judaism
• Video: Rabbi Capers Funnye and Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew
Congregation
• Taste of Uganda: Rabbi Reaches our to Children Through Music
• Indian Jewish Congregation Newsletter Features Family Indian Recipes
CURRENT NEWS
• Using Language to Cross an Israeli Divide
• Rabbinic Schools Open Doors to Gays
• Yemeni Jews Face Growing sectarian Troubles
IDENTITY
• Montclair Identity Expert to Explore Growing Awareness of Multiracial Jews
• The “Old Jews” of Mexico Come out After 500 Years
• Shades of Gray: Lacey Schwartz
ARTS & CULTURE
• Anne Frank on the Reservation
• A Model Israeli Citizen: Esti Mamo
• Not a Nice Jewish Girl: Amy Winehouse
UPCOMING EVENTS
• Congratulations to Dennis Ybarra, on his upcoming Bar Mitzvah
• Save the Date – Israel in the Gardens – June 3, 2007
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ABAYUDAYA COMMUNITY UPDATES
Be'chol Lashon launches Abayudaya Community Health Project
Water, The Gift of Life
Abayudaya Community Health Plan
The Abayudaya Jewish community in Uganda is one of the many
Jewish communities around the world in partnership with Be'chol
Lashon. Be'chol Lashon (In Every Tongue) is an initiative of the
Institute for Jewish & Community Research that seeks to grow and
strengthen the Jewish people through racial, ethnic and cultural
inclusiveness. The Abayudaya Executive Committee, the
democratically elected community council, requested that Be’chol
Lashon serve as the clearinghouse for long range planning and
fundraising efforts on behalf of the Jewish community of Uganda.
The community requested assistance in building the skills and
capacity for infrastructure development, including health,
sanitation, education, water, electricity, and small businesses.
Be'chol Lashon is working with a variety of individuals and
organizations to coordinate the planning, fundraising and execution
of a number of projects in the Abayudaya community including
water, electricity, health, education, and economic development.
This will also benefit all residents of their sub-county: Jewish,
Christian, and Muslim.
The community requested help in building a medical clinic. After
completing a two-year feasibility study with the help of the
Abayudaya Executive Council, the Ugandan government, JDC,
doctors, and engineers, we created a five-year Community Health
Plan. We learned that malaria prevention and better sanitation was
an essential first step, otherwise the effectiveness of the clinic
would be compromised. Malaria prevention involves protection
from mosquitoes, including screening the windows and providing
nets over the beds. The first step in sanitation is access to clean
water and disease prevention education.
Since the official launch of the Abayudaya Community Project last
month, we are delighted to report that a borehole has been drilled
for the future health clinic and communities living around
Nabagoye Hill. Water was struck after a long drilling and we are
waiting for the quality report. Mosquito nets have been provided
and the screening is in process.
We are delighted to announce a wonderful beginning to the
Abayudaya Community Project. We want to thank everyone who
has contributed to the health and well-being of the Jewish people
in Africa and their neighbors. These funds have been matched
dollar-for-dollar by a challenge grant, as will all additional
donations. This project serves as a successful model for other
Jewish communities around the world. It is becoming a reality
through your generosity.
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Letter from Chair of Medical Advisory
We received the letter below from Jacob Mwosuko, chair, the
medical advisory committee of the Abayudaya executive
committee:
It was all joy and celebration when the borehole was finished
being drilled at Nabugoye and water started flowing like a river.
People enjoyed the first flowing water, and everyone coming to
see if he or she could fill the many Jerry cans they had. As a
concerned community member, it has been hard to live all
those years without any reliable source of safe water. We have
been victims of all sorts of infectious diseases due to poor
sources of water. I am sure that your effort is going to save a
lot to this community in terms of expenses on our lives. I pray
that Adonai adds more than what you have.
COMMUNITY UPDATES
Herron: Nappy Hair Is Beautiful, Calling Names Isn't
By Carolivia Herron, Special to CNN, April 24, 2007, CNN.com
Editor's Note: Carolivia Herron is a former English professor and the author of the children's book
"Nappy Hair." The book tells the story of an African-American family extolling the strength and wonder
of young Brenda's natural hair while affirming her beauty and culture. Uncle Mordecai is the principal
character who praises Brenda, and Herron has written the following article from the perspective of what
Uncle Mordecai would say about the sullying of the word "nappy."
Uncle Mordecai was sitting on his front porch where his garden was going to be when I
walked up. Do you remember Uncle Mordecai? He was the one who told me the story
celebrating his niece, Brenda, in my book "Nappy Hair." All of us in the Kenilworth
neighborhood were curious to hear his thoughts on these insults that have been flying around.
Before I could get through the gate he had already started complaining. "My, my, my, have
you heard what's happening about nappy hair?
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"Do you know what those folks are up to now, trashing my good word? Here you helped me
tell everyone about Brenda's beautiful nappy hair, and now I'm just sitting here worried about
her. What if she believes these lies and insults?
"I don't want my little Brenda thinking that her old Uncle Mordecai lied to her when I said her
hair is good in all its nappiness. Sure I know she's not little any more, smart as she is up there
in college now. Do you remember . . . one time I told her that her hair is nappy like that
because the more curlicues you have in your brain, the smarter you are. And she was so
smart the curlicues just kept growing right up through her skull and into her beautiful nappy
hair.
"But some white dudes on cable did the damage. The first dude called that ace women's
basketball team a bunch of whores. Ain't that nothing? Because you know the team is mostly
black. I know I'm supposed to say African-American and not black, but I'm an old man, just
bear with me. It's a good team, and here they played for the championship of the whole
country and he insults them like that. It's an ace team from Rutgers in New Jersey. And then
the second dude added the word nappy-headed to whore, spit out the word nappy like it was
pig slop somebody dumped in his coffee. He said it was like it's all right to be a whore as long
as you don't have nappy hair.
"And all these years I've been telling my little Brenda, 'If anyone uses the word nappy like an
insult,' hold up your head and smile and say, 'Thank you for the compliment. I'm glad you like
my hair so much.' But how's she going to turn the insult back on them when they connect it
with whore? They linked my precious little Brenda's nappy cool hair with filth and just plain
meanness, took my nappy word of blessing, and made a curse. That's no way to do!
"I sit here thinking back to the times we worked in the garden together, we planted corn and
radishes. She never wanted to plant four kernels of corn in the same spot; she thought it was
a waste. But I told her that's the way to do it. You've got to plant more than one if you want
one to grow.
"Now the folks are mad at the white dudes, and they're looking like something that snuck into
the corn bin to bite into a potato but found out it was an onion. They're firing that one, but why
can't those basketball players decide what to do with him? That's what I would do if my little
Brenda got an insult. I'd let her decide what to do if I could, because it seems to me that the
ones most insulted ought to have the strongest say.
"Well, I know they're not going to listen to me. I'm just an old black man sitting in front of a
house that's falling down behind me. And I can understand too, those women may be too nice
to tell the dudes to go jump in a lake somewhere and keep swimming. They sure looked
strong and brave in there on the television, made me so proud.
"Did you hear about the sponsors of the shows? Those companies can't jump loose from the
dude fast enough, worried about brand protection. Hah, brand protection. Well that's what I
need, and the brand I'm protecting is nappy hair. I don't want folks to think nappy is a bad
word because the dude used it so bad.
"They just shouldn't mess up the word 'nappy.' Why would anyone give up something as cool
as a nap, the only perfect circle in nature. That's what nappy hair is. The perfect circle. Nappy
is worth keeping."
___________________________________________________________________________
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Black Jew Illuminates Diversity of Judaism
By Dianna Marder, April 5, 2007, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Much of the study of African Americans and Jews relates to relationships between the two
groups. But Lewis Ricardo Gordon, a Jamaica-born, Yale-educated author and Temple
University professor, is studying African-Americans who are Jews. And he's not just talking
about people of color who became Jews as a result of their parents' inter-marriage or
conversion.
The founder of Temple University's Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought and its
Center for Afro-Jewish Studies, Gordon, 44, says Jews are among the most racially diverse
people on the globe - and many don't even know it.
Gordon traces his lineage to Jewish maternal grandparents from Israel and Ireland and
describes himself as a secular Jew. Religious observances were not a big part of his
childhood, but they are important to him now. And he counts himself among America's largely
invisible black Jews.
"My experience is that many Jews are fully aware of being descended from black people and
are proud of it," Gordon says. "And many others want to believe Jews have always been and
will always be white." Gordon will discuss the ethnic diversity of Judaism in a program at 5:30
p.m. tomorrow at Anderson Hall on the Temple campus. His is the first of three planned
Caroline Conversations spurred by the Arden Theatre Company's production of Caroline, or
Change - the Tony Kushner play about a Southern Jewish family and its black maid.
Gordon is among the preeminent scholars in this emerging field of study, says Gary A. Tobin,
the author of In Every Tongue. (Gordon's newest book, An Introduction to Africana
Philosophy, is to be released in 2008 by Cambridge University Press.) "No people have ever
lived in more places, spoken more languages, and been of more colors than Jews," says
Tobin, who published the book in 2005 through his San Francisco-based Institute for Jewish &
Community Research. He asked Gordon to write the introduction.
Tobin worked in the Jewish community for decades, as director of Brandeis University's
Center for Modern Jewish Studies. But after adopting a black child 10 years ago, he says, he
literally changed courses. He estimates that roughly 1.2 million of America's six million Jews
(or 20 percent) are of African, Asian, Latino, Spanish, Portuguese or Middle Eastern descent.
Exploring that estimate, and finding out how Jewish people identify themselves, is part of what
Gordon hopes to accomplish at Temple. He anticipates doing a demographic study of
Philadelphia's black Jewish community, and he has already added an undergraduate course
on Afro-Judaism to the University's curriculum "Most American Jews identify as descended
from ancient Jews," without acknowledging that the ancients were dark-skinned, Gordon says.
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Judaism's biblical fathers (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and mothers (Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca
and Leah) lived at a time and place when most everybody was brown-skinned, Gordon says.
"Moses was probably a dark-skinned man, too," he says. "He probably did not look like
Charleton Heston."
Time, trade routes and politics each had a role in creating the "wandering Jew," says Gordon,
who previously chaired the Department of Africana Studies at Brown University. "But Jews
have always been an amalgam."
A large-framed man with a quiet composure and an easy smile, Gordon winces at the need to
define people by their skin color. In his work, however, it's a necessary evil because ideas or
assumptions that go unspoken or unexplored still exist and can cause problems.
"That's the problem with color, isn't it?" says Gordon, whose white Jewish wife traces her
ancestry to South Africa. The couple have four children, and Jane Gordon works with her
husband at Temple.
Much of Gordon's work addresses what he calls "the dynamics of appearance and invisibility,"
referring to the kind of invisibility that occurs when we fail to see what's right before our eyes.
It's the kind of thinking, he says, that leads to cultural amnesia. "You can close off a portion of
your history," he says. "There is an abominable absence of understanding of Jewish history by
many Jews . . . that has led to a presupposition of Jews being exclusively and historically
white.
"If you can only think back as far as your grandparents or your great-grandparents, then
you're going to have a very distorted understanding of who you are."
"We forget," or perhaps were never educated, Gordon says. "How many of us think about the
choices Jews faced after the American Revolution?" At that time, Jews - who had been
second-class citizens in and eventually expelled from every place they lived, found they could
have full citizenship in the new U.S., Gordon says, if they were white.
"That created another identity crisis for many Jews," he says.
Eric L. Goldstein, another scholar in the field and the author of The Price of Whiteness: Jews,
Race and American Identity (Princeton University Press, 2006), says World War II created an
additional identity crisis for American Jews. "Jews often found themselves torn between the
need to assert their status as 'white' and their desire to define themselves as a group apart,"
writes Goldstein, an associate professor in the Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory
University.
Gordon would prefer to discuss Judaism outside the prism of race. But anti-Semitism is rooted
in race and too often, he says, it is used as a tool to reinforce identity. "Anti-Semitism is real,"
he says. "But it should not be used as way to unite people or scare them into embracing
Judaism.
"What I would argue is that there are so many good things about being a Jew. Beautiful
things, things that you cherish and want your children to remember."
___________________________________________________________________________
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Video about Rabbi Capers Funnye and Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian
Hebrew Congregation
By Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Staff, March 2007, bethshalombz.org
View the video featured on WTTW11, Chicago about Rabbi Funnye and Beth Shalom B’nai
Zaken Ethiopian Congregation: http://www.bethshalombz.org/video
On Thursday March 29, 2007, Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken E.H. Congregation was featured on
Channel 11’s Chicago Tonight program. The program was a result of a visit to Beth Shalom by
Mr. Jay Shefsky a producer at the television station and a member of Lomdim Chavurah.
Lomdin is a small group of Jewish families that band together once a month for religious
services. During the month of January, several members of Lomdim worshipped at Beth
Shalom and we shared a Sabbath meal together after services.
Mr. Shefsky wanted to share the Beth Shalom story with the broader Chicago area, because
many Jews and non-Jews alike are unfamiliar with the Black Jewish community in Chicago.
Mr. Shefsky and a cinematographer from the station spent the entire Sabbath with the
congregation, filming the entire service and interviewing several members of the congregation
after the services. Although the televised story on the congregation was only eight minutes
long, Mr. Shefsky did a brilliant job of giving an accurate description of the congregation and
many of the similarities that Beth Shalom shares with any Jewish congregation.
However, the program also pointed out aspects of the differences between Beth Shalom and
the broader Jewish community in Chicago. One different aspect is that at Beth Shalom, our
music is a critical part of our service and that at Beth Shalom we incorporate songs and music
written by the members of the congregation and songs borrowed from other Israelite
congregations from around the country. Another difference between the Black Jewish
community and the Ashkenazi community is the fact that many Black Jews use the term
Hebrew Israelite, to describe their religious affiliation with Judaism.
It is clear to see from the interviews conducted that Beth Shalom is like any other Jewish
community in that there are a range of views among the membership of the congregation.
Another important point brought out in the story, is the connection between Beth Shalom and
Israelite communities in cities like Philadelphia and New York City. Rabbi Funnye spoke about
his education and ordination at the Israelite Academy, located in Queens, New York and his
teacher and mentor Chief Rabbi Levi Ben Levy.
The story concludes with coverage of the work that Beth Shalom is doing in Africa, through
the Pan African Jewish Alliance and our work with the Institute for Jewish and Community
Research based in San Francisco, California. The last point made in the story as stated by
Rabbi Funnye, is the strong ties that members of Beth Shalom feels for the State of Israel and
giving wholehearted support to Jewish people around the world.
________________________________________________________________________
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Taste of Uganda: Rabbi Reaches out to Children Through Music
By Sara Cunningham, March 24, 2007, Courier-journal.com
Gershom Sizomu shared his musical message in English, Hebrew and Lugandan yesterday
with schoolchildren and members of a local synagogue. "Behold it's a good thing and pleasant
for brothers and sisters to sit together," he sang.
For Sizomu, language can cross all boundaries when it's set to music. Rabbi of the 750
Abayudaya Jewish tribe members in Eastern Uganda, Sizomu will be part of the Congregation
Adath Jeshurun's annual music festival tomorrow. But he gave a special talk about Jews in
Uganda and sang some of his music yesterday at the Muhammad Ali Center. "Music is a good
way of speaking to people," Sizomu said. "Even when you don't understand the words there's
something for you to identify with."
Sizomu, his wife, Tziporah, and their two older children, Igaal, a 12-year-old son, and Dafnah,
an 11-year-old daughter, combine Jewish texts with African rhythms and melodies. They also
have a second daughter, Navaah, but being only one year old, she is too young to decide
what she wants to play, Sizomu said, laughing.
It was the family's first trip to Louisville but they have been living in Los Angeles for the past
couple of years while Sizomu works on a degree in rabbinical studies at the University of
Judaism. The family will return to Uganda when he finishes. "I am very glad to be here so
people who come to listen to us will have fun and I can share where I am from," Dafnah said.
In addition to the music and Sizomu's talk, students from St. Francis in Goshen who attended
the event enjoyed some traditional Ugandan food: rice, flat bread, mango and tea. "Well, I
definitely like the food," Eli Beard, 12, said. "I like international music because the instruments
are so cool." Alexis Perry, 13, asked Sizomu to tell her how Uganda is similar to the United
States.
His list of similarities ended with people as he pointed out that his fellow tribe members don't
have the things Americans consider everyday items -- highways, refrigeration and clean
water. "I think I really appreciate my life now," Alexis said after hearing his answer.
To book Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, please contact Danielle Meshorer at
Danielle@Jewishresearch.org, or 415-386-2604
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________________________________________________________________________
Indian Jewish Congregation Newsletter Features Family Indian Recipes
Rice Chapatis: Recipe from Noreen's Kitchen
Preparation for a typical Bene Israel kitchen for Passover would start right after Purim. Special
cooking utensils of copper and brass would be brought down from the loft and scrubbed. The
tinning man knew that it was the Jewish festival and charged extra for tinning depending on
the size of the pots and plates. Passover crockery and cutlery was brought out, cleaned and
kept in a special place in the cupboard. The grinding stone and hand grinding stone mill (Pata
Varvanta) were roughened with a chisel, washed well and kept aside for use during Pesach.
Broken rice grain was specially purchased for rice chapatis. This was picked of small stones,
washed in a big utensil a couple of times and dried in the April sun on an old sari spread out
on the courtyard or the terrace of the house. The next afternoon, this rice was ground at
home in the stone hand mill. This procedure was followed by mothers and daughters of earlier
generations. These days, we get ready-made rice flour. The Bene Israel make rice chapatis
especially for Passover as this recipe explains, there is no fermentation of the dough in its
preparation.
Rice Chapatis
Ingredients:
2 cups water
1!4 teaspoon salt
2 cups rice flour plus more for rolling the chapatis
Preparation:
Put the water in a container with a thick bottom or a non-stick deep pan and add the salt. Put
the pan on the stove and bring the water to a boil. Remove from heat and add the rice flour
slowly, stirring constantly until it is mixed well. Cover the pan and leave it to cool a bit. When
warm, knead the dough well by hand until there are no lumps in it. Make a ball of dough about
1 1/2 inches in diameter. Sprinkle some dry rice flour on a clean flat surface and roll the ball of
dough with a rolling pin into a chapati about six inches in diameter. Put a flat non-stick pan on
medium flame. When hot, transfer the chapati on it and roast well on both the sides. These
taste best when eaten hot.
Mutton Albaras: Recipe from Stella Benjamin’s Kitchen
Among the Bene Israel, goat or lamb curry is a common dish. Kosher meat is sold from a
small room in the synagogue compound. There is a line from the early morning when a male
member of the family is usually given the job of getting the best meat cuts with fewer bones,
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which is a gigantic task in itself.
After being cut into small pieces and thoroughly washed, the meat is salted and kept aside for
three hours for koshering. The meat is again washed twice, and then it is ready for use. In this
part of the world, we can get clean and kosher meat cuts of our choice. Here is a simple
recipe of a meat dish.
Mutton Albaras
Serves 8
Ingredients:
8 – 10 thick mutton cutlets or 2 pounds boneless mutton
3 large tomatoes
3 large pink onions
3 large potatoes
2-inch piece of ginger
6 flakes of garlic
3 green or red chili peppers
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
2 tablespoons lime juice or white vinegar
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup matzah meal
Preparation:
Grind all the spices together to a paste. Add lime juice or vinegar and salt. Roll the mutton
cutlets in the spice paste and leave them to marinate for about 2 hours.
Peel and cut the onions in thick circles. Peel and cut the potatoes in thick circles. Pour the oil
into a non- stick frying pan and heat on a medium flame. Dip each cutlet in matzah meal and
pan fry lightly to seal the juices and the marinade. Remove all the cutlets to a big glass dish.
Apply some of the remaining marinade to the onion circles. Fry quickly and arrange above the
cutlets.
Apply the left-over marinade to the potato circles and stir them in warm oil for one minute.
Remove from the frying pan and arrange them on top of the onions.
Cut the tomatoes in thick circles and arrange as a topmost layer. Cover the dish with
aluminum foil. Pre- heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the lamb cutlet dish into the
oven and cook covered for one hour. Bring the oven temperature down to 300 degrees and
cook for another hour. There is no need to turn the pieces over. If there is too much gravy,
remove the foil during the last half hour and let it dry a bit. Enjoy the Mutton Albaras while it is
hot
Tuna Pancake Wraps: Recipe from Abigail Daniel of London
Ingredients for the pancakes:
125 grams (4 ounces) flour or rice flour
1!4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
300 ml or 1/2 pint milk
Butter or oil for frying
Preparation for the pancakes:
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Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Add the egg, and beat with a wooden spoon, adding the milk
gradually until incorporated. Heat a little butter or oil in a 7-inch frying pan until very hot,
running it around to coat the sides of the pan. Pour in a little batter, rotating the pan at the
same time, until enough batter is added to give a thin coating. Cook until the pancake begins
to curl around the edges. Flip it over, and fry on the other side until golden brown. Transfer on
to a warm plate and cover.
Ingredients for the tuna filling:
1 onion, finely chopped
1 green chili, finely chopped
1 1!2-inch piece of ginger, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1!4 bunch of coriander, finely chopped
1 tbsp malt vinegar
Salt and black pepper
390 grams of drained tin tuna or fresh cooked tuna
Preparation for the tuna filling:
Fry the onion, chili, ginger and garlic in a frying pan with a little oil. Put aside to cool.
Add the coriander to the mixture, along with malt vinegar and sprinkle with salt and black
pepper. Add the tuna and mix together. Put two tablespoons of the filling on each pancake
and fold into square parcels or into rolls.
Serve with a slice of lime.
For more recipes please visit our online forum at http://www.jewsofindia.org/forums
Click on the “Recipes” category.
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CURRENT NEWS
Using Language to Cross an Israeli Divide
By Nicky Blackburn, February 1, 2007, Israel21C.com
More than 9,000 Jewish schoolchildren across Israel will have a unique opportunity to learn
spoken Arabic this year as part of the 'Language as a Cultural Bridge' project initiated by The
Abraham Fund.
"One of our goals is to strengthen Israeli society as a multi-cultural society and the issue of
language is a critical one," says Amnon Beeri-Sulitzeanu, the executive director of the
Abraham Fund, a non-profit organization committed to advancing coexistence and equality in
Israel. "Teaching the Arabic language and culture in Jewish schools reduces fear and
stereotypes, and creates an honest and informed dialogue between the Jewish and Arab
communities."
The program, which began in the fall of 2004, has expanded dramatically every year. In the
first year 890 fifth graders in 15 schools were involved in the project, the following year it rose
to 3,570 students in 41 schools, and in the current 2006-7 school year, 6,704 fifth, sixth and
seventh graders in 65 schools from across the country are now taking part in the project. The
coming school year, 2007-8 will be the biggest year yet, after news that the Jewish Agency
plans to support an additional 80 schools in the north of Israel, on top of the 68 that will be
involved in the project via the Abraham Fund.
In Israel, 20 percent of the population is Arab or Druze (over 1.25 million people) with Arabic
as their mother tongue, but only a tiny percentage of the Jewish population can communicate
in Arabic. With a few notable exceptions, Jewish and Arab children are educated separately.
And while in the Arab school system, Arabic, Hebrew and English are required subjects and
an integral part of the curriculum, in the Jewish school system, Arabic is not a high priority.
"Arabic is an official language of the state and the teaching of the subject is supposed to be
mandatory in schools, but it is only poorly implemented and not really enforced," BeeriSulitzeanu told ISRAEL21c. He estimates that only about 60-65 percent of schoolchildren
study Arabic some time between 1st and 12th grade.
In addition, Jewish students are only taught literary Arabic, rather than spoken Arabic - a form
of the language used in daily conversation.
"It's like two different languages," says Beeri-Sulitzeanu. "You can be excellent in classical
Arabic and not be able to speak a word of the real language."
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Over the last years, Beeri-Sulitzeanu says there were many attempts to teach Arabic in
schools, but most failed, often because the teachers themselves were Jewish.
"The incentive for teaching Arabic in the past was to know your enemy," explains BeeriSulitzeanu. "The army wanted people to master Arabic and join the services. Our story is
different, we aren't interested in learning about the enemy, we want to learn about our friends
and neighbors."
The result is that the program is primarily taught by Arabic teachers and is not only about
spoken language, but also about Arabic culture and life.
"We introduce kids to the rich, fascinating, compelling Arabic culture. They learn about films,
books, crafts, foods, they learn the beautiful stories of the Arabic people. It's a completely
different framework from that used in the past," says Beeri-Sulitzeanu.
The curriculum involves a whole range of cultural activities which revolve around spoken
Arabic. Children take part in cooking lessons, read books, see plays, learn songs and music,
and even engage in physical activities - any thing that allows them to experience for
themselves the different aspects of Arabic culture.
"It's a very compelling curriculum," admits Beeri-Sulitzeanu, who added that the organization
studied models in Belgium, Canada (where French is the mother tongue of 23% of the
population), and Spain. There were also meetings in the US and UK. In London, BeeriSulitzeanu met with the Council for Racial Equality.
"They are dealing with the same dilemmas and problems that we face in Israel," says BeeriSulitzeanu. "One of the challenges of our organization is how to exchange and adapt different
models."
At present, the Fund is focusing primarily on 5th-7th graders, but it is now working on a new
curriculum for 3rd and 4th graders, which it hopes to introduce soon. The ultimate goal is to
continue the program from the 3rd to the 12th grade and to introduce a matriculation exam.
"We want to make Arabic a pre-condition of entry to higher education," says Beeri-Sulitzeanu.
The Abraham Fund kicked off the language project in Haifa and Carmiel because both city
mayors were enthusiastic. Haifa was a natural choice because it is a mixed city, while Carmiel
is in located in the mixed region of the Galilee. Funding has come from a number of sources
including the European Union, the Israeli Government, specifically the Ministry of Education,
the Jewish Agency, various municipalities and private funds.
To date, the project has been greeted warmly by students, teachers, parents and principals
alike. Third party evaluators brought in to measure the success of the program found that it
had a substantial impact on changing children's attitudes. Questionnaires were carried out
before, during and after the first year of study.
"We discovered there were some pupils who said they were not interested in learning Arabic,
and expressed negative attitudes towards the Arab citizens of Israel. When we tested them
half a year later, and then a year later, we found out that most of those negative attitudes had
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changed. The children were more positive and open, they even expressed interest and
curiosity and a willingness to know and learn more," said Beeri-Sulitzeanu.
An unexpected knock-on effect of this work, was that children of 'mizrahi' families (Jews that
come from Arabic countries like Morocco, Iraq, and Iran who have often experienced prejudice
from European Jews) came to understand and appreciate their own cultures, sometimes for
the first time.
"Parents and grandparents who emigrated from Arabic countries are suddenly seen as a
source of information by their grandchildren. It made them feel proud of their heritage. This
was something we just didn't expect," says Beeri-Sulitzeanu.
The Abraham Fund was founded in 1989 by Alan B. Slifka, an American businessman and
philanthropist, and Dr. Eugene Weiner, a writer, educator and rabbi. It works to advance
coexistence, equality and cooperation among Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens by creating
and operating large-scale initiatives, grassroots projects and public education.
"We try to change the reality in Israel in the area of Jewish-Arab relations," says BeeriSulitzeanu. "We try to identify the hot-spots of co-existence - those areas of social life and
society that are critical for Jews and Arabs. In each of these areas we try to develop a model
that can prove to the Israeli public and decision makers that we can live differently, that we
can actually coexist."
With the Language as a Cultural Bridge project growing fast - a large number of schools are
expected to join next year, the organization's aim now is to convert this success into resource
allocation from the government. "We are advocating that the government endorse and
implement this program with the necessary legislation," says Beeri-Sulitzeanu.
"Within a generation or so, it makes sense that all Israelis can speak in Hebrew, Arabic and
hopefully English," he adds. "We need to make sure the status of the Arabic language is
strong enough and recognized. It's not just about teaching Arabic, but also ensuring that it is
fully represented in the public sphere."
____________________________________________________________________
Two Conservative Rabbinic Seminaries Open Doors to Gays
Conservative seminary moves to allow gay, lesbian students
By Ben Harris, March 26, 2007, JTA.org
After months of deliberation, the Jewish Theological Seminary has decided to accept qualified
gay and lesbian students to its rabbinical and cantorial schools. The move was enabled by a
December decision by the Conservative movement's legal authorities to reverse the
movement's traditional ban on gay clergy.
Arnold Eisen, the seminary's chancellor-elect, announced the decision March 26 in an e-mail
to the JTS community. The change comes after months of consultation, including the
commissioning of a movement-wide survey that found support for the move among a majority
of Conservative rabbis, cantors, lay leaders and seminarians.
Also Monday, the seminary announced it would extend the application deadline from Dec. 31
until June 30 to accommodate new applicants as a result of the policy change. The change in
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admissions standards follows a similar one enacted by the movement's West Coast seminary,
the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, which
recently admitted two openly gay students for the fall term.
Monday's decision follows a long and often divisive debate over Conservative Judaism's
attitude toward homosexuality. That discussion culminated with the decision by the Committee
on Jewish Law and Standards to overturn centuries of legal precedent by allowing for the
ordination of gay rabbis and for movement rabbis to officiate at same-sex commitment
ceremonies.
In keeping with the movement's commitment to halachic pluralism, the committee also
endorsed two contrary opinions, or teshuvot, upholding the traditional position. Two additional
opinions, both of which would have removed all restrictions on homosexual activity, were not
adopted. Still, four committee members resigned to protest the permissive ruling.
Though Eisen's leadership on this issue won broad praise for its transparency and
inclusiveness, the challenges ahead may be formidable. In addition to pacifying elements in
the movement that oppose the change, the Conservative leadership also faces resistance
from those uncomfortable with an understanding of pluralism that tolerates the exclusion of
gays and lesbians.
Rabbi Ayelet Cohen, a JTS graduate and associate rabbi at Congregation Beth Simchat
Torah, a synagogue for gays and lesbians in New York City, took issue with the paeans to
pluralism issuing from the seminary Monday. Cohen said welcoming people of all sexual
orientations should be "a value and not an option."
"I think that we're dealing with a very long tradition of Jewish text and scholarship, and in the
scope of Jewish history the movement toward equality and celebrating Jews of all sexual
orientations and gender identities is fairly new," she said. "There's a lot we need to do to start
teaching that as a value, just as there's a lot the Conservative movement needs to do to teach
egalitarianism as a value."
Among the movement's international affiliates, some of which had warned that they might split
from the movement in the wake of the December decision, the announcement was greeted
with dismay. Rabbi Wayne Allen, president of the Ontario division of the Rabbinical Assembly,
the movement's rabbinic association, told JTA that some Canadian synagogues already were
contemplating their long-term association with their American counterparts, and Monday's
move only affirms the wide gulf between them. "I do not think this decision is going to have a
great impact on whether synagogues are going to be more inclined to progress with these
decisions or less inclined," Allen said. "What is going on now is a process that is larger than
any one issue."
In Israel, the board of the Schechter Rabbinical School has placed authority for the issue in
the hands of the school's dean, Rabbi Einat Ramon, an acknowledged opponent of gay
ordination. Ramon is said to be working on a position paper on the issue that will be released
shortly. According to the movement-wide survey, released in January, Israeli rabbis were
divided evenly on the question of gay ordination. Canadian rabbis overwhelmingly opposed
the change, 82 percent to 18 percent.
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Sensitive to the ramifications of the decision, Eisen on Monday also announced a series of
steps to contain the fallout, including a dialogue within the movement regarding the principles
of Conservative Judaism and intensified contact with its international arms. "I think we need to
take steps to affirm again that more unites us than divides us,” Eisen said. "That
disagreement, if it exists, is accepted in a spirit of halachic pluralism and mutual respect."
The debate over homosexuality for years has been a lightning-rod issue in the Conservative
movement, with both sides warning of the dire consequences if the other position were
accepted. Opponents warned that a permissive ruling would undermine the movement's claim
to be halachic, or committed to Jewish law, and would render it indistinguishable from Reform
Judaism. Proponents of change argued that a failure to liberalize would further weaken the
movement – once American Judaism's largest, but now second to Reform – and drive wouldbe rabbis to other streams.
"People are thrilled," said Elizabeth Richman, a rabbinical student and co-chair of KeshetJTS,
a student group advocating for the equality of gays and lesbians. "We really believe that this
decision is going to strengthen and grow the Conservative movement."
___________________________________________________________________________
West Coast Seminary Opens Doors to Gays
Rebecca Spence, March 9, 2007, Forward.com
In the wake of Conservative Judaism’s historic vote to permit the ordination of gay and lesbian
rabbis, the movement’s West Coast seminary has accepted its first openly gay students. Two
gay applicants — one man, one woman — have been accepted for the fall by the Ziegler
School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. The move reflects the
school’s longstanding position that it would immediately begin considering gay candidates
once the movement’s top lawmaking body — the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards —
sanctioned gay and lesbian clergy.
The decision comes as the movement’s flagship institution, the New York-based Jewish
Theological Seminary, is still weighing whether or not to accept gay and lesbian students. A
decision, insiders say, could come within the next several weeks.
Last December, the 25-member law committee approved a rabbinic opinion, known as a
teshuvah, in favor of gay ordination and same-sex unions. At the same time, the committee
passed two opinions upholding the ban on gay ordination, leaving it up to individual
congregations and educational institutions to choose which decision to adopt.
Advocates of the newly liberal policy, which was passed after a hard-fought battle spanning
more than 15 years, say the move signals that the law committee’s decision is having an
impact on the ground.
“It means that there wasn’t just a change in writing,” said Rachel Kobrin, a fifth-year student at
the Ziegler School who serves as co-coordinator of the school’s pro-gay ordination group,
Dror Yikra. “It’s a change that’s going to have some follow-through.”
Kobrin portrayed the admission of gay students at U.J., which launched its rabbinic training
program in 1996, as a first step toward what she hopes will be the full inclusion of gays and
lesbians in Conservative Jewish life. While Kobrin and other gay ordination activists took
17
December’s law committee vote as a victory, they say that the rabbinic opinion that passed
didn’t go far enough, since it upheld the biblical ban on anal sex.
Ultimately, pro-gay activists say, a more liberal teshuvah should be passed containing no
restrictions on homosexual behavior. Meanwhile, traditionalists in the movement have
criticized the liberal opinion that was approved.
An opinion that sanctioned gay ordination and lifted the ban on homosexual anal sex was first
submitted to the law committee in 1992 by the dean of the Ziegler School, Rabbi Bradley
Shavit Artson. That paper failed to pass. The opinion that ultimately opened the door to gay
and lesbian ordination was co-authored by another U.J. faculty member, Rabbi Elliot Dorff.
According to Artson, despite the passage of Dorff’s opinion, “not that many” gay and lesbian
students have applied. Artson, citing federal privacy regulations, declined to say exactly how
many applications were received from either gay or straight students. And the school refused
to identify the two gay students who were accepted.
Dorff said the fact that the school was not inundated with applications from gay candidates
simply reflected that gays are a minority. “The sheer number of gay and lesbian students who
want to become rabbis is very small, because the population in general is very small,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Reconstructionist movement — a liberal breakaway from Conservative
Judaism — is set to elect a lesbian rabbi, Toba Spitzer, to serve as president of its rabbinical
association. Spitzer will be the first openly gay or lesbian rabbi to head a national rabbinical
body.
___________________________________________________________________________
Yemeni Jews Face Growing Sectarian Troubles
By Ginni HIll, April 4, 2007, Christian Science Monitor
Sanaa, Yemen
Yahya Yousef Mousa is one of the several hundred Jews still living in Yemen. His
grandparents refused to join the mass evacuation to Israel that followed anti-Jewish riots in
1948. Instead, they opted to continue a traditional life that their ancestors had peacefully
pursued in Yemen for generations. But, in January, that peace was shattered when Mr. Mousa
was confronted by masked gunmen from a Shiite sect that accused him of spreading vice and
corruption. He and his neighbors were told to leave their homes in the northern province of
Saada or lose their lives.
Now, Mousa and eight Jewish families from the village of Salem are living in a secure
residential compound in the capital, Sanaa. Their expenses are being paid by the Yemeni
government, currently battling an armed rebellion mounted by the same Shiite group that
18
threatened the Jews. "We are safe here, but we're afraid we'll be killed if we go back to our
village," Mousa says. "We want to stay here until conditions improve."
Only Mousa's locks and skullcap visibly identify him as Jewish. He is dressed Yemeni-style in
a long, white robe and shawl. He speaks Arabic, even praising Allah for his good fortune to be
rescued and housed by Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Yemen's Jewish minority is clustered in small communities north of Sanaa. They are protected
under Yemen's constitution and identify strongly as Yemeni citizens. Though these good
community relations are being tested by the expulsion of the Salem Jews, Mousa is still
determined that he and his family will stay in Yemen. "We haven't had any help from the
Israeli government," he says. "And if they offer us a home, we will refuse because we are all
Yemenis and we want to go back to our village."
The threats against the Salem Jews are only a symptom of a larger local and sectarian
grievances in the Zaydi Shiite heartlands, a remote region close to the border with Saudi
Arabia.
An ongoing rebellion
Just days after Mousa and his group fled from Salem at the end of January, a series of
skirmishes broke out between Yemeni security forces and the rebels. Fighting has escalated
over the past two months, with hundreds dead and aid agencies warning of a humanitarian
crisis. Journalists are banned from the conflict zone.
The rebels belong to an organization known as the Youthful Believers, a group that was
initially established to spread Zaydi Shiite doctrine in the Saada region. They are loyal to the
charismatic Houthi family, led by 20-something Abdul-Malik, and they have repeatedly taken
up arms against the state. Abdul-Malik's elder brother, Hussein, was killed in the first
insurgency in 2004 and his father fled to exile in Germany in 2005 at the end of the second
bout of fighting.
"The Houthi family are sayyids who claim descent from the prophet Muhammad through his
daughter Fatima and her husband, Ali," says Australian academic Sarah Phillips, an expert on
political reform in Yemen. "They are strident critics of President Saleh's alliance with President
Bush on counter-terrorism, and are increasing their rhetoric against the president's personal
power and position."
The Houthis are rumored to dispute the legitimacy of the Yemeni republic, which replaced the
northern Imamate after the 1962 revolution. They allegedly regard Mr. Saleh, who hails from a
Zaydi background, but is not a sayyid, as an illegitimate head of state. But the family says they
are simply fighting for religious tolerance and freedom of speech.
Connections to Iran?
Yemen's Zaydis take their name from their fifth Imam, Zayd ibn Ali. They are doctrinally
distinct from the Twelvers, the dominant branch of Shiite Islam in Iran and Lebanon. Twelver
Shiites believe that the 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, has been hidden by Allah and will
reappear on earth as the savior of mankind. But Yemen's Shiite-dominated government has
been quick to frame the conflict in the regional context of growing Iranian influence. Yemeni
Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi has spoken of "external support for the rebellion, which
aims at pushing Yemen toward sectarian conflict."
19
Some charge that Hussein al-Houthi developed ties to Iran before he was killed and that the
rebellion may be receiving funds from the Islamic republic. But Abdul-Malik has denied the
links, and Western diplomats are skeptical of direct support by the Iranian state.
"This is an expedient move by the Yemeni government designed to defame and discredit the
Houthi family and their followers," says Bernard Haykel, professor of Middle Eastern Studies
at New York University.
Sunni-Shiite tensions
Yemen's Sunni majority enjoys predominantly stable relations with the Shiite minority. But in
Saada, the Houthi family is also pursuing grievances against the Salafis, a hard-line sect
within Sunni Islam. The Salafis have connections with Saudi Wahhabism, and they run a
network of madrassas in this border zone. The Houthis say that Saleh's administration is
privately backing the Salafis and complain of a government campaign to replace Zaydi Shiite
preachers with Salafi imams.
Dammaj is the biggest Salafi religious institution in Saada, housing several thousand students.
This defensive pocket of Sunni believers – within a Shiite enclave – relies on a private militia
to patrol its borders. It attracts dozens of Western-born Muslims and converts from Europe
and the US.
On March 26, a French student was killed during fighting between Houthi supporters and
Salafis at Dammaj, suggesting that local tensions are increasing further as the insurgency
extends into its third month.
The Yemeni military is up against well-armed, guerilla-style fighters who know the mountain
terrain intimately. "Tactics this time around appear to be more sophisticated than in the
previous two conflicts," says one Western diplomatic source. "It's not clear if a military solution
exists."
Saleh has stated there will be no negotiations with the rebels, but he may be forced to
reconsider if he wants the matter settled ahead of a crucial Persian Gulf investors' conference
scheduled for the end of April.
IDENTITY
Montclair Identify Expert to Explore Growing Awareness of Multiracial Jews
By Johanna Ginsberg, March 2007, New Jersey Jewish News
I have to figure out my Jewish identity in a way my husband doesn’t have to,” said Lisa
Williamson Rosenberg, who identifies herself as black and Jewish. “If he says, ‘I’m Jewish,’ no
one debates him or gets into an argument with him. It was the same for my mother. No one
says, ‘Oh, how did you get to be Jewish?’ Everyone asks me those questions.”
Rosenberg is a licensed clinical social worker at the Montclair Counseling Center who
specializes in issues of identity. On Friday, Jan. 27, she will draw on her personal and
professional experiences as she addresses the topic "Exploring Jewish Identity for the Racial
Mosaic" at a kabalat Shabbat service and potluck dinner at Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield.
A project of a support group for multiracial families begun at the temple in January 2004, the
event is free and open to the public.
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Her talk comes at a moment when the issue of multiethnic Jewish identity is gaining
prominence, spurred in part by the 2005 publication of In Every Tongue: The Racial & Ethnic
Diversity of the Jewish People by Gary A. Tobin, Diane Tobin, and Scott Rubin. The study
argues that 20 percent of American Jews are something other than Caucasian Ashkenazi
Jews, including African-American, Asian-American, Latino, Sephardi, Middle Eastern, and
mixed-race.
The study, by the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, takes issue with the 2000
National Jewish Population Study, which found that only 7 percent of the Jewish population, or
about 435,000 people, are nonwhites.
“More than ever, people in America are crossing boundaries and redefining race and religion,”
Gary Tobin said in a press release announcing the book. “The changing American Jewish
people are a reflection of America as a whole.”
Born to a white Jewish mother and an African-American father, Rosenberg attended
Manhattan Country School and said she was raised “in a mixed world,” where she identified
as Jewish, but secular. “I was the only Jewish kid who did not go to Hebrew school.” Instead,
ballet became her religion, her profession, and her life, she said, until she stopped dancing.
“Then I said, ‘Wow, who am I?’”
Today she believes that it’s important for children to be grounded and knowledgeable about
their identities, so that other people’s issues don’t become their own. “People question me, so
it’s my job to question myself, not to be able to answer them, but so I feel grounded.”
She declined to offer any rules about identity and suggested instead that “identity is a
journey,” one that is different for everyone. But she is finding for herself that joining Jewish
organizations, like a synagogue, something she didn’t have growing up, is increasingly
important for her own claim to her Jewish identity. And it’s something she plans to give her
children, now two and four.
But, she said, she is still wary. “I’m looking for a synagogue, but I’m also asking, ‘Will my child
be the only brown face? When she opens a book in Hebrew school, will she see faces like
hers? If not, how will I explain this to her?’”
And while such questions sometimes lead her to reconsider joining a synagogue at all, she
reminds herself that Judaism is her daughter’s “birthright, and it’s my birthright. My children
aren’t Jewish because my husband is Jewish, but because I’m Jewish.”
Her advice to parents? “Keep listening to your children, and keep listening to yourself.
Understand that wherever you come from is part of you and part of your children’s future. It’s
important to keep a dialogue going. And if you are between two cultures, be sure to give voice
to both.”
___________________________________________________________________
The “Old Jews” of Mexico Come Out after 500 Years
By Staff, Mex Files, March 18, 2007, MexFiles.wordpress.com
When I started studying Mexican history, I was surprised at how many of the early colonial
leaders were “conversos”… Spanish Jews (or their children) who had to convert or leave
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Spain after Isabel’s conquest of Granada in January 1492. A good chunk of northern Mexico,
including what’s now Texas and New Mexico were settled by Tlaxcalan and Converso
pioneers (the New Mexico “Spanish” are nearly all of Jewish ancestry, according to recent
DNA studies).
Shep Lenchek’s invaluable three-part series for Mexico Connect, “Jews in Mexico: A Struggle
for Survival” notes that while most Mexican Jews are descended from immigrants who arrived
between 1888 and 1939, there have always been “Crypto-Jews”:
The “Conversos” were under increasing pressure from the Inquisition. Looking for a place in
which they could retain their Spanish identity, they focused on Mexico. In 1531 large numbers
of them left Spain and Portugal for the New World.
The inquisition had not yet come to Nueva Espagna and the new arrivals soon married
into prominent Mexican families, became priests and bishops and enjoyed a 40 year
period during which time, many began to practice Judaism openly. Doctors, lawyers.
notaries-public, tailors, teachers and silversmiths, they brought much needed skills to the
new colony and were well received. They settled in Vera Cruz, Campeche, Oaxaca,
Guadalajara, Morelia and Mexico City.
Conversos were not overtly persecuted, but were eventually assimilated into the general
population.
The Inquisition was never as virulent in Mexico as it was in Spain, where more than 4,000
people were burned at the stake. Many more were imprisoned for the “Jewish Heresy.”
Massacres were instigated that took thousands of lives. By contrast, between 1571 when
the Inquisition was established in Mexico and 1821 when it ended, only about 110 people
were actually burned at the stake. Perhaps the same number died under torture or in
prison, either awaiting trial or after sentencing. There were no popular outcries against
Jews. The Inquisition was imposed from Spain. It cannot be blamed on Mexicans.
It’s to the honor of Mexico to report that Lenchek notes:
The only recorded incidents of official anti-Semitism came in the 1930’s. Suffering from a
depression, Mexican labor unions pressured the government to enact restrictions on
“Chinese and Jewish” immigration. Later in the same decade, neo-Nazi right wingers,
financed from Berlin, staged anti-Jewish demonstrations in Mexico City. But not a single
act of violence against Jews or Jewish property can be documented.
Which isn’t to say that the “crypo-Jews” weren’t at a disadvantage when it came to remaining
Jewish. But 500 years after the Conquest, some are rediscovering their roots… as Roberto
Loiederman wrote for the Jewish Journal (posted on New American Media, 16-March-2007) :
… he told me he was going to visit a group of Mexicans practicing Judaism on their own —
no rabbi, no shul — it sounded fascinating; I asked if I could come along.I wondered what
had led these people — born into Catholic families — to follow Judaism. More than that, I
wanted to see Judaism through their eyes. What do they feel when they say the prayers?
What is the source of their faith?This was not the first time I’d asked these questions.
During the High Holidays, I had attended services at Beth Shalom, where a vibrant group
of Latino converts has revitalized that shul.
22
…Dr. Mario Espinoza, a Mexicali obstetrician-gynecologist, spoke about his certainty that
he’s descended from Jews forcibly converted to Christianity centuries ago. He used the
Hebrew word anousim (constrained people or forceably converted) rather than Marranos,
which means “swine.”
For Mexicans who trace their lineage to anousim, the Inquisition is not ancient history. It
continued in Latin America, including Mexico, from the 1500s until the 1800s. During that
period, those whose ancestors had been forced to convert from Judaism to Christianity were
harassed, tortured and sometimes killed if they were discovered to have continued Jewish
practices, which is why those practices continued in secret, if at all.
… Lucia Espinoza mentioned a grandmother who lit candles on Friday night. Lupe
Medrano said that when she looked through her late grandfather’s effects, she found a
tallit hidden in a box. …
The group that has coalesced around the Medrano home is not the only one like it in Mexico.
Far from it. The Web site of Beth Hatefutsoth, the Israel Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv, lists a
number of communities of “native Mexican Jews” — located in various parts of Mexico — who
trace their origins to anousim.
How many descendants of anousim are there?
“It’s hard to figure out exactly,” said Rabbi Stephen Leon of Congregation B’nai Zion in El
Paso, just across the border from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. “I’d only be guessing, but I’d say the
number is very large. I have personally ministered to 40 such families. In the 20 years I’ve
been here, not a week goes by that I don’t meet someone who tells me about childhood
memories of crypto-Jewish practices.”
The Diaspora Museum Web site points out that even after converting to Judaism, “native
Mexican Jews” have not been accepted by “traditional Mexican Jews,” nearly all of whom are
Orthodox and descended from those who immigrated to Mexico from Europe and the Middle
East in the early 1900s.
_______________________________________________________________
Shades of Gray
By E. B. Solomont, Jan/Feb 2007, American Jewish Life Magazine
The problem was the boxes on her college application. The ones where you check white or
black. Lacey Schwartz didn't know which to check, so she sent a picture instead, which led the
school administrators to enroll her as a black student, one who inexplicably had two white
23
Jewish parents. That’s how she made it 18 years before blowing the lid off the family secret:
That her mother had an affair with a black man, that she was the product of their union.
In a certain sense, the boxes still haunt a 30-year-old Lacey — now a Harvard-educated
lawyer and successful film producer in New York City. American culture seeks to
compartmentalize people, she tells me during a discussion of her work-in-progress
documentary about black Jews in America.
Before meeting her, I had loaded the trailer for her film “Outside the Box” onto my computer
and watched a montage of black Jews interspersed with footage of Lacey, whose personal
story narrates the movie. “Black Jews are caught between two often conflicting worlds,” a
caption states. On camera, a black man describes the challenge of explaining his religion:
“Jewish means white,” he declares.
All her life, Lacey’s race has similarly conferred insider or outsider status on her. Tonight, at
one of her favorite wine bars in the East Village, I take in her perfectly chic, downtown look,
complete with gold earrings and a fur vest, as she assesses a predominantly white crowd. But
she feels like an outsider.
Though finely attuned to the color of her skin, Lacey Schwartz — Schwartz, she reiterates —
was raised in ignorant bliss in Woodstock, N.Y. The only child of her fair-skinned parents, she
describes a sort of upbringing as iconic as any other American Jewish kid raised during the
1980s, complete with Hebrew school, a bat mitzvah, youth group, even her parents’
separation at age 15. “I was a nice Jewish girl in upstate New York,” she says, lapsing into a
kind of East Coast Jewish whine.
Remarkably, no one in her family discussed Lacey’s dark skin and distinctively curly hair, nor
did they acknowledge she was biracial. “People go day to day, and don’t talk about things,”
she says, knowing well from experience.
But while Lacey’s family ignored the obvious, not everyone else did. When she was five, a boy
in the nursery school playground insisted on checking the color of her gums to determine
whether she was white or black. As a teen, black girls ostracized her. Whenever people
questioned her identity, “I always said I was Jewish,” she says. Looking back, Lacey identifies
herself as an interloper in a game of “which one of these things doesn’t belong.”
After Lacey’s first year of college at Georgetown University, however, she confronted reality —
and her mother. “Do you ever wonder why I look the way I do?” she asked. For two weeks,
her mother stalled. Finally Lacey demanded: “Is Daddy my real father?” She says she was
more relieved to know the truth than actually shocked.
Her experience at Georgetown until that point was influential as she questioned her race. Her
registration papers there labeled her a “black/Hispanic origins” student. And Lacey joined the
black theater group and student association, fell in step with the black students’ clique, and
dated black and biracial men.
Seemingly overnight, she had retreated from the Jewish community she grew up in. Her
upbringing wasn’t particularly religious anyway, and the myopic view of some Jews she met
around that time offended her. In law school in particular, colleagues didn’t hide their shock
when they learned she was black and Jewish, and “How could that be?”
24
In what would become an ongoing process, Lacey balanced multiple worlds: her many
different friends, her white Jewish family, and the strong sense of comfort she felt as a black
woman — more so than a white one. “It is strange for me to be around your family, because
they are all white,” a black boyfriend exclaimed once after meeting her relatives. “You don’t
think I understand that and feel that way, too? But they are my family,” she replied.
But if there is one goal in Lacey’s immediate future, it is talking to her dad. Not her biological
one, but the one who raised her. To this day, she has never discussed with him the fact that
he is not her biological father.
Initially, she says she wasn’t ready to deal with the fallout. And so, besides her film’s
compelling footage (which earned a 2006 Tribeca All Access Creative Promise Award),
Lacey’s desire is twofold: to tell the untold story of black Jews in America, and to plumb the
nature of her own identity.
The latter is the harder of the two. Specifically, the “emotional work” is more challenging even
than taping intimate therapy sessions she attends with her mother. But she is preparing to
“come out of the closet” with her family, and her father.
Georgetown may have guessed 12 years ago based on a snapshot. But Lacey wants out of
the box.
ARTS & CULTURE
Anne Frank on the Reservation
By Anthony Boadle, January 22 2007, Reuters
The recent discovery of a trove of letters from Otto Frank to American officials may have
returned attention to the wartime plight of the Frank family, but, as an exhibition set to open in
the American Southwest next month shows, Anne Frank has never really strayed far from the
collective imagination — and not only for Jews.
From April 4 through May 11, New Mexico’s Bosque Redondo State Monument, a site
commemorating a tragic chapter of Native American history known as The Long Walk, will
host the traveling exhibition Anne Frank: A History for Today.
During the early years of the Civil War, as settlers pushed westward through the territory of
New Mexico, the American army forcibly relocated some 9,000 Navajo and Mescalero Apache
to Fort Sumner and the surrounding Bosque Redondo reservation, where they were held
captive until 1868. Thousands died during the journey and incarceration. “The Anne Frank
exhibit,” said Mary Ann Cortese, president of the Friends of Bosque Redondo, “will help
25
connect the tragic events at Fort Sumner to the larger context of human rights abuses that
have taken place across the globe.”
While in some ways historic — Bosque Redondo is quite possibly the first Native American
memory site to host an exhibition connected to the Nazi Holocaust — the joining of Native
American and Jewish narratives is not entirely new. In recent decades, Native American
scholars and spokespeople have often adopted the language of genocide, in some cases
even the word “holocaust,” in describing the Native American experience. The sense of
kinship has not been entirely one-sided. Many Jews have come to recognize in Native
American history a legacy of oppression parallel to their own. And yet, the coupling has not
been without its detractors. Native American scholars have been accused of being too free in
their use of the language of genocide, while Holocaust scholars have been accused of being
too protective of it. All the same, Bosque Redondo’s Anne Frank exhibition sheds light not
only on another battle in the “memory wars,” but the long and complicated history of JewishNative American interaction in the Southwest, a tale that stretches back to the arrival of
Spanish (and converso) settlers in the 16th and 17th centuries and continues today in the
small but vibrant Jewish communities of Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
According to Albuquerque’s Henry Tobias, author of “A History of the Jews in New Mexico”
(University of New Mexico Press, 1990), the relationship between Jews and Native Americans
was historically more intimate than the ties between Native Americans and the settler
community as a whole. “Jewish peddlers did a lot of trading with the Indians,” he said, pointing
to the Jewish pioneer Solomon Bibo, who in the mid 1880s became the first non-Indian
governor of the pueblo of Acamo. “He wasn’t the chief,” Tobias cautioned, “but he was an
ambassador.”
Links between the two groups, Tobias said, are now tighter than ever. “They meet on various
occasions as different kinds of tribes,” he said slyly. At the ceremonies surrounding the
opening of a new Jewish Community Center in Albuquerque in 2000, Tobias recalled, one
visiting Native American leader rose and said: “Your history is our history.”
Another local historian, Stanley Hordes, welcomed the drawing of parallels between Native
American and Jewish histories. “Nobody has a monopoly on being victims of genocide,” said
Hordes, the author of a recently-published book on New Mexico’s crypto-Jews. “What
happened to the Navajos in the 1860s and what happened to the Jews in the 1930s inevitably
begs that kind of comparison.”
But not all are so comfortable with the comparison. Literary critic and Holocaust scholar
Lawrence Langer expressed some misgivings about the upcoming exhibition, arguing that the
drawing of parallels between the Holocaust and other atrocities is often problematic. “To
understand a particular exploitation,” he said, “you have to examine it in its own context, not in
someone else’s context. That can only lead to confusion.”
Langer also had qualms about the use of Anne Frank’s diary as shorthand for the Holocaust.
“People think that if you know about Anne Frank you know the whole story,” he said. “You can
read the diary and not know where she went afterward, how and where she died.” In sum,
Langer said, Anne Frank’s diary has been “exploited” and “overused.”
Exhibition organizers, mindful of the potential charge of misappropriation, stressed that the
Anne Frank material will be handled with care.
26
“What we do every time we install an exhibit,” said Hilary Eddy Stipelman, programs director
of the New York-based Anne Frank Center, “is we go out to the exhibit site and lead a
workshop for the people giving tours to the public and train them in how to use the material.”
And then there are scholars who have argued that some Holocaust historians have been
overly vigilant when it comes to the language of genocide. Chief among these has been the
notorious but influential Ward Churchill, who famously said of the 9/11 World Trade Center
attack that it was a matter of chickens coming home to roost — a move for which he may yet
lose his position at the University of Colorado.
In his 1997 book “A Little Matter of Genocide,” Churchill argues that historians who insist on
the “uniqueness” of the Holocaust — here he singles out Deborah Lipstadt, Steven Katz and
Yehuda Bauer — have “contributed to the invisibility of the victims” of history’s other
genocides. These “exclusivists” become, for Churchill, a species of Holocaust denier.
In a 2005 article in New York’s Jewish Week, Lipstadt said of Churchill that he is a “third-rate
scholar” who “has been turned into a rock star because of the attempt to silence him.”
To further complicate the picture, there are some Native American scholars who have refused
to draw parallels between Jewish and Native American narratives because of present day
Middle East strife.
“I’ve had people call me and say they would like to do some sort of collaboration looking at
Jewish and Diné [Navajo] historical experiences,” said Jennifer Nez Detendale, a professor of
Native American history at the University of New Mexico, “and I’ve always not wanted to do
that, because of what’s going on now in the Palestinian experience.”
Arguably the most unusual commentator on the Jewish-Native American connection at work
today is David Treuer, a writer of fiction and a professor of English at the University of
Minnesota, whose father is a Viennese Jew who left Austria in 1938 and whose mother is an
Ojibwe tribal judge. Perhaps because he straddles the Jewish-Native American divide, Treuer
is able to find balance where others scholars see stark divisions.
“The Holocaust,” he said, “is unique. It’s special, if you can call it that. It has its own special
brand of horror. But, if anything good can come of something like that, it is by drawing
attention to other ongoing processes.”
“People talk about Native American genocide and holocaust,” he continued, “but I think it’s a
bit misplaced. Just a bit. I don’t think the goal was ever to completely wipe us out. In isolated
instances we were definitely wiped out. Whole tribes were wiped out, but there was no
systematic effort. American Indians were very much a part of America’s foundational myths.
When America thinks about itself, it thinks about itself as different from Europe largely
because of us. America perceives itself as being related to Indians in some way, whereas
Nazis mythologized themselves without Jews. That’s a big difference.”
_________________________________________________________________
A Model Israeli
By Jessica Steinberg, November 29, 2006, Israel21C
27
Esti Mamo is exquisitely beautiful, with cocoa-colored skin, enormous almond-shaped eyes
and full, shapely lips. She has poise and presence, and as she strides into the Tel Aviv Hilton
wearing the de rigueur belted trench coat, it's inevitable that faces turn.
Mamo, 23, is Israel's first Ethiopian-Israeli model. And after several years on the Israeli
modeling circuit, she has high hopes for strutting on the global catwalk.
Discovered by a modeling agent when she was 16 while shopping with a girlfriend in Tel Aviv,
Mamo insisted on waiting until she was 18 to take her first job - an advertising campaign for
Pepsi Cola in Israel. She then moved on to the prestigious Image Model Management agency,
and began modeling regularly for Israeli clothing chains Castro, Renaur, Kenvelo and Diesel.
It all felt very natural to Mamo, who despite her simple beginnings in an Ethiopian village, was
always the type of kid to prance around on imaginary high heels. As a teenager, she spent
many hours preening and primping with her friends, and during high school, created a dance
group that performed in local clubs.
"It's in the genes," says Mamo, explaining her looks and her self-awareness. "I always paid
attention to what I looked like, but I always critiqued myself as well, I was deeply involved in
the whole process."
Yet it's taken a while for her to get to where she is now. Mamo came to Israel with her family
on Operation Solomon, the 1991 airlift of Ethiopian Jews. Originally from Chila, a small
farming village in Ethiopia, her family spent two years in the Ethiopian capital city of Addis
Ababa before leaving when Mamo was nine years old.
When the Mamo family first came to Israel, they were placed in the seaside town of
Michmoret, and then moved to Kiryat Malachi, where Mamo's grandmother was already living.
Like many traditionally observant Ethiopian Jews, the Mamos had always thought of Israel as
the 'Holy Land', says Mamo, a place full of God-fearing, religiously aware Jews.
Modern Israel, says Mamo, with a lift of her perfectly shaped eyebrows, is a very different
bargain.
Like many other Ethiopian families in Israel, the Mamo family's aliyah and absorption has not
been easy. For Mamo, the difficulties faced by her family came to a head in 2004 when her
younger brother committed suicide.
"I don't like to talk about it, because it's very painful," she told ISRAEL21c. "No aliyah is easy,
and none of the aliyot to Israel by any of the other groups - Yemenite, Moroccan, Polish - have
been easy. People don't know how to accept the differences of others. They need to feel love
for other kinds of people."
28
Mamo, however, does feel that her story of achievement holds out hope for other Ethiopians
that they too will find satisfaction and success in their personal and professional lives.
"I don't forget what happened to me," she insists. "I'm part of the Ethiopian tribe, and they are
part of me. That's why I feel that given my work, I can present myself as an example, as an
Ethiopian and an Israeli and a Jew, and offer pride and satisfaction in who I am."
Mamo has often given talks at schools and local community organizations, what she calls
"small things" that she's happy to do in order to show others that they also can make
something out of their lives.
But while Mamo is happy to have 'made it' in Israel, she is working hard to expand her work
beyond advertisements and catalogs to the fashion spreads and pages of major magazines
such as Vogue, Elle and W. In fact, her goal is to land a campaign with one of the cosmetics
empires, such as Estee Lauder or Chanel.
"I don't have a problem doing fashion, but I think I fit better with cosmetics and beauty
products," she said. "Because I'm a woman of color, I speak for everyone, I'm global."
Mamo often finds that Europeans can recognize her as an Ethiopian, and New Yorkers are
sometimes familiar with her delicate, Ethiopian features. But more often than not, people are
not aware of what is it to be an Ethiopian Jew, or the story of Ethiopian Israelis and the long,
arduous journey they have taken.
During her increasingly frequent travels around the world, Mamo tries to keep herself
grounded by being in regular contact with Ethiopian and Israeli friends living outside of Israel,
not, she says, living the typical model lifestyle.
According to photographers and stylists who have worked with her, Mamo appears to have
both the looks and the drive necessary to make it in the world of modeling.
"In the last few years since Esti opened the doors, the general taste of the fashion world has
expanded to embrace models of all colors," supermodel photographer Avi Harel said in a
recent interview with JTA. "Today, it's a normal part of Israeli culture."
"It's a process, you have to build up your exposure," says Mamo of her modeling career. "I
love the work and I'm always looking to improve what I do, always curious to see the photos
during a shoot, to see and be responsible for what we're creating."
Mamo is clearly a woman who knows what she wants, and what she likes. While she's not a
"fashion victim," she says, and tends to shun brand names, she still confesses a love of
Chanel and buys much of her clothing from Spanish fashion chain Zara.
She can eat what she wants, and loves lamb in particular, but doesn't crave junk food. When
she wants to be domestic, she'll clean her entire Tel Aviv apartment, but prefers to stay away
from the kitchen. She is fiercely protective of her independence and her ability to make her
own decisions, but is inordinately close to and proud of her family.
29
"People call me a lucky girl," she said with a laugh. "And I do feel that things that I've wanted
to happen, have happened. But once I've accomplished what I want to do, I'll come back to
Israel and have a family of my own. My feet are always on the ground."
_________________________________________________________________
Not a Nice Jewish Girl
By David Kaufmann, March 16, 2007, Forward.com
British singer Amy Winehouse is not a nice Jewish girl. And it’s not just a question of the
tattoos. Nor is it her positively epic boozing. (Her father, a London cabdriver, claims that she is
not an alcoholic, because she does not drink every day. Perhaps. But there was that really
embarrassingly drunken television performance, since immortalized on the Internet, with
Charlotte Church, of all people.) Did she once belt a fan at a club? Maybe. But in the end it’s
Winehouse’s unblinking honesty, her unrepentant sexuality and her genius for creative
expletive that would make you think twice about bringing her home to meet the folks. As she
tells her lover in the slinky second song on her equally slinky second album, “Back to Black,”
she is simply “no good.”
Except, of course, she really is awfully good. If you don’t trust the commercial success and the
awards she’s garnered in the United Kingdom — including her recent BRIT Award for best
solo female artist — listen to an import copy of her first CD, “Frank” or, better still, to “Back to
Black.” Unlike anodyne jazz-ish stylists such as Norah Jones, or tastefully wholesome white
soul singers such as Joss Stone, Winehouse is all edge and voice. And she can write songs
that showcase both.
“Frank” has attitude to spare. In “Stronger Than Me,” the first single from that album,
Winehouse complains about her lover’s emotional weakness (“Cause I’ve forgotten all of
young love’s joy/Feel like a lady, and you my lady boy”) and goes on to ask him if he is gay.
This is provocative, to be sure, but lyrically it is not enough to make even a minor splash.
Along with “F**k Me Pumps” (whose title says it all), “Stronger Than Me” is probably the best
song on that uneven album, because its meandering melody resolves itself nicely into a hook.
But in the end, beyond words and music, “Stronger Than Me” works because of Winehouse’s
supple and surprising voice. In a blind taste test, I have found it very easy to fool several
friends into thinking that Winehouse is black, American and much older than her (now) 23
years.
Winehouse was still in her teens when she cut “Frank.” She has since claimed that she cannot
listen to the album. Truth be told, the jazz-inflected production on that disc can get very
annoying; some of the songs never do coalesce, and you sometimes wish that Winehouse
would just hit the damn note already and stop messing around.
30
“Back to Black” does not suffer from any of those problems. It is musically much more direct
than “Frank” and thus spares the listener all that album’s unnecessary busyness. “Back to
Black” draws its musical coordinates straight from 1960s girl groups. From first bars of the
rollicking and wonderfully intransigent gospel-soul of “Rehab” through the slower “Love Is a
Losing Game,” which might well be one of the better songs that Burt Bacharach and Hal David
never wrote, the straightforward pop demand for a good hook keeps the melodies from
wandering. Winehouse’s vocals are also more disciplined on “Back to Black,” more focused
on demonstrating her power and emotional range.
Although “Back to Black” contains a nod or two to the Supremes, its tutelary genius is really
Phil Spector, especially in the title track. There is also more than a touch of Dusty Springfield
thrown in, as a tribute, no doubt, to the best English interpreter of American soul that the
1960s produced. Nevertheless, the album is not about antiquarian pleasures. The care that
went into this nuanced evocation of that golden age does not mean that Winehouse has
sacrificed even the tiniest bit of her rather aggressively contemporary sensibility. In fact, one
of the album’s smarter moves is to run that sensibility straight into the musical conventions of
the past. This is one of the reasons that “Rehab” is such an infectious tune. This is also why I
can’t get “Me and Mr. Jones” out of my head. In that song, Winehouse sings a gloriously
unprintable putdown of a boyfriend against the shimmery and no-longer innocent background
of a doo-wop chorus. It’s funny, and you can dance to it. You just can’t play it on the radio.
American listeners might not realize that Winehouse’s accent is thick North London and
recognizably Jewish. So, while she has been grafting a rap attitude onto ’60s soul, she has
also added a distinctly Jewish touch to hip hop. Whatever else she is, Winehouse is a strong,
somewhat pushy and sharp-tongued woman, the kind who delights in that fine Yiddish sport of
cutting pretensions down to size. Women of this ilk used to be called “brassy,” and it was not
always a compliment. But Winehouse wears it well, in no small part because, like her great
talent, her vulnerabilities and her flaws are so clearly visible.
Train wrecks make good copy, and for any number of reasons the British press just loves
Winehouse’s burps and lurches. But to worry about her weight or her drinking or her drug use
is less interesting in the long run than to see what she does with her problems. There is
something bracing and maybe even new in her ability to match unflinching vulgarity with real
sophistication. So, sure, sure, “Back to Black” is a fine album. More importantly, though, “Back
to Black” shows that Winehouse is turning into an artist to watch. No, she is most decidedly
not a nice Jewish girl. And that, of course, is the whole blessed point.
31
Upcoming Events
Congratulations to Be’chol Lashon member, Dennis Ybarra, who will be called to the
Torah as a Bar Mitzvah on Friday evening, May 25, 7:30pm at Sha’ar Zahav, San
Francisco.
_______________________________________________________________
Save the Date-Israel in the Gardens-June 3, 2007
Join Be’chol Lashon at the largest free cultural event of the year.
Israel in the Gardens
Sunday, June 3, 2007.
10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Yerba Buena Gardens,
San Francisco
More than 15,000 people unite once a year to rejoice and commemorate Israel’s
Independence. It’s an opportunity to show our solidarity and publicly recognize members in
our community for their extraordinary commitment to Israel and their efforts in strengthening
Israel - Bay Area relations. For more information, go to IsraelintheGardens.org

ABAYUDAYA COMMUNITY UPDATES • Be`chol Lashon launches

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