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Protesting integration in Israel

Jill

Ultra-Orthodox Jews protest the integration of a girls’ school because they don’t want their Ashkenazi daughters studying with Sephardim.

Tens of thousands of black-clad ultra-Orthodox Jews staged mass demonstrations on Thursday to protest a Supreme Court ruling forcing the integration of a religious girls’ school.

Protesters snarled traffic in Jerusalem and another large religious enclave, crowded onto balconies in city squares, and waved posters decrying the court’s decision and proclaiming the supremacy of religious law.

There were a few small scuffles, and a police officer emerged from one of them holding his eye, apparently slightly injured.

It was one of the largest protests in Jerusalem’s history, and a stark reminder of the ultra-Orthodox minority’s refusal to accept the authority of the state.

Also, the throngs of devout Jews showed to which extent the ultra-Orthodox live by their own rules, some of them archaic, while wielding disproportionate power in the modern state of Israel.

Parents of European, or Ashkenazi, descent at a girls’ school in the West Bank settlement of Emanuel don’t want their daughters to study with schoolgirls of Mideast and North African descent, known as Sephardim.

The Ashkenazi parents insist they aren’t racist, but want to keep the classrooms segregated, as they have been for years, arguing that the families of the Sephardi girls aren’t religious enough.

Of course it’s just about morals and religion, and not about bigotry. We’ve heard this line before, haven’t we?

And this quote is rather telling:

Esther Bark, 50, who has seven daughters, said the issue is keeping the girls away from the temptations of the modern world. ”To suddenly put them in an open-minded place is not good for them,” she said.

68 thoughts on Protesting integration in Israel

  2. I believe these schools receive public funding in Israel, nu?

    Yes, Sephardi minhag *is* somewhat different and more “lenient,” (although to the outside observer, still damn observant!) esp. viz women’s behavior/dress and kashrut during Pesach…but really, this is about racism and has been for the last 60 years.

    @ Jill–the open minded quote you cite doesn’t have much to do with the racism issue, though. It isn’t as through ultra-Ortho Sephardi families are necessarily all open to the world outside either and letting their little girls lead what you would perceive to be a proper liberal feminist life, hmmm? (To be fair, ultra-Orthodoxy, as I understand it, is somewhat more of an Ashkenaz phenomena in the first place, though.)

  3. Relevant editorial from earlier this year:

    Gideon Levy – And what Happens in Our Community? (Haaretz)

    Having said that, let’s take a look at some of our own enlightened, secular Ashkenazim. With us, it’s not a matter of blatant, official discrimination as it is among the Haredim. We have no litmus test on admissions policies based on ethnic origin, we have nothing that resembles rabbinical segregation. Still, this should not be a source of pride.

    The school in Immanuel is not admitting girls of Sephardi origin? This is a horrible thing. But what about the Israel Prize? Let’s recall the ceremony that took place a few days ago: Almost all the recipients and presenters were Ashkenazi. It was once, and justifiably, dubbed the Israelovich Prize. Of the 158 prize laureates in cultural fields over the years, only 10 have been of Sephardi origin. And the picture isn’t any better among the more than 600 laureates in all categories. True, no one decided to shut out Sephardim from this honor; no one imposed an ethnic admissions requirement as the rabbis have. On occasion, token Sephardim even win a prize – generally unknown rabbis in the category of Jewish thought – but the results speak for themselves.

    Covert secular discrimination is sometimes more serious than blatant ultra-Orthodox discrimination, which is devoid of our purist rules of order. Open discrimination spawns opposition and outrage. But covert (and therefore more restrained) discrimination doesn’t spark any protest.

    Just sharing a view from the left.

  4. Also, perhaps more interestingly, this is putting the influential religious party Shas in a really uncomfortable situation, because Shas is not only a religiously conservative party, but also a major advocate of Sephardi and Mizrahi issues. If they side too much with the Haredim, they’re going to alienate their voter base, but if they side too much with the court, they’re going to experience a schism in the party leadership. Since Shas gets about 10-15% of the votes in any given election and holds a proportionate number of seats in the Knesset, an upset in the politics of Shas could very well change the dynamics of national coalition politics, possibly dramatically for the better.

  5. Oy vey is mir.
    Same story, different religion. Fear of anyone not like us.

    My mother would be thrilled if I’d bring home a Sephardi woman, if only I’d just stop dating goyim. Or goyot, rather. (Feminine ending for those who speak even fewer than my 100-word Hebrew vocabulary.) It’s all relative, I guess.

  6. TBH, this strikes me more as the typical “hasids trying to police what is and is not considered ‘proper’ Jewish culture” rather than xenophobia.

  7. It’s terrible that the one thing “GOD” that should unite people is the biggest thing that keeps people apart. Aren’t we all made in his image.

  8. When I married, the only question my parents had was if my fianceé was Jewish. I could have married anyone in the world, male of female, as long as they were Jewish.

    This says something about our culture, and I’m not completely sure where I stand on this one. On the one hand, why limit who you can love to a cultural group, on the other hand we see a lot of Judaism being diluted. I have no idea how to resolve this one.

    The ultra Orthodox are pretty much the same as the Evangelicals in the USA. Pure ignorance and hatred. Shame on them!

  9. Because these fellas don’t have televisions, they didn’t see the advertising campaign about multi-cultural Israel. Somebody needs to run an inservice for them. And take away their funny hats.

  10. Of course, marrying “out” might make it less likely for their offspring to get Tay-Sachs disease. But I suppose having your daughter watch her kid die a nasty death is heaps better than not belonging to the perfectly orthodox in-group.

  11. The school is in a West Bank settlement? There’s a story in itself. Let’s dismantle the settlement and the parents can select a more ‘appropriate’ school for their daughters in Israel.

  12. Or…..genetic testing pre-arranged marriage can. There are plenty of advocates for that yes, even among the traditionally observant, Jewish orthodoxy isn’t one big monolith.

    I find the communities who won’t test for it pre-marriage really, really upsetting–but your comment came off as pretty freaking glib. If you have been brought up as a woman in certain ultra-ortho communities you often have no ability to make your way in the outside world, and leaving would alienate you permanently from everyone you’ve ever formed a friendship with, not to mention your family.

  13. There’s nothing particularly unique to Israel about this. For example-in nearby Iraq, black Iraqis are shunned in the marriage market by both Sunnis and Shia muslims. Worse than that, they aren’t even allowed to hold anything more than marginal jobs and are largely excluded in society.

  15. RE: Helen:

    Of course, marrying “out” might make it less likely for their offspring to get Tay-Sachs disease.

    Tay-Sachs has basically been completely eliminated within the Jewish community through genetic counseling. Nowadays, the alleles for Tay-Sachs are actually more common in the general public than they are in Jews.

  16. @JDP – Tay-Sachs hasn’t been eliminated within certain parts of the Hasidic community. The most well-known example I can think of right now is the couple that was killed at the Chabad House in Mumbai had two older children with Tay-Sachs.

  17. RE: C:

    It’s terrible that the one thing “GOD” that should unite people is the biggest thing that keeps people apart. Aren’t we all made in his image.

    Hasids are pretty much assholes to all other Jews. There are several schools of Hasidism all from the general vicinity of Lithuania, and each school thinks they’re the only way to be properly Jewish. They’re also all vastly anti-Zionist, but only because they explicitly think that Jews have been commanded to suffer in exile, and that things like pogroms, ethnic cleansing, and the Shoah are our punishment for not being holy enough. When Jews talk about Jewish antisemitism, this is one of the major forms. Hasids also fight a lot amongst each other, sometimes physically, too. The basic belief system (which states that their suffering is tied to other Jews not being Jewish properly) is pretty fucked up and makes them feel justified in getting in everyone else’s face, which is pretty much antithetical to the attitudes of most Jews.

    Also, it should be pointed out that this is not quite an issue of racism so much as it is a sense of Ashkenazi cultural superiority towards Sephardim, Mizrahim, Beta Israel, etc., a problem which is pretty universal, and only exacerbated by the fact that non-Jews all basically assume that “Jew” means “Ashkenazi.” Hollywood does it. The UN does it. Obama does it. Helen Thomas’s recent gaffe dripped of it. There’s a little public space for Jews of color in Israel, a little in France and Morocco, and basically none anywhere else, including the US.

  18. RE: Ruchama:

    Gotcha. I was going off of statistics for the general Jewish community. I’m sure insular Hasidic communities may still have problems with this.

    As a Sephard, I never had to worry about Tay-Sachs.

  19. My father in law is a carrier, husband isn’t…the disease is largely eliminated in the majority of Jewish communities, but the alleles will stick around longer.

  20. I just wanted to say what a pleasant surprise it was to click on this article from my googlereader to make a comment pointing out that while racial factors may not be entirely absent from this dispute, there’s a lot more nuance to what’s going on here, and to see all the other comments already making that point!!

    In response to Helen’s snarkiness about Jews not wanting to marry out, you all also responded well to that. I just want to add that there is nothing wrong with wanting to keep your cultural identity and community intact. Everyone knows that the statistics for interfaith families having Jewish children and grandchildren are significantly lower than they are for families with two Jewish parents. I think Americans in particular seem to have difficulty with the idea of maintaining Jewish identity through emphasizing Jewish marriage, perhaps because of our mythology of being a cultural “melting pots” However, just as diversity training has increasingly emphasized the model of the “fruit salad” rather than the “melting pot,” we should be able to accept that it’s ok for certain cultures and groups to keep themselves distinct, at least to an extent.

  21. JDP – TS alleles are still more common in the Ashkenazi population than in the general population, it’s TS _births_ that have been virtually eliminated from the Ashkenazi population. The only ways we could eliminate the allele would be to discourage carriers from reproducing, or select against new _carriers_ being born using IVF and screening or selective abortion. This seems excessive, though, especially since we can prevent TS births simply by continuing to screen.

    Some of the community screening programs are on a broader scope than just TS, and pretty careful about keeping carrier status unknown so as to avoid creating a stigma.

  22. RE: Sammi:

    I just want to add that there is nothing wrong with wanting to keep your cultural identity and community intact. Everyone knows that the statistics for interfaith families having Jewish children and grandchildren are significantly lower than they are for families with two Jewish parents.

    The interfaith debate really pisses me off. Xenophobia is xenophobia is xenophobia. I don’t care if the issue is one of “preserving Jewish identity” or a Christian not wanting their child to marry “one of those” (I’ve been on the receiving end of that and it’s terrible).

    If you’re concerned about continued existence of Jewish culture, then raise your children within that culture. Don’t just take them to synagogue for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Take them to cultural events; there are some great Jewish musicians working with traditional Yiddish and Ladino music, and most big cities with a reasonable-sized Jewish community have folk dance events and stuff like that. We still have traditional storytelling in some of our communities; take your kids to storytelling events. Keep family recipes as a part of your cooking. Expose them to the extensive and diverse Jewish literature out there. Hell, there are so many important Jewish philosophers, filmmakers, authors, musicians, scientists, and comedians out there. If you raise your kids to think that being Jewish is only about the Shema, Hanukkah, Manischewitz, and saying “oy,” you can’t really complain when your kids don’t consider their Jewish identity to be particularly important. Note that I haven’t said a thing about God or religion here; belief in God should be the absolute last thing that a Jewish identity should hinge on.

    Secondly, yes, traditionally intermarriages in the West have involved subjugation of the Jewish identity, and this has largely been the result of Christian supremacist bullshit. But Jewish communities HAVE had significant intermarriage in the past (especially in the classical Mediterranean civilizations, but also in the Babylonian community, Beta Israel, Bene Israel, the Cochin Jews, the Lemba, etc.) while maintaining significant Jewish identity and Jewish customs. The fact that not all these communities are recognized as “Jewish” by the Ashkenazi rabbinate is absolutely shameful and is part of the reason we have such stupid arguments about intermarriage. Hell, some portion of the “Ashkenazim” in Israel are actually Romani who declared a Jewish identity to get out of the British internment camps after WWII. And then, hell, the Jewish identity has become exceedingly mainstream in the US to the extent that Jewish culture and Jewish values have had a major effect on American culture, including civil rights, media confrontation of governmental abuses, etc. The idea that a Jewish identity is so weak that it cannot survive unless both parents are Jewish is not only wrong, but in my mind it is antisemitic.

    Also get rid of the demeaning matrilineal crap. It unreasonably discriminates against Jewish men who marry out and places undue pressure on their wives to convert to Judaism for their children to have access to the Jewish community.

    Finally, that’s not to say that children who are raised as Jews cannot also be raised within other cultural identities [i]as well[/i]. If multiple parents are involved in raising a child, then those parents should all have the opportunity to raise their child within their culture if they so choose. Respect has to go in both ways. You can’t complain that there is no respect for Jewish cultural identity within intermarriages, and then pressure your partner to completely abdicate their cultural identity just because they’re a goy. That’s hypocritical and disgusting.

    Sorry for the somewhat off-topic rant, but this is a subject that pisses me off to no end.

  23. RE: Wednesday:

    Didn’t know that. I had read some paper or another talking about reduction of incidence rates a few years back and figured it was talking about alleles rather than phenotypes. Since I’m Sephardi, this has never been an issue for me, so I’ve never really thought too much abut T-S.

  24. @JDP,
    I think you put that quite well. I always found fears of children of intermarriages losing their Jewish identities to be rather patronizing, perhaps especially because I’m the daughter of intermarried parents and consider Judaism to be incredibly culturally important to me. And yeah, I was always so confused about Jews, even those who are otherwise mostly secular putting HUGE emphasis on matrilineal descent. I wish I could never, ever again hear anyone calling me “not a real Jew” because my dad is Jewish, not my mom.

  25. And yeah, I was always so confused about Jews, even those who are otherwise mostly secular putting HUGE emphasis on matrilineal descent. I wish I could never, ever again hear anyone calling me “not a real Jew” because my dad is Jewish, not my mom.

    Amen to this. I dated a Reform guy (Reform Jews don’t believe in matrilineal descent, as long as a child is raised Jewish) who insisted that I wasn’t a “real” Jew because my mother isn’t Jewish. Kind of like how the Ultra-Orthodox don’t think the rest of us are “real” Jews! Why the obsession? I’ll never figure it out.

    Re: the article, it doesn’t look like these Haredi are Chasidic – let’s be careful to keep our Ultra-Orthodox sects straight.

  27. I don’t really have a problem with folks not wanting to marry out as long as they aren’t a) hypocritical about it (using intermarriage as this last sacred cow of Jewish identity) or b) getting up in other people’s business to an obnoxious degree about their own choices.

    @ JDP–IMO you can’t class everyone who doesn’t want to marry out/feels conflicted about it as “xenophobic.” If you want to live an observant lifestyle and not throw the religious playbook out the window, it is a difficult issue to wrestle with–can we not deny that by calling anyone that has struggled with it xenophobic? You’re excluding/insulting people who are currently in interfaith relationships and feel deeply conflicted on the subject, of which I know many.

    “Note that I haven’t said a thing about God or religion here; belief in God should be the absolute last thing that a Jewish identity should hinge on.”

    Really? Who made you arbiter of my cultural and religious identity today?

  28. Thank you Chava! As a converted Jew, I tend to find more acceptance from the more observant Jews. “Secular” Jews tend to think that it’s the “culture” or birth that makes one a Jew, not religion. Because of that, they tend to think of me as “not really a Jew.” But more observant Jews who base Jewish identity more on religious observance than birth are extremely accepting of me. Reform Jews love to harp on how “inclusive” and “accepting” they are, until they meet someone who doesn’t have even one family member who is Jewish and decided to convert because of the religion. Then, more often than not, they look down on you because it’s the religion that they tend to not think of as being Jewish. That’s why I attend only Conservative or Orthodox services — I tend not to be welcome in Reform shuls.

    JDP shows thinking that is the same as the ultra-Orthodox — deciding that he knows what makes someone a “real” Jew. It’s the policing of Jewish identity, along with racism, that form the basis of these terrible divisions in Israel, and throughout the Jewish community in the world. It’s a hard thing to fight, but I think we can do it.

  29. arg. this was supposed to be in the block quote:

    “Note that I haven’t said a thing about God or religion here; belief in God should be the absolute last thing that a Jewish identity should hinge on.”

    Really? Who made you arbiter of my cultural and religious identity today?

  30. JDP: Secondly, yes, traditionally intermarriages in the West have involved subjugation of the Jewish identity, and this has largely been the result of Christian supremacist bullshit.

    Yes: though (perhaps as a reaction) the negative reactions of some Jewish communities to interfaith partners (and children, if any) is a factor in not maintaining identity with both communities. A friend who is a gay Jewish man whose partner is non-practicing Christian, found that when he showed up at a synagogue without his partner, the community was welcoming: when he showed up with his partner, not so much. While not ultra-Orthodox, he keeps Shabbat and eats kosher: his partner’s learned to cook kosher and keeps a modified Shabbat and obviously celebrates the festivals with him, though he’s never learned Hebrew.

    My friend ended up going regularly to a synagogue which practiced a more liberal Judaism than he felt comfortable with, just because that was the only local synagogue that accepted his partner – and linked him to a support group for interfaith relationships. Though when they showed up there, they were both asked why their wives hadn’t come… all the other relationships were heterosexual.

  31. RE: Chava:

    IMO you can’t class everyone who doesn’t want to marry out/feels conflicted about it as “xenophobic.” If you want to live an observant lifestyle and not throw the religious playbook out the window, it is a difficult issue to wrestle with–can we not deny that by calling anyone that has struggled with it xenophobic? You’re excluding/insulting people who are currently in interfaith relationships and feel deeply conflicted on the subject, of which I know many.

    First, my issue is not with the fact that some people might feel more comfortable with other Jews. My issue is with the fact that there’s a goddamned wholesale campaign within the Jewish community, led by the more “observant” members of the community, to delegitimize and demonize intermarriage.

    Secondly, while I understand that your experience of the Jewish identity is different from mine, I do not accept that someone who has chosen to explore Jewish religious practice as an adult has a goddamned right to contribute to an extremely divisive practice that can be absolutely devastating to people who goddamned dare to date outside of the Jewish community. I really don’t want to minimize your experiences, but there are some things that you will not understand. For those of us who grew up with antisemitism in our own lives, who grew up seeing the scars of antisemitism in our family, and who grew up afraid to be ourselves outside of the spaces of the Jewish community, threatening to deny us access to the one place we felt like we truly belong because we dare to date outside of the community is sadistic. Denying us access to basic life cycle celebrations within our community, including things like getting married, bringing our children into the community, and being buried on the same funeral plot as our loved ones, is completely unacceptable.

    For the sake of civility, I’m going to avoid the conversion discussion entirely, because your complaints are, frankly, offensive as hell within this context.

  32. RE: Flowers:

    As a converted Jew, I tend to find more acceptance from the more observant Jews. “Secular” Jews tend to think that it’s the “culture” or birth that makes one a Jew, not religion. Because of that, they tend to think of me as “not really a Jew.” But more observant Jews who base Jewish identity more on religious observance than birth are extremely accepting of me. Reform Jews love to harp on how “inclusive” and “accepting” they are, until they meet someone who doesn’t have even one family member who is Jewish and decided to convert because of the religion. Then, more often than not, they look down on you because it’s the religion that they tend to not think of as being Jewish. That’s why I attend only Conservative or Orthodox services — I tend not to be welcome in Reform shuls.

    It sounds more like they’re objecting to the fact that you’re playing Dances With Wolves in their congregation and assuming that you have the goddamned right to tell them they’re not good enough Jews and that our community should be reduced to a consumable commodity. You’re being permitted as a guest to share our community spaces because you find something fulfilling about our rituals.

    I can damned well say that if Reform communities don’t like you, the problem is probably you.

    [quote]JDP shows thinking that is the same as the ultra-Orthodox — deciding that he knows what makes someone a “real” Jew. It’s the policing of Jewish identity, along with racism, that form the basis of these terrible divisions in Israel, and throughout the Jewish community in the world. It’s a hard thing to fight, but I think we can do it.

    Yes, I’m obviously policing Jewish identity by saying that Jews who are engaging in critical reforms of ritual and law in order to make our community and our world a more inclusive and just place, gay Jews, and Jews who marry outside of the community should not be exiled from the community and denied basic things like community recognition of the couple’s relationship within the context of a Jewish marriage, the welcoming of their children (if any) into the community, the right to be buried together in a Jewish cemetery if they so desire, and the right to make aliyah together if they so desire for whatever reason.

    I’m not going to say any more because I don’t want to say anything I might regret.

  33. RE: Jesurgislac:

    Yes: though (perhaps as a reaction) the negative reactions of some Jewish communities to interfaith partners (and children, if any) is a factor in not maintaining identity with both communities. A friend who is a gay Jewish man whose partner is non-practicing Christian, found that when he showed up at a synagogue without his partner, the community was welcoming: when he showed up with his partner, not so much. While not ultra-Orthodox, he keeps Shabbat and eats kosher: his partner’s learned to cook kosher and keeps a modified Shabbat and obviously celebrates the festivals with him, though he’s never learned Hebrew.

    My friend ended up going regularly to a synagogue which practiced a more liberal Judaism than he felt comfortable with, just because that was the only local synagogue that accepted his partner – and linked him to a support group for interfaith relationships. Though when they showed up there, they were both asked why their wives hadn’t come… all the other relationships were heterosexual.

    Which is absolutely part of the problem, and something that fundamentally bothers me about how we treat each other, both in the specific case of the Jewish community and in the more general case of society at large. As Jews, we deal with enough alienation in society in general that the absolute last thing we should be doing is alienating members of our own community, especially not because they’ve had the audacity to fall in love, or, in the case of the OP, they came from the wrong part of the world.

    The reform and reconstructionist movements are pretty good about handling intermarriage and are making a pretty solid effort on gay equality and gender equality. Conservative congrgations are generally pretty good about these things too, but it’s a lot more hit-or-miss, sadly. The Orthodox movements all have a long way to go.

  34. With respect, JDP, I think you really misread what I said in the first part of my comment. I have the same issues you do with asshats who shove their opinions about interfaith dating on others, for parents who threaten to deny things to children, for shuls who refuse to make any kind of accomodation to interfaith couples.

    But for an individual–for many of my FRIENDS–who are Jews from birth–to feel conflicted about their personal romantic relationships, to struggle with their own thoughts and feelings on that issue? That. does not make them. xenophobic. Like I said, I have no problem with individual PEOPLE who do not want to marry out–or who do, and struggle with it, because like you said so charmingly, no, I don’t have the same perspective on it.

    But thanks for thinking that you can avoid the conversion discussion by describing me as someone who “chose to explore Jewish religious practice as an adult.”

  35. “First, my issue is not with the fact that some people might feel more comfortable with other Jews. My issue is with the fact that there’s a goddamned wholesale campaign within the Jewish community, led by the more “observant” members of the community, to delegitimize and demonize intermarriage.”

    Yes, there is. And that is horrible. And maybe you could have said that, instead of going for the “she’s a convert and doesn’t understand” underbelly like EVERYONE FRACKING ELSE in the Jewish community.

    And I could have mentioned that not only is intermarriage condemned, but marriage to converts is generally condemned as well, as part of the “silent holocaust” by the Orthodox.

    But you still are not giving people who want to remain traditionally observant–to whom this is a HUGE, HUGE part of their identity, like Jerugsilac’s friends, many of my friends–and who cannot DO THAT because of the fuckery of many Conserative and Orthodox shul’s, any room in your argument here.

    I run a youth group for 20s and 30s at a conservative shul on the east coast. We’ve recently been putting together an event on intermarriage & holidays the and we just put one together on how we can welcoming LGBT members more fully into our community. Because people shouldn’t be fucking forced to choose between two incredibly important parts of their identity. Traditional practice CAN accomodate these things, but it takes a lot of work and thought and struggle within the community. And to wave a hand at religious Jews who are intermarried and say “your identity shouldn’t hinge so much on this” is really insulting–not so much to me, but the people voices I’ve been listening to while working on this for the past six months.

  36. @ Flowers—

    Eh. I mean, I get where you are coming from, but eh. I’ve been lucky enough to fall into a wonderful conservative shul that I’m proud to be a part of (even though it still has changes to make) but there aren’t many, honestly. A lot of them still rampantly exclude the LGBT community through a policy of silence, shame those who intermarry, and some still shame women out of being on the bima.

    I have not found Conservative or Orthodox Jews more accepting as a rule, although I do find that I get less of the defensive-type comments via: religion, it is more different kinds of stuff. I think the idea that the C &Orth communities are these convert accepting places is really a bit of a fallacy.

  37. “I think the idea that the C &Orth communities are these convert accepting places is really a bit of a fallacy.”

    No it’s not. I’ve been in multiple Jewish communities all over the US. I’m not going to call your experiences a fallacy, so don’t call mine that. I’ll simply say that my experiences are different from yours, and that the JDP “you just don’t understand!!!” Jews in my experience have all been Reform. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. THEM.

    Also, there are many LGBT lay minyans that are Conservative all over the place. Search them out. If you want a shul, ask around for a gay-friendly rabbi. I live in “the gay area” of my city, and both the Orthodox and Conservative shuls are relatively gay-friendly. The Reform shuls are in the more conservative parts of time, and are homophobic, even if they think they aren’t.

    And both Chava and JDP: STOP BEING SO CONDESCENDING! Your experiences are different than mine, and other people’s. But you both talk about them as if they are the only “true” way to experience both your Jewishness and life in general. You are both just like the ultra-Orthodox in the article in that regard. It’s beyond infuriating.

  38. Wow, JPD, as an observant Jew who has dated non-Jews, I totally understand where you’re coming from. I hate how intermarriage is the boogly boogly in the closet. But I see things getting a bit better with the next generation of Jewish adults who are in their 20’s and 30’s now. Because, even though “Is s/he Jewish?” may still be the first question people ask, I think enough of us are the children of intermarriages and still care about Judaism, know people who are children of intermarriages and still care about Judaism, or are intermarried and still care about Judaism. My husband and I both dated non-Jews, and I doubt anyone would say that Judaism isn’t a factor in our (kosher, Shabbat observant) home.

    That said, diatribe against chava was really really mean. And that’s why people who convert frequently feel uncomfortable in our communities. But I feel like this whole intermarriage thing is a complete derail.

    So, regarding the original post, there’s a really big problem world wide with the Haredim being allowed to define Jews and Judaism, especially since there’s a ton of sexism, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia implicit in their definition. It trivializes the observance of everyone else in the religion, and the Israeli government’s assistance to this end is completely despicable. We have women who get attacked for wrapping teffilin (phylacteries) in their own homes or arrested for praying a certain way at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Members of the Beta Israel community from Etheopia are required to convert before being accepted. People who have converted under non-Orthodox, or even some Orthodox, rabbis are required to re-convert to be considered Jewish by the state. Sephardim are dressing as Polish nobility because it’s seen as “more Jewish, more religious.” Jews who want a non-Orthodox wedding have to go elsewhere to do it, never mind that you can marry yourself according to halacha. It’s disgusting.

    But, things may be changing directions. First this ruling by the courts, then another ruling that the state cannot provide a stipend to Orthodox married men who wish to sit around and study Torah all day if the state is not willing to also pay a stipend for secular studies. Brava.

  39. “First this ruling by the courts, then another ruling that the state cannot provide a stipend to Orthodox married men who wish to sit around and study Torah all day if the state is not willing to also pay a stipend for secular studies.”

    Linky?

    I hope this integration provides a stepping stone to help end polarization & bias towards the haredim as well. Not super hopeful yet, but we’ll see!

    @Flowers–It sounded like you were generalizing your negative experiences (which I have a ton of sympathy for, trust me) to all Reform/secular Jews, everywhere–which I don’t agree with. If you weren’t, I’m sorry. OK?

    Sorry for the multiple comments, ya’ll. *toddles off to go do proper work*

  40. Chava: forgiven. 🙂

    Even as a convert, the first question I get from my non-Jewish friends when I start dating someone is whether or not the person is Jewish. At least my Jewish friends ask for the name first! The whole “Jews must date/marry Jews” thing is more widespread than just the Jewish community…. Christians are starting to enforce it!

  41. IMO you can’t class everyone who doesn’t want to marry out/feels conflicted about it as “xenophobic.” If you want to live an observant lifestyle and not throw the religious playbook out the window, it is a difficult issue to wrestle with–can we not deny that by calling anyone that has struggled with it xenophobic? You’re excluding/insulting people who are currently in interfaith relationships and feel deeply conflicted on the subject, of which I know many.

    “Doesn’t want to marry out” =/= “Doesn’t want anyone else to marry out.”

  42. Link!
    http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/high-court-abolishes-state-grants-for-yeshiva-students-1.296109

    Jewschool had a bunch of discussion this topic, and has continued to discuss the “Haredi problem” a bunch this past week. Jewschool isn’t a totally safe space, since there’s a TON of racist and classist bullshit that gets posted there, especially in the comments. But they try, and they do a good job of talking about issues that liberal, Jewishly connected folks are interested in talking about.

    Rebecca- That’s a really good and important differentiation!

  43. RE: Chava:

    With respect, JDP, I think you really misread what I said in the first part of my comment. I have the same issues you do with asshats who shove their opinions about interfaith dating on others, for parents who threaten to deny things to children, for shuls who refuse to make any kind of accomodation to interfaith couples.

    Except the stakes are very different, and sadly, you don’t have the same experience that I do. The amount that you have invested in the community as an adult convert is very different from the amount that someone who was born into the community and for whom the community was a safe space when dealing with antisemitism throughout childhood. As much as I bitch about the Ashkenazim I grew up around, they were the only people who understood what it meant to experience glib antisemitism from other kids, from other kids’ parents, from teachers, and so on. They were the only people I knew who understood what it’s like to have loved ones who survived genocide. They were the only people I could trust not to judge me as “less than” just because I was a Jew.

    It sucks that you feel rejected or made unwelcome. However, it’s a very very different thing to have grown up within the community and to have grown up with the sense that the Jewish community was a safe place to be a Jew when outside you had to worry about kids with sticks chasing you and demanding to see your horns, and then as an adult having that safe space torn away from you because you had the audacity to fall in love.

    But for an individual–for many of my FRIENDS–who are Jews from birth–to feel conflicted about their personal romantic relationships, to struggle with their own thoughts and feelings on that issue? That. does not make them. xenophobic. Like I said, I have no problem with individual PEOPLE who do not want to marry out–or who do, and struggle with it, because like you said so charmingly, no, I don’t have the same perspective on it.

    No, it means that they’ve been raised in an environment where marrying out carries some very serious stakes and is basically painted as wholesale betrayal of your culture. Marrying out is a lot like dying in many parts of the community, and people will talk about it in the same sot of hushed tones.

    And there’s a lot of pressure and effort put into the debate, because “marrying out” is seen as the number one cause of declining involvement with the Jewish community. I’ve seen Jewish campus associations hold events basically trying to pressure Jewish students into not intermarrying, and the Jewish dating scene is rife with crap like JDate and so on that is meant to help people date without dating out.

    Wanna know why intermarried couples tend to participate less in the community? Because we make them feel unwelcome.

    But thanks for thinking that you can avoid the conversion discussion by describing me as someone who “chose to explore Jewish religious practice as an adult.”

    Uh, no. I was pointing out that there’s a different stake involved and, more broadly, that there are different levels of permissiveness that a community can be expected to have towards people who were raised in that community and people who enter it as adults. I don’t want to invalidate your experiences or position, but it’s a very different thing for someone who was raised in the community to say “I think this practice is pretty fucked up, we should change it” and someone who entered into that community as an adult to say the same thing. The former is healthy. The latter honestly smacks of cultural imperialism.

    Secondly, I was objecting to the idea of converts acting as the gatekeepers. The idea that someone who was raised in my community could look at me and say “you’re acting in a way that is completely at odds with everything we stand for so get out” is pretty hard to swallow, but the idea that someone who entered my community as an adult could do the same is utterly disgusting. The community is not a religion. It is a cultural community that provides various secular resources. Yes, ritual and religion are sometimes tied to that, but there’s no reason why degree of ritual observance and belief in a deity should be prerequisites for membership in the community. And because “Jew” is not a personal identity, but a communal identity, I am extremely extremely extremely wary of people who try to transform it into a personal religious identity, especially if they declared that identity as an adult.

  44. Wow. Last time I heard something like JDP’s anti-convert rant it was directed at trans women who wanted to enter “women’s only” spaces and were told that they weren’t “real” women because they weren’t raised as women and didn’t experience misogyny. Insert “trans woman” for convert and “women” for Jew, and you get the most transphobic rant I’ve ever heard. But for some reason, it’s ok when it’s directed at Jewish converts.

  45. JDP, another tradition of our community is that converts ARE part of “us.” A convert is part of the Jewish community, period. “Your people shall be my people, and your G-d my G-d,” and so on.

  46. “The idea that someone who was raised in my community could look at me and say “you’re acting in a way that is completely at odds with everything we stand for so get out” is pretty hard to swallow, but the idea that someone who entered my community as an adult could do the same is utterly disgusting.”

    And where, exactly, did I tell you to “get out”?

    “The community is not a religion. It is a cultural community that provides various secular resources. Yes, ritual and religion are sometimes tied to that, but there’s no reason why degree of ritual observance and belief in a deity should be prerequisites for membership in the community”

    No, they should not. But you also don’t get to tell me or anyone else, Jew by birth or not, that “the last thing” my Jewish identity should hang on is religion. Klal yisrael takes everyone, regardless of level of observance, ger or not.

    “I think this practice is pretty fucked up, we should change it” and someone who entered into that community as an adult to say the same thing. The former is healthy. The latter honestly smacks of cultural imperialism.”

    So basically, you’re telling me that I don’t have full status as a Jew. That I don’t have the right to change my culture or be an activist in my local community, demand to make changes to things I see as wrong, etc. Will my children have that right, in your eyes? What about their children? And fwiw, you don’t actually know how old I was when I converted or my experiences growing up with Judaism, my experiences with anti-Semitism since I converted, or the degree to which I DO try like hell to listen to Jews by birth in leadership work I do in my community.

    Or, for that matter, what it feels like to be called a fake Jew, a wannabe Jew, a shiksa, a contributor to the destruction of the Jewish people, to have my husband called various names, etc etc. I have heard it all, JDP, so your “It sucks that you feel rejected”…whatever. It is obvious how you feel.

    You have no idea how much I have invested in this community, how I grew up, where I came from, or what my conversion was like other than a few comments on some Feministe threads and whatever you might have pieced together from my blog. So I invite you to step the hell off. I’m here, I’m Jewish, and I’m not leaving.

    (I am curious….is a Jew by birth who didn’t grow up with much, if any anti-semitism in their life experience, or even with a real knowledge that they were Jewish, only to join the community later as an adult, also subject to your accusations of cultural imperialism?)

  47. RE: Chava:

    Traditional practice CAN accomodate these things, but it takes a lot of work and thought and struggle within the community.

    Sometimes it can and sometimes it can’t. Additionally, traditional practice depends on a whole lot of things. Ashkenazi vs. Sephardi liturgy and ritual are significantly different, for example. Beta Israel ritual, liturgy, and ritual texts are significantly different from everyone else’s.

    There isn’t a single “right way” to conduct Jewish ritual. There isn’t one single “traditional way” either, which is what the OP is all about. Those Sephardi girls are Orthodox…they’re just not Hasids. Ashkenazifying everyone is not the solution, and Ashkenazi ritual itself has changed significantly throughout the years. It all changes; that’s the point of responsas and rabbinic rulings and interpretation. Trying to frame this as a conflict between Ashkenazi Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox movements is disingenuous, because the truth of the matter is that there’s a lot of diversity in ritual and a lot more room for reform of ritual so as to better serve human rights within the community and outside of the community. That the community has framed the discussion in terms of “either you do things the 18th century shtetl way or you’re not really a good Jew” is pretty pathetic and will ultimately kill our community. Worse yet, the Ashkenazi consensus that halakha exists for the purpose of being a burden to you and to make you jump through hoops is neither a particularly traditional interpretation nor a particularly healthy one. The whole point of reform (not Reform, but just simply reform) is to recognize that these instructions were, once upon a time, supposed to be something beyond motions you go through to ensure yourself you’re a “good” Jew.

  48. RE: comment #44:

    Yeah. I know that, and agree with the majority of it. The fact that your comment assumes I know none of it is…entertaining, and revealing.

    However, you are correct that I was framing in the context of American interfaith debates, which are largely Ashkenazified. Apologies. Sephardim do not really have a progressive “version” in the same vein, AFAIK, and I have not read much about work being done from within on modifying Mizrahi or Sephardi ritual to accomodate LGBT or interfaith ritual needs in the US or Israel.

  49. RE: Flowers

    Wow. Last time I heard something like JDP’s anti-convert rant it was directed at trans women who wanted to enter “women’s only” spaces and were told that they weren’t “real” women because they weren’t raised as women and didn’t experience misogyny. Insert “trans woman” for convert and “women” for Jew, and you get the most transphobic rant I’ve ever heard. But for some reason, it’s ok when it’s directed at Jewish converts.

    Yeah, obviously I’m being hateful because I am wary of people who joined my community by choice making comments that could be construed as trying to exclude people who were born into that community but are trying to make changes in that community so as to make it a better place.

    I’m not objecting to there being people in my community who were not born Jewish. I’m objecting to those people participating in dialogues that marginalize people who were born into that community and who still want to be actively involved in the community. It is not acceptable in my mind for converts to say things that marginalize secular Jews, that marginalize Jews of color, that marginalize LGBTQ Jews, and that marginalize Jews who intermarry. Both you and Chava said things that were marginalizing to secular Jews and non-Ashkenazi Jews. That’s not acceptable. You’ve been eager to point out that some secular and/or nonobservant Jews are jerks to converts. I have refrained from pointing out the kinds of behavior I’ve seen from converts concerning Jews of color, LGBTQ Jews, secular Jews, and Jews who have the gall to intermarry and don’t pressure their partners to convert.

    Not that it’s acceptable when people who are born Jewish do it, either. But there is something particularly repulsive about a convert telling me that I’m doing things wrong because I’m Sephardi, or that the Beta Israel aren’t “real” Jews or that LGBTQ Jews shouldn’t be included in the community.

  50. JDP-

    It is not acceptable in my mind for converts fellow Jews to say things that marginalize secular Jews, that marginalize Jews of color, that marginalize LGBTQ Jews, and that marginalize Jews who intermarry or that marginalize converts who, according to our tradition, were also standing at Sinai.

    I totally hear where you’re coming from and the attitudes that you’re trying to fight are not OK on so many levels. But don’t lash out at other marginalized members of our community, k?

  51. How many years does it take for you, JDP, to make up for the lack of a Jewish birth? When a convert has spent more of their life Jewish than not-Jewish, when they have children and grandchildren and so many roots in the community that you can barely count them all—

    Does it really matter if their behavior is repulsive AND they are a convert, or can they finally just be an ass, in your estimation?

  52. RE: Chava:

    Sephardim do not really have a progressive “version” in the same vein, AFAIK, and I have not read much about work being done from within on modifying Mizrahi or Sephardi ritual to accomodate LGBT or interfaith ritual needs in the US or Israel.

    There’s some. There’s not much in the US simply because most Sephardim in the US end up attending Ashkenazi community structures and simply follow Sephardi interpretations of Halakha outside of those community structures. In Israel, the socially conservative Sephardim are mostly supporters of Shas, which was why I mentioned Shas upthread. Socially liberal Sephardim in Israel tend to be pretty secular, and since Israel is itself Jewish, there isn’t a need for Jewish community structures separate from the community structures of the general public.

    I think this is the central issue here. Jewish community structures, including synagogues as well as JCCs, Hillels, Chabads, etc, serve multiple purposes. They’re beit knesset (house of assembly, aka political and social functions), beit tefila (house of prayer: religious functions), and beit midrash (house of learning: educational functions).* As a secular Jew, I’m concerned with maintaining access to those community structures as beit knesset and beit midrash. This is why I object to defining those community structures as solely beit tefila.

    This also relates to the Hasid issue in the OP. Hasids tend to have trouble distinguishing between when a community space is serving the purposes of beit tefila and when it is instead beit knesset or beit midrash. This is in a large part because Hasidism basically states that the entirety of life is beit tefila and Hasids have a really hard time accepting that there are parts of many Jews’ lives that are not utterly wrapped up in prayer.

    *not talking down. Just translating for those who don’t know what I’m talking about.

  53. “Not that it’s acceptable when people who are born Jewish do it, either. But there is something particularly repulsive about a convert telling me that I’m doing things wrong because I’m Sephardi, or that the Beta Israel aren’t ‘real’ Jews or that LGBTQ Jews shouldn’t be included in the community.”

    Sorry for the addendum, but converts get this rhetoric because it’s alive and well in the entire community. To pinpoint converts in this discussion is unfair and lets the majority of the culprits completely slide.

  54. RE: Shoshi and Ruchama:

    I’m really not trying to say that converts are lesser Jews. I’m objecting to people converting and then proclaiming that other Jews are not “good enough” Jews.

    I never said there wasn’t a place in the community for converts. There is. There’s also a place in the community for goyim who have married Jews.

    My main concern is that those places cannot be made at the expense of Jews who are straight, cisgendered Orthodox Ashkenazim.

  55. How the hell did I marginalize JDP? I rest MY Jewish identity on religion, and I sure as hell don’t think other people have to. I just don’t think they have the right to tell me NOT to. I can’t imagine how I excluded Sephardis or LGBTQ people, especially since I adhere to a Sephardic-tradition, egalitarian (read, gay and women friendly) Conservative Judaism and attend lay-led community minyans that adhere to that tradition.

    JDP is just an ass, plain and simple. Stop pretending that you are the only person who knows what it’s like to suffer as a Jew or fear losing your community because of a choice. I lost my community because I converted. Losing one to marriage sucks too. Imagine that the community that you lost everything to join is full of jackasses like you. At least I know that you’re becoming the exception, not the rule.

  56. “I’m really not trying to say that converts are lesser Jews. ”

    You might not be TRYING to say it, but you are saying it. It’s like starting a sentence with “I’m not racist, but…..”

  57. RE: Shoshie:

    Sorry for the addendum, but converts get this rhetoric because it’s alive and well in the entire community. To pinpoint converts in this discussion is unfair and lets the majority of the culprits completely slide.

    Yes, it is sadly alive and well in the community. And that’s absolutely shameful. The reason I’m pinpointing converts on those subjects is because of anyone they should be the last ones to make those sorts of judgments about who is and is not “acceptably” Jewish. My experience has largely been that converts who do this are insecure about their own identities within the community and are looking to lash out at someone they perceive as “less Jewish” in order to prove to themselves how they’re “actually” more Jewish than other Jews.

  58. RE: Flowers:

    You might not be TRYING to say it, but you are saying it. It’s like starting a sentence with “I’m not racist, but…..”

    At risk of Jewsplaining, let me break this down.

    “Jew” is not an identity that exists on the level of the individual. It is an identity that exists on the level of the community in two directions. It is defined in terms of how people within the community interact with people outside the community and how people inside the community interact with each other. How society defines that community affects the former set of interactions, and how we define our community affects the latter.

    When I object to the painting of the Jewish identity as an inherently religious one, it’s because I object to the fact that defining the Jewish community as a religious community is exclusive and basically exiles more than half of the community. I have no problem if you feel that the most important part of being a Jew is the experience of ritual and theology. Cool. Go ahead. What I object to is defining the community identity as fundamentally religious. When you do that, you exclude secular Jews, LGBTQ Jews, intermarried Jews, and Jews who aren’t Ashkenazi-normative.

  59. Also before you jump to conclusions that I’m talking down to you because you’re a convert, I’ve had this exact same conversation with my Orthodox Ashkenazi uncle. Except I was a lot angrier during that conversation.

  60. “At risk of Jewsplaining, let me break this down.”

    Wow. I really have encountered anyone this condescending in a long, long time.

    I disagree with you on so many levels…. so many many levels. You don’t think that the religion can include gays and lesbians and Shephardi? Really? You don’t think they can be religious??? REALLY? Did you not read that wonderful speech that was transcribed on Feministe?

    You’re the one defining religion narrowly and then saying that culture must make up for it….. and you think you know best because of whatever stupid ego you have. I’m saying that the religion can expand, and we can accept secular Jews.

    AND YOU DON’T THINK I’M A JEW, OR YOU WOULDN’T TRY TO JEWSPLAIN!!!

  63. Also, I’m pretty sure the language I used was a lot less civil. I’m pretty sure there was a “you’re like Hitler” sort of thing involved.

  64. “What I object to is defining the community identity as fundamentally religious. When you do that, you exclude secular Jews, LGBTQ Jews, intermarried Jews, and Jews who aren’t Ashkenazi-normative.”

    JDP, in this conversation, you have been the only one to try to define what it means to be Jewish. You have been the only one to say that X should not be a part of communal Jewish identity. There’s a ton of discussion in Judaism’s recent history of how to define it, either as an ethnicity or a religion or both, or whether to separate areas into two separate categories, “Jewish the Ethnicity” and “Judaism the Religion.”

    I know that religion is inherent in my Judaism. If it’s not inherent in yours, that’s totally cool, but you can’t take the religious Jewish experience out of the equation, any more than you can remove any other major piece of our history or culture. You may not be religious, but that probably means that you made a decision not to observe Passover rather than a decision not to observe Easter, no? The culture and the religion are intertwined, even in secularism.

    Furthermore, I hardly think that I’m excluding the LGBT experience here, given that I’m a queer, religious Jew. Ahem.

  65. How exactly does “not religious” equivocate with “not celebrating Passover” exactly? Or Shavuot or Simchat Torah or Sukkot or Shabbat or Tisha Ba’av or anything else?

    Observance of holidays vs. observance of specific interpretations of the law vs. theology are all very different things. I have some serious reservations on the idea that all of these things fall on a single axis of “yes we do all of these” vs. “no, we do none of these.” I also have serious reservations about the idea that authenticity of a Jewish identity within the Jewish community is generally predicated on doing things the “right” (i.e. Ashkenazi Orthodox) way.

    And yes, I am in fact quite aware there’s been a lot of discussion on the subject. The problem, as I’ve been reiterating over and over again in this thread, is that most of this discussion up until the last few decades has basically been Ashkenazi-normative. Which is the entire point of the OP, by the way.

  66. “It sounds more like they’re objecting to the fact that you’re playing Dances With Wolves in their congregation and assuming that you have the goddamned right to tell them they’re not good enough Jews and that our community should be reduced to a consumable commodity.”

    This must have just now gotten out of moderation, because it’s just mean-spirited and I didn’t see it earlier. I have the feeling that the reason I wasn’t accepted was because they were only interested in discussing their latent homophobia and racism with other Jews by birth, and they thought, like you, that a Jew by choice had no standing to argue that religiously we should accept homosexuals, gay marriage, and various religious traditions born of the Diaspora.

    You are just an ass. Plain and simple. Uck!

  67. Well I’m glad to see we’ve all stayed on topic.

    Ok, I have been out of town for the past few days because of a family issue, so I have not been monitoring comments at all. But this is ridiculous.

    I am going to put all comments on this post on moderation. Any comments that are not directly related to the content of this post will be deleted. I am the only one moderating these comments, and I also have a full-time job and a life; this means that your comments may stay in the mod queue for a fair amount of time. Please be patient, and please stay on topic. I am going to be very heavy-handed with the delete key.

  68. “You’re being permitted as a guest to share our community spaces because you find something fulfilling about our rituals. ”

    I am not a guest. I am a Jew. I am not interested in discussing this point further. You want to engage in any sort of dialogue with me further about something I said you have a problem with, you do it on those grounds.

    JDP, I have really enjoyed all your contributions to threads on Israel and Judaism up to this point. And when you aren’t insulting my identity, I find the points you make usually very cogent and interesting, even if I do not always agree with all of them.

    For example, I’d would love to talk more about the information you bring up in #52 (I checked, I have the comment number right this time), but I am honestly NOT interested in engaging with you much further after this.

    This had the potential for an interesting thread. I emailed the mods to ask if they’d consider lending a hand, but no one replied. Oh well.

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