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From JTA.org

Large Conservative synagogue names
female rabbi in ‘groundbreaking’ move

By Chanan Tigay

NEW YORK, March 10 (JTA) — Twenty years after the Conservative movement began ordaining women as rabbis, a large New Jersey congregation has chosen a woman to fill its top rabbinic post, a development movement leaders are hailing as “groundbreaking.”
The board of Congregation Beth El in South Orange voted on March 7 to appoint Rabbi Francine Roston, 36, as the synagogue’s spiritual leader.

The shul boasts 575 families.

Once it becomes official — the contract has not yet been finalized — Roston’s appointment as senior rabbi will be the first of a woman to such a post at a Conservative synagogue with more than 500 families.

“We see this as groundbreaking,” said Rabbi Perry Raphael Rank, president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the Conservative movement’s rabbinical arm.

“It’s groundbreaking from the perspective that we have been talking about a glass ceiling, and she has broken that glass ceiling and risen to a much larger congregation than women have risen to until this point,” said, Rank, who is the spiritual leader of Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, N.Y.

Roston, who since 1999 has been rabbi of Congregation Beth Tikvah in New Milford, N.J., will be replacing the synagogue’s longtime rabbi, Jehiel Orenstein, who held the pulpit for some 35 years.

Roston is married and has two children.

“Our feeling was, all things being equal, we would probably have hired a male rabbi — but all things weren’t equal,” said Aaron Nierenberg, co-chair of Beth El’s search committee.

“Rabbi Roston impressed us with her knowledge, sense of energy, sense of humor, warmth. Most specifically, she has a record of achievement. When she sets her mind to doing something, she makes it happen.”

Asked whether the committee views itself as having done something pioneering in hiring Roston, Nierenberg said, “We really don’t see it that way. We really don’t.”

Beth El received 20 applications for the position, and offered 10 of the initial applicants telephone interviews. Of this group, three were women. The list was then narrowed to three finalists, each of whom visited the synagogue for a weekend to lead services, lecture and meet the congregation. Of the final three, only Roston was female.

Women now constitute roughly 11 percent of the nearly 1,600 members of the Rabbinical Assembly.

According to a Conservative movement survey released over the summer, 83 percent of the assembly’s 177 women pulpit rabbis lead congregations of fewer than 250 families, while 17 percent lead shuls of between 250 and 499 families.

By contrast, 27 percent of men lead congregations of less than 250 families, 48 percent lead mid-size congregations and 25 percent lead congregations of more than 500 families.

In 1994, after she served as its assistant rabbi for some four years, Chicago’s Am Yisrael synagogue — which has 500 member families — appointed Rabbi Debra Newman Kamin as its sole rabbi.

At that time, Am Yisrael was the first congregation in the Chicago metropolitan area to be headed by a woman, and, until now, was the largest Conservative congregation in the country to have a woman rabbi at its helm.

“It’s been 20 years now that we’ve had women ordained as rabbis from within our movement and they’ve proven themselves to be extremely capable,” said Rabbi Reuven Hammer, immediate past president of the International Rabbinical Assembly.

“I think we’re reaching a new period of time now when congregations are no longer looking at women rabbis as strange and something that they’re not interested in.”

Still, Roston’s appointment comes as questions about gender equality in the Conservative rabbinate linger.

According to the movement survey released over the summer, Conservative women rabbis are paid less, occupy fewer senior positions and are more likely to be unmarried than their male counterparts.

The Reform movement, which began ordaining women in 1972, has at least 15 women serving in senior rabbinic positions at congregations with 500 or more households as members.

Since 2001, for example, Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman has been senior rabbi at Temple Israel in Minneapolis, a congregation of over 1,900 families.

Rabbi Janet Marder, president of Reform’s Central Conference of American Rabbis, has been the top rabbi at Congregation Beth Am is Los Altos Hills, Calif., a congregation of almost 1,300 households, since 1999. In 1988, Rabbi Emily Lipof was appointed senior rabbi at Temple Ohabei Shalom in Brookline, Mass., a congregation of more than 600 families.

Of the twelve largest Reconstructionist congregations in the United States, four have women as their senior rabbis, and one has a female assistant rabbi. These shuls range in size from 1,000 member units at the high end down to 237 members on the smaller side. Twenty-four of the movement’s 106 total synagogues have women as either senior or assistant rabbis.

Roston, for her part, told the New Jersey Jewish News that as a rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary in the 1990s, she did not consider herself a pioneer.

“In rabbinical school, my classmates and I saw ourselves as the second generation,” she said. “We weren’t among the first who broke the doors down in ’84 and ’85, who had been there fighting the battles.”

Still, she added, once she had graduated from JTS in 1998, “we realized that in the Conservative movement, we were the first generation.”

That, she said, was because, though the heated clash over whether or not to ordain women as rabbis roiled the seminary, it hadn’t very deeply affected the movement’s congregations.

But today, Hammer said, women rabbis have left their mark on the movement.

“Once it’s demonstrated that it can work, the opposition to it becomes much lees than it was before — and I think we’ve reached that point,” he said.

From the Miami Herald

Conservative Jews fleeing to other movements

RACHEL ZOLL
Associated Press

The branch of American Judaism that occupies the middle ground between those who buck tradition and those who fully embrace it have been confronting the dwindling appeal of their movement in a meeting this week in Houston.

Members of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly, at their annual convention, say their seminaries and day schools have been educating more and more Jews, only to see them flee to other Jewish movements.

Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the leading Conservative school, said the exodus of young Conservative Jews with strong religious educations is a key reason the movement is floundering. “I deem that to be the most critical loss,” he said, in a phone interview from the meeting, titled “Reinventing Conservative Judaism.”

Schorsch partly blames the trend on the poor quality of worship in Conservative synagogues, which he says are so geared toward “entry-level Jews” that those with more religious knowledge leave for the stricter Orthodox congregations. Schorsch says he often worships at an Orthodox synagogue on Friday nights, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, because of the beauty of the service.

“There is really a fatal disconnect,” he said. “There is not enough attention being paid to advanced Jews.”

The Conservative movement teaches a traditional Judaism that is moderately flexible. For example, Conservatives allow members to drive on the Jewish Sabbath if necessary and let men and women sit together during services. However, unlike clergy in the more liberal Reform stream, most Conservative rabbis will not officiate at interfaith weddings. The Orthodox movement has the strictest adherence to Jewish law and tradition.

Conservatives have resisted pressure to liberalize core teachings to prevent less observant Jews from leaving for Reform synagogues, which generally give a greater role to gays and to Gentile spouses of congregants.

Although exact numbers are hard to calculate, Jewish leaders now agree that the Reform movement has overtaken Conservative Judaism as the largest North American branch – in members and in number of synagogues. The total number of Jews in the United States is estimated at between 5 million and 6 million.

However, these are not the losses that preoccupy most Conservative thinkers. Instead, many want to retain the more observant congregants – a strategy they believe will revitalize synagogues.

“If a person decides that they are really not interested in observance, then the Conservative movement is really not the place for them,” said Rabbi Reuven Hammer, a Conservative leader from Israel who attended the Texas meeting. “But sometimes we lose people who become very observant. If we don’t have enough observant people in our congregations, then they will look for a place they will feel more comfortable.”

Jonathan Sarna, an expert on American Jewish history at Brandeis University, said the Conservative branch began faltering when it decided to more rigorously define itself, narrowing its appeal. Synagogues that once felt welcome, believed they didn’t fit in anymore and broke away.

Among the issues that drove some out: The movement’s decisions over the last two decades to ordain women and to not ordain gays, although the role of homosexuals is once again under review by the movement’s Law Committee. The Reform movement ordains gays and women, while the Orthodox do not.

“Some left because the Conservative movement wasn’t liberal enough and some left because it was too liberal,” said Sarna, who spoke at the assembly. “The tent has become smaller and smaller.”

Sarna said the Reform and Orthodox movements have succeeded partly because they are tolerant of a spectrum of practices in a way that the Conservative branch is not.

Reform leaders have recently encouraged their members to embrace traditions they once deemed meaningless, such as learning Hebrew and keeping kosher. As a result, a wide range of worship styles can be found in Reform congregations.

The Orthodox stream, which encompasses a small percentage of North American Jews, have successfully played down internal differences, between the more adaptable modern Orthodox and the ultra-Orthodox, for example – and have focused on what unites them instead, Sarna said.

Sarna noted that many Conservative-trained leaders have started creative programs that have enjoyed great success – such as small prayer groups that are popular among young people. However, he said these leaders do not affiliate with the movement and he urged the Rabbinical Assembly to honestly consider why.

Said Sarna: “The Conservative movement needs to keep people with those new ideas in the tent, rather than believe in order to make those innovative ideas happen, they need to go outside the tent.”

Written from the Rabbinical Assembly convention in Houston Texas

Below is an article from JTA. I was literally exhausted after listening to Rabbi Sharon Brous speak in a session yesterday here at the convention about her new endeavor called Ikar. She is a talented, dynamic and super-energetic rabbi who is transforming this new spiritual community in Los Angeles. Hadar in NYC and now Ikar in LA… if only we could create such kehillot (communities) between the two coasts!

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Conservative synagogues need to be reinvigorated, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary said.

While Jewish education and teacher training are dynamic and strong, Rabbi Ismar Schorsch said, many of the movement’s best and brightest are “often off at Orthodox shuls.” Schorsch made the comments in an address Sunday at the annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly in Houston, a spokeswoman for the movement’s rabbinic arm told JTA. Much of the substance “in our shuls is geared towards ‘entry-level’ Jews and not ‘advanced’ Jews,” he said. And while these “advanced” Jews remain intellectually Conservative, he added, they have trouble finding satisfaction at Conservative shuls. Schorsch suggested several remedies, among them that the movement must become more entrepreneurial and should reaffirm the validity of halachic boundaries.

Citing both Chabad and the Reform movement, Schorsch said that American Jews are hungry for charismatic leadership and new ideas.

© JTA

When I helped coach my little brother Jake’s little league baseball team many many years ago, I knew that Dani Wohl was a good athlete, but I just didn’t realize how good!

He’s much older now and has done what very few Jewish kids from West Bloomfield, Michigan get to do in college — start as the point guard for the University of Michigan varsity basketball team.

The Michigan Daily published a great article about Dani today that even quotes his dad Milt (my CPA!). With Rabbi Danny Nevins in the crowd during one of his final games in a U-M jersey, Dani had 6 steals almost tying the all-time Michigan record (the most for a Wolverine in the past 10 years).

Now Dani will play for the U.S. team in the Maccabiah Games in Israel. I’m very proud of Dani.

Max Fisher, ‘dean’ of Jewish life,
dies at 96 as community mourns

By Rachel Pomerance

NEW YORK, March 8 (JTA) — A defining moment in the life of Max Fisher, the son of immigrants who became a Jewish icon, came in a meeting with former President Eisenhower in 1965.

As head of the United Jewish Appeal at the time, Fisher met Eisenhower to ask him to address the UJA on the 20th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps. But during that meeting, he learned he would change history.

Eisenhower told Fisher he regretted forcing Israel out of the Sinai when he was president during the 1956 Arab-Israeli War.

“Max, if I had a Jewish adviser working for me, I doubt I would have handled the situation the same way,” Eisenhower is quoted as saying in Fisher’s biography, “Quiet Diplomat,” written by Peter Golden.

“That’s the day that Max figured out what he was going to do. He wanted to be that adviser,” Golden told JTA in a phone interview.

Fisher, about whom superlatives are routinely used to describe his power and leadership in the American Jewish community, died March 3 at his home in Detroit. He was 96.

He was buried in Detroit on Sunday, with a reported 1,300 people attending the funeral.

Hours after his death, e-mail messages made the rounds of major Jewish organizations and activists to alert them of the death of a man who not only led many major Jewish organizations but also exercised enormous political power, personally advising Republican presidents for nearly half a century.

“The State of Israel has lost a true friend, who was one of its greatest supporters,” Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in his Cabinet meeting Sunday.

“To a large degree, it is due to Max Fisher’s activism that approximately 1 million new immigrants came to Israel from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union in the 1990s,” he said, referring to Fisher’s work to prioritize aliyah for the Jewish Agency for Israel after the fall of the iron curtain.

“I dubbed him the ‘dean’ of the community, and he certainly was until his last day,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Howard Rieger, president and CEO of the United Jewish Communities, called Fisher a “quintessential Jewish leader and visionary who dominated American Jewish philanthropy for half a century.”

Fisher had been honorary chair of the UJC.

In the world of Jewish volunteer leaders, Max Fisher was a “giant,” Rieger said.

For Jane Sherman, one Fisher’s five children, the outpouring was overwhelming.

“I got a call from Israel. They wanted to bury him on Mt. Herzl,” the site reserved for Israel’s most celebrated heroes, she said. The family declined.

Many Israeli dignitaries called to offer condolences, along with Presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Gerald Ford.

“We didn’t only lose a father,” said Sherman, co-chairwoman of the Israel Department of the Jewish Agency. Fisher was the founding chairman of the Jewish Agency’s board of governors.

“He was a role model for us as well as the rest of the world,” she said.

“It’s the end of an era, but he leaves a legacy for everyone and not only Jews,” she said. “The city of Detroit is in mourning.”

Fisher was born in Pittsburgh on July 15, 1908 to Russian immigrants. The family soon moved to Salem, Ohio, where Max was one of the few Jews in town.

He attended Ohio State University on a football scholarship; he played linebacker.

Fisher earned his wealth in oil and real estate. Last year, Forbes valued his fortune at $775 million.

The magazine ranked him at 383 on its list of the 400 richest people in America. He was also the oldest.

Those close to Fisher speak in near-mythic terms of his humility and his ability to mentor and lead communities — essentially, to speak softly and carry a big stick.

“He was the ultimate leader,” said Robert Aronson, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, where Fisher served several years as president.

“He taught people that the most important thing you could do, no matter how wealthy or influential you were, was to give back to your community,” Aronson said. “That was his spiritual belief.”

Noting that “people listened to Max,” Aronson said, “I would call him the 800-pound gorilla of the Jewish world. There won’t be another one like him.”

Fisher helped finance the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Max M. Fisher Music Center, known as “The Max.”

But Jewish philanthropy was his main charitable mission.

Even as much of the Jewish community struggled to emerge from the shadow of an immigrant culture, and often was excluded from elite society, Fisher already had made it.

None other than the son of Henry Ford, known for his anti-Semitic beliefs, became one of Fisher’s best friends — and eventually a major contributor to Detroit’s Jewish federation, said Joel Tauber, a Detroit resident and friend of Fisher’s for 40 years.

“He was the leading Jew in North America,” said Tauber, noting that Fisher at different times led the Jewish Agency for Israel, the United Jewish Appeal and the United Israel Appeal.

After the Holocaust and the storms surrounding Israel’s creation, he, Fisher and others were hungry to rush to Israel’s aid, Tauber said.

“When anything involved Israel or the safety of Jews, we were like fire horses. We heard the bell, and we ran,” he said.

Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres issued a statement on Fisher’s death.

“Max Fisher was living proof that the American Dream was the continent’s reality. From humble beginnings, he created an empire. And as soon as he built his wealth, he began to share it. He lived by the dictum that wealth created should be wealth given away,” Peres said.

The organized Jewish world was never the same after Fisher spearheaded UJA efforts, Peres said.

“Max Fisher was the best sort of leader. He was a leader that nurtured leaders,” he said. “If the Jewish people and Israel are enjoying the commitment of an excellent group of lay leaders, it is thanks to the example of a life of commitment that has been the life of Max Fisher.”

Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, which Fisher founded in 1985, echoed those sentiments.

“The reason we are here today and the success we are seeing has a direct lineage to the vision he saw many decades ago. When he gave advice, people knew not only that the advice was correct, but there were no other hidden agendas,” Brooks said, noting that Fisher never took an ambassadorship or other government perk.

Those who had the chance to work with Fisher valued his loyalty, his access and his personal philosophy — patience and persistence.

For example, when Tauber chaired the original committee for the rocky merger of the Council of Jewish Federations and the United Jewish Appeal, Fisher stood by him when others attempted to derail it, he said.

“He’s just very tenacious,” Tauber said.

Former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz said he met with Fisher frequently, and worked with him to help organize a “soft landing” for Israel’s inflated economy in the 1980s.

“Every pore of him was constructive,” Shultz told JTA. “He could criticize things but was always looking for something positive, to make it better.”

Shultz remembered Fisher leading a delegation of 100 American entrepreneurs to Israel to consider buying Israeli products and locating factories there.

“Max could always get an audience because everyone respected him so much,” Shultz said. “You didn’t think of him as a guy who was lobbying for you, you thought of him as a guy who was helping you.”

Fisher always made his agenda clear, and made room for those who could further it.

Shoshana Cardin of Baltimore is a veteran Jewish leader whose politics usually were Democratic.

Still, Fisher would invite Cardin to State Department dinners because he thought she could advance their common cause.

Cardin marveled at Fisher’s dedication and access, noting that presidents took his calls immediately.

Yet Cardin said she was surprised to learn from his assistant that when Fisher was in Israel for business he often ate dinner by himself in his hotel room. He didn’t get many dinner invitations, she was told, so she invited him to join a group of friends one night, and he joined them with pleasure.

Cardin surmised that others were intimidated by Fisher, or simply assumed he would be busy with loftier engagements.

In his absence, the Jewish community will experience the loss of a colossal mentor and father figure, she said.

No other senior adviser is as respected as Fisher by so many people, both in the United States and in Israel, she said. If someone had a problem, he or she “could go to Max, and Max could help straighten it out.

“There is no Max who can do that now. There is no one who could take his place,” Cardin said.

Howard Kohr, executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said Fisher was the consummate networker, always making sure people got in touch with the people Fisher thought they should know.

“If you look over the history of the U.S.-Israel relationship, it’s hard to find a single private individual who had a greater role on behalf of the State of Israel than Max,” Kohr said.

Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker called Fisher an “extraordinary friend” who was a major force in the Republican Party.

“Back in the day when Max started, there were not a lot of prominent Jews supporting the Republican Party,” Baker said. “And he built it up really darn good.”

Fisher was “plugged in,” Baker said.

American presidents and secretaries of state wanted to talk to him because he was talking to the Israeli players, and Israeli prime ministers worked with him because he was speaking with American leaders.

The relationships also were personal. When Fisher fell and broke his hip a year ago, he received phone calls from three presidents — Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

When Fisher entered a room, the head table became wherever he sat, said Rabbi Israel Singer, chairman of the World Jewish Congress.

“He spoke very softly,” said Singer, one of Ford’s campaign advisers. “They had to lean over to hear what he was saying, but it resonated.”

Singer described Fisher as “supra-organizational” and a “born chairman.”

“Most guys push their way to the front,” he said. But not Max Fisher. Instead, “the front came to him.”

Fisher, whose first wife, Sylvia Fisher, died from rheumatic heat fever, is survived by his wife, Marjorie Fisher.

He is also survived by Jane Sherman, the only child of his first marriage; his second wife’s children, Mary Fisher and Phillip Fisher, who he adopted; and Marjorie Fisher and Julie Cummings, daughters of his second marriage. He is survived by 14 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

© JTA

From the Detroit Free Press

Dearborn resident faces prison term

BY DAVID ASHENFELTER
March 2, 2005

A 33-year-old Dearborn man pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist group.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Mahmoud Youssef Kourani hosted meetings in his home in the 6000 block of Argyle in late 2002 where a guest speaker from Lebanon solicited donations for Hizballah, which has been designated by the United States as a Lebanese terrorist group. The meetings happened between Nov. 6 and Dec. 6, during Ramadan.

The government didn’t identify the speaker at the meetings. It said the money was intended for Hizballah’s orphans of martyrs program to benefit the families of those killed in Hizballah operations or by the group’s enemies.

The plea came in a deal worked out by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Chadwell and Kourani’s lawyer, William Swor of Detroit, neither of whom would comment.

The charge carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Kourani is to be sentenced June 14 by U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland.

When Kourani was indicted in November 2003, prosecutors said he was a member, fighter, recruiter and fund-raiser for Hizballah and continued his fund-raising activities in the United States after entering the country illegally from Mexico in 2001. The original terrorism charge carried a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, upon conviction.

The government said his brother was the group’s chief of military security in southern Lebanon.

Kourani has been in custody since May 2003 when he was arrested on a count of harboring an illegal immigrant. He was sentenced to 6 months in jail and was ordered deported in that case.

He’s the second person in 14 months to plead guilty to terrorism charges in federal court in Detroit.

In December 2003, Hassan M. Makki, then 42, of Dearborn, was sentenced to 57 months in prison for providing more than $2,000 to Hizballah from proceeds of a North Carolina-to-Detroit cigarette smuggling scheme.

From the NY Times

State Offers Details Online to Help Determine if Food Is Truly Kosher
By JOSEPH P. FRIED

Four and a half years ago, a federal judge declared unconstitutional New York State inspection laws that intended to ensure that kosher-labeled food was kosher. Now the state has begun carrying out a new law that gives consumers information online about the rabbinical authorities that certify products as kosher.

Under the old laws, state inspectors visited stores and sometimes production plants to determine if kosher-labeled products sold or made at the sites were produced under kosher standards. Now, in place of the inspections, the state is creating an Internet database, which went online Thursday. The database provides information to help consumers find out a product’s kosher certification.

The new law, enacted in July, requires producers, distributors and retailers of food sold as kosher in the state to submit information – including the identities of the organizations or individuals certifying their products as kosher – for inclusion on the Internet registry. The statute also requires that many of those who do the certifying provide their qualifications, including their education, training and experience. The Internet registry is available at www.agmkt.state.ny.us/kosher.

The new law is intended to avoid the legal pitfalls of the earlier laws, which originated in the late 19th century and were declared unconstitutional in 2000 by Judge Nina Gershon of Federal District Court in Brooklyn. She ruled that those laws had fostered “excessive entanglement” between religion and the state by authorizing kosher to be defined as prepared “in accordance with Hebrew Orthodox religious requirements.” She said this standard impermissibly required the state “to rely on religious authority and interpretation” for enforcement.

Her ruling, upheld on appeal, came after a Long Island kosher meat business had been cited for violations under the old laws. The owners of the business, Commack Self-Service Kosher Meats, argued that the statutes had infringed on the rights of Jews who were not Orthodox and who often had different standards of kosher.

Commack’s owners were ordered to pay fines after inspectors said they had found improperly soaked and salted meats for sale. Under Jewish dietary laws, animal products must be free of blood to qualify as kosher; a soaking and salting process is mandated to drain the blood. The owners said their procedures had been approved by a Conservative rabbi who supervised their operations. Conservative Jews are generally more flexible than Orthodox Jews on points of dietary law, though the Conservatives say their standards are as valid as Orthodox criteria.

The new law “provides information so consumers of kosher foods can decide themselves if the kosher certification for any product or establishment is one they wish to rely on,” said Jessica A. Chittenden, a spokeswoman for the State Department of Agriculture and Markets, which administers the statute.

Even though the law requires some certifiers to state their qualifications, “it does not establish any certifier qualifications nor allow the department to evaluate certifier qualifications,” Ms. Chittenden said.

Instead, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said, it aids consumers by giving them “specific information about the level of kosher supervision of the products” while satisfying “the constitutional concerns of the courts.” Mr. Silver, who strongly backed the new legislation, is an Orthodox Jew.

Several merchants interviewed in Borough Park, Brooklyn, said the registry would have greater value to consumers outside areas like Borough Park, an Orthodox stronghold.

“In this neighborhood, they know,” said Simon Benatar, manager of Boro Park Foodmart on 13th Avenue, referring to people’s familiarity with the intricacies of kosher law certification.

Ms. Chittenden said that about 2,200 businesses had so far registered more than 160,000 items. But a glance at the registry shows that products are sometimes entered more than once because different sizes of products are individually listed, obscuring how many products are in the registry.

In any case, the registry is expected to grow.

When the old laws were declared unconstitutional in 2000, the agriculture and markets agency said its inspectors had been annually visiting about 4,000 businesses that dealt in kosher products in the state. Under the new law, companies located outside New York that produce kosher-labeled food sold in the state are also obligated to provide the required information.

Penalties for not complying are up to $1,000 for a company’s first violation, up to $5,000 for a company’s second and up to $10,000 for any additional violation.

A visitor to the Web site can find that Glenview Farms heavy whipping cream, for example, is certified by the Orthodox Union, a group internationally known to kosher food buyers; that Joyce Chen hoisin sauce is approved by KOF-K, another well-known group; and that Great Value frozen concentrated orange juice is certified by Chabad Lubavitch of Southwest Florida.

Some products bear the endorsement of rabbis for whom no group affiliation or qualifications are given. The law requires that only certifiers of “non prepackaged food” submit their qualifications.

How is the average kosher-minded consumer to assess such certifiers?

“For those willing to invest the time to do the research,” the registry is “a starting point,” said Rabbi David Zwiebel, executive vice president for government and public affairs of Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox organization. He was part of a group representing Jewish organizations that Mr. Silver and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer formed to help draft the new law.

Rabbi Jerome M. Epstein, executive vice present of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, said people could also seek guidance from their own rabbis. He called the new approach preferable to having the state “say what is kosher and what isn’t.”

Upcoming Events

“Two Rabbis, Three Opinions”
Thursdays, February 24 through March 17

Reform Rabbi Jennifer T. Kroll (Temple Israel) and Conservative Rabbi Jason Miller (University of Michigan, Hillel)
discuss the future of Judaism for our generation.

Lobenthal offers insight on prejudice”

By Tom Szczesny
Michigan Daily
February 23, 2005

“Traveling home from Ku Klux Klan rallies in cars loaded with dynamite, standing in churches as they were firebombed and waiting for a sheriff to arrive at his burning house to save him from gun-toting KKK members has provided former director of the Michigan Anti-Defamation League, Richard Lobenthal, with a unique perspective on prejudice.

Throughout his 36-year career at the ADL, Lobenthal was on the front lines of the battle against hate.

Last night at the University’s chapter of Hillel, Lobenthal shared some of his compelling stories with a gathering of students and local residents. Lobenthal’s hope was to convey the relevance of these experiences to the current struggle against intolerance.

Lobenthal said there is still an undercurrent of prejudice continuing to threaten individuals and infringing on their ability to live a secure life. “As we go from the ‘50s and ‘60s to 2005, we’re still dealing with this issue,” he said.

Citing recent events around the country and at the University, including the drawing of swastikas in Mary Markley Residence Hall, Lobenthal expressed anxiety over manifestations of hate in the United States today.

“One thing I’ve become increasingly concerned about is that Americans are losing their ability to be tolerant,” he said. “It’s our inability to recognize our differences and coexist that makes me nervous,” he added.

Lobenthal also explained how such intolerance will impact the country in coming decades. In particular, Lobenthal conveyed his doubt that democracy can survive in a climate of prejudice. “The ability for us to get along together is the most fundamental concept of American democracy,” he said.

Lobenthal said he is disturbed by the fact that individuals have become increasingly incapable of speaking openly about issues of race and tolerance. Even worse, he said the result has been a gradual muting of voices that fight for equal rights.

“When you begin to have a country move to apathy about harassing people … and you don’t have a sense of indignation, … that is very dangerous,” he said. “Until we have a collective sense of outrage, then the world’s going to deteriorate.”

It was this sense that first inspired Lobenthal to become a civil rights activist over four decades ago. He wanted to be heard in firm opposition to the many prejudiced movements — including the Dixiecrats and a resurgent KKK — spreading around the country.

As a result, he joined the ADL, which Lobenthal called the oldest and largest private civil rights organization in the world, and while serving in its Virginia office, he took steps to combat hate by infiltrating the KKK and observing the group’s activities firsthand.

In 1964, Lobenthal became the Michigan director of the ADL. He served in this capacity until 1996, when he stepped down to engage in other forms of civil rights activism, including acting as interim director of the Michigan American Civil Liberties Union.

With his decades-long work as a fighter of prejudice, Lobenthal left a mark on many lives. Rabbi Jason Miller, assistant director of Michigan Hillel, worked as an intern with Lobenthal one summer and called him as a “public defender and unifier.”

Lobenthal’s story resonated with RC sophomore Monica Woll, chair of Hillel’s governing board. “It was inspiring to hear someone so dedicated and passionate about a cause living his life attempting to end racism and segregation,” she said.

Miller said this energy and determination allowed Lobenthal to create a climate of tolerance for disparaged groups. “All these minority groups owe so much to this man who has dedicated his life to fighting hate and building bridges,” he said.

Think TV is a wasteland? Here are two reality shows that are hip and healing

By Rabbi Marc Gellman
From Newsweek

Feb. 16 – After seeing a television picture for the first time some 60 years ago, the writer E.B. White said, “This will either be a grave disturbance or a saving radiant light.” In retrospect, the grave-disturbance theory has basically trounced the saving-radiant-light theory—except for any episode of “I love Lucy,” the coverage of the first lunar landing and a few nature programs most of which begin with the somnolescent preface, “The platypus is a very interesting animal.” Look, if you can find some saving spiritual lesson in “Jackass” please enlighten me immediately.

However, I feel the stirrings of the saving radiant pixels of a new age. Who would have thought that the prophets for this generation of spiritually acceptable television would be a hip-hop rapper named Xzibit and an ex-J Crew model named Ty Pennington. I hereby proclaim the Gospel of “Pimp My Ride” and “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” What I see in these two shows is a saving radiant glimmer of how television married to compassion (and a blown 450cc short block engine) can produce programs that are both hip and healing, both popular and profound.

For those of you who have only just returned from Alpha Centauri and have not yet seen these shows, “Pimp” is on MTV. That in and of itself is astounding because MTV is the Mt. Sinai of the grave-disturbance theory. “Makeover” is on ABC, which in its own act of moral blindness brings us “Desperate Housewives” immediately following “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” Anyway, both shows select poor, needy and worthy people, some of whom are also courageous and sick. On “Pimp My Ride,” a hunk of steaming junk from a hysterically grateful recipient is driven by Xzibit to West Coast Custom body shop in L.A. to be stripped and rebuilt from the metal up by a team of charismatic car trolls who delight in going to any lengths to make the new car a thing of beauty and fantasy for its needy owner. In “Extreme Makeover,” the run-down house of hysterically grateful recipients is demolished and then a new house is built in one week, usually on a new and vastly enlarged foundation by Ty and his team of design and production hotties.

The convulsive gratitude of the recipients upon first seeing their new ride or new home far exceeds anything I have ever witnessed among the grateful people I know (both of them). And let me tell you I have seen the transfixed ecstasy of Pentecostal snake handlers and it is nothing compared to the joy of a guy learning that he now has a bowling ball washer in the trunk of his car.

What makes these two shows not just kind and weepy but actually luminous is the way they unselfconsciously obliterate the traditional ways we often treat the poor. First, both shows treat the needy without a hint of condescension or pity. They respect these people completely. It is that respect, more than the pimped-out ride or the new house, that is the real gift. Also the workers on both shows work with real joy. Charity is often seen as a dutiful burden, but in these cases it is a labor of love. Psalm 100 says, “Serve the Lord in joy.” I checked in vain the ancient commentaries for a reference to the joy produced by trunk-mounted bowling ball washers, but who knows what King David had in mind 3,000 years ago when he wrote that psalm?

What touches me most is that when we give to the poor and needy, we almost always give them just a taste of what they need while these shows give them a taste of what they dream. In both shows the hysterically grateful recipients of automotive and appliance largesse are given not just a redone car or house, but a fabulously redone car or house. The cars are painted in iridescent colors with leather upholstery to match and come with zillion-watt sound systems and blinged-out rims with phat flat tires. Even wild fantasy is given its due with tv monitors installed under the car, and let us not forget the ubiquitous bowling ball washer.

In “Extreme Makeover” the houses are often doubled in size with two-story gyms and central HEPA air cleaners imported from Switzerland and covered outdoor pools with waterfalls and disco illuminated floors and wine cellars filled with wine or hay barns filled to the brim with hay to sell. This gift of a new house, let us be honest, far exceeds both in monetary and moral value the gift of a hot car for even a needy twenty-something, but all the people chosen on both shows are needy mensches and in the end that is all that really matters.

To give the poor a gift that far exceeds their wildest imagination and to give that gift with respect and joy is not just a good thing; it is a new and saving thing whose radiance, I feel certain in my soul, will let ol’ E.B. rest in peace, assuming of course he can’t tune in to see the new season of “The Bachelorette.”

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.