Here are some great photos from the new terminal at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel. I look forward to seeing it firsthand next month when I land in the Holy Land with twenty college students from the University of Michigan as part of birthright israel.
Teaching a Jewish Humor and Jewish Comedians elective to high school students at Nosh ‘n’ Drash at Adat Shalom Synagogue, I now frequent this funny website Shtik.com. The site is sponsored by Machers.com, your gateway to the Jewish Community.
Check it out.
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
New York Times
November 3, 2004
For Shivani Subryan, the whole thing started with a wig. There was this guidance counselor at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, a woman named Kornhaber, and she wore a blond wig. And when Shivani was a junior or senior there in the late 1990’s, she heard all the whispers from her classmates about the reason. Mrs. Kornhaber was bald. No, Mrs. Kornhaber had cancer.
The counselor looked pretty healthy and normal to Shivani, though. She had a different idea, a vague sense that the wig had something to do with the fact Mrs. Kornhaber was Jewish. Not that Shivani knew much about Jews. She was as an immigrant from Guyana of Indian ancestry, a resident of a mostly Latino neighborhood along the Grand Concourse, a neighborhood that hadn’t been Jewish for 40 years, more than twice as long as Shivani had been alive.
That question about the wig, that stray bit of curiosity, kept rattling around Shivani’s brain as she entered City College and took up a major in psychology. So last winter, having finished most of her required classes, she finally indulged the wonderment and registered for a course in Jewish studies on films about the Holocaust.
Intrigued and affected by that introduction, she interned for academic credit over the summer with the Jewish Community Relations Council. Then, this fall, she signed up for classes in Holocaust history and Jewish life in New York. There she learned that Mrs. Kornhaber wore the wig in compliance with Jewish religious law instructing that a married woman not show her real hair to any man except her husband.
Along the way, Shivani declared a second major in Jewish studies. To fulfill it, she will take no less than four Jewish studies classes next spring, her final semester. “People ask me all the time: ‘Are you Jewish? Where are you from?’ ” she said after class one day last week. “And I tell them it’s not about being Jewish. It’s about exploration.”
Her exploration typifies a striking trend at City College and in Jewish studies nationally – its appeal to gentiles. Of the 250 students enrolled in Jewish studies classes at City College, 26 of them majoring and 160 minoring in the field, some 95 percent are not Jewish, according to Prof. Roy Mittelman, the director of the program. The more than 100 colleges and universities offering Jewish studies include such Catholic institutions as Fordham and Scranton, the Quaker-based Earlham College in Indiana, and public ones like the University of Kentucky and Portland State in Oregon that are far from any sizable Jewish community.
This explosion in Jewish studies, a discipline that barely existed 35 years ago, reflects a confluence of forces: the roots-consciousness that gave rise to all sorts of ethnic studies programs in the late 1960’s; the emergence of Jewish family foundations eager to endow the programs; and the growing popularity of Jewish parochial schools covering the elementary and secondary grades. At the outset, at least, Jewish studies was by Jews, about Jews, for Jews.
“No. 1 was the desire to reach Jewish kids,” said Judith Baskin, the president of the Association for Jewish Studies, which has 1,500 professors and graduate students as members. “No. 2 was to demonstrate that Jewish studies has a place in the academic curriculum as part of Western civilization. No. 3 was that it would increase tolerance if non-Jewish students learn about the Jewish experience.”
The recent fascination of gentiles with Jewish studies, then, arrived as a pleasant, and wholly unexpected, shock. Nowhere does this phenomenon carry greater historical resonance than at City College, an institution deeply intertwined with the history of American Jewry.
In the decades before World War II, when many elite universities held quotas on Jewish students, City became known as “the poor man’s Harvard,” the launching pad for intellectuals like Irving Howe and Irving Kristol. By the 1980’s, with Jews now flocking to the colleges that formerly had barred them and City College a predominantly nonwhite school, it suffered national notoriety for the anti-Semitic diatribes of Leonard Jeffries, a tenured professor of black studies.
THE success of Professor Mittelman’s program represents a third wave, part of the overall resurgence of City College. While the Jewish studies courses do attract a few Jews, most of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union, they overwhelmingly draw those self-described explorers like Shivani Subryan.
ALONGSIDE her in Rabbi Bob Kaplan’s class on Jewish life in New York on a recent morning sat immigrants from Colombia, Slovakia, South Korea and the Dominican Republic. As they discussed Jewish poverty on the Lower East Side, Jewish disapproval of interfaith marriage and the struggle to learn English, as depicted in Leo Rosten’s novel “The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N,” they were by inference learning about their own generation of new Americans.
“The kids see Jews as a successful immigrant group and are interested in what happened,” Rabbi Kaplan said. “I always get asked, ‘How did you guys do it?’ ”
More than pragmatism alone, though, has brought non-Jews into the classes, which range in content from theology to history to film and literature. Ardent Christians such as Jichan Kim, an immigrant from South Korea, and Jameelah Lewis, an African-American raised in Ohio, came seeking the Judaic roots of their faith and their savior. Kebba Jallow, an immigrant from Gambia, was motivated paradoxically by having heard so many anti-Jewish slurs in America.
“I had a weird curiosity because I’d accepted all those ideas – Jews are cheap, Jews are always whining about the Holocaust,” he recalled. “I didn’t have the knowledge to contest it. The classes redefined the stereotypes for me. They were just an eye-opener.”
Sinia Randolph, a history major from Harlem, interviewed an aging survivor as part of her research for Professor Mittelman’s class in the Holocaust. The experience changed her way of viewing the tragedies of Jews and African-Americans, which all too often have served as the basis of an invidious game of genocide one-upmanship.
“I know that a lot of time African-Americans think slavery was worst, and maybe deep down I did,” she said. “I mean I knew of Hitler and the six million, but that was as far as it went. Coming into this class, I’ve realized that the suffering is the same. The same inhumanity. The same cruelty.”
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
הריני מוכן בהצבעתי
Here I am ready with my vote
Hareni muchan b’hatsbei`ati
לידרוש שלום בעד המדינה הזאת כמו שכתוב:
to seek peace for this country, as it’s written:
lidrosh shalom ba`ad ham’dinah hazot, k’mo shekatuv
“ודרשו את שלום העיר אשר הגליתי אתכם שמה”
“And you will seek peace of the city where I exile you to”
v’dirshu et sh’lom ha`ir asher higleti etchem shama
“והתפללו בעדה אל ה כי בשלומה יהיה לכם שלום”
“and you will pray for her sake to YHVH, for through her peace you will have peace”
v’hitpal’lu ba`adah el YHVH ki bish’lomah yihyeh lakhem shalom
יהי רצון מלפניך שתהא חשובה כאלו קימתי הכתוב בכל עצמתו
May it be Your will that my vote will be accounted as if I fulfilled this verse in all its meaning,
y’hi ratson milfanekha shet’hei hatsbei`ati chashuvah k’ilu qiyamti hakatuv b’khol `atsmato
וכשם שהשתטפתי בבחירות היום
and just as I participated in elections today
uk’shem shehishtatfti b’v’chirut hayom
כן אזכה למעשים טובים ולתקון עולם בכל פועלי
so may I merit doing good deeds and fixing the world with all my actions
ken ezkeh/ezkah l’ma`aim tovim ul’tikun `olam b’khol po`alai
יהי טוב בעיניך ה אלהי ואלהי הורי
May it be good in Your eyes, YHVH my God and God of my ancestors,
y’hi tov b`einekha YHVH elohai v’elohey horai
שתתן לבב חכמה למי שאנו בוחרים היום
that you give a heart of wisdom to those whom we choose today
shetiten l’vav chokhmah lmi shanu bochrim hayom
ותן לנו ולכל העמים במדינה הזאת
and give to us and to all the peoples of this country
v’ten lanu ulkhol ha`amim bam’dinah hazot
הכח והרצון לרדוף צדק ולבקש שלום כאגודה אחת
the strength and will to pursue righteousness and to seek peace as one unity
hakoach v’haratson lirdof tsedek ul’vakesh shalom k’agudah achat
ותשא לנו ממשלה לטובה ולברכה
and may you raise up a government for us for the sake of good and blessing
v’tisa’ lanu memshelah l’tovah ulivrakhah
להצמיח בכל העולם חיים של טובה וחיים של שלום
to cause to grow throughout the world lives of goodness and peace
l’hatsmi’ach bkhol ha`olam chayyim shel tovah v’chayyim shel shalom
עלינו ועל כל עמך ישראל ועל כל יושבי תבל ועל ירושלים
for us and for all your people Israel and for all the inhabitants of the world, and for Jerusalem
`aleinu v`al kol amkha yisra’el v`al kol yoshvey teivel v`al y’rushalayim
“ויהי נועם ה אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו
ומעשה ידינו כוננהו”
“And may the pleasure of YHVH our God be on us, and may the One establish the work of our hands for us, may the work of our hands be established”
viy’hi no`am YHVH eloheynu `aleinu uma`aseh yadeinu kon’nah `aleinu, uma`aseh yadeinu kon’neihu
I am a senior citizen.
During the Clinton Administration I had an extremely good and well paying job.
I took numerous vacations and had several vacation homes.
Since President Bush took office, I have watched my entire life change for the worse.
I lost my job.
I lost my two sons in that terrible Iraqi War.
I lost my homes.
I lost my health insurance.
As a matter of fact I lost virtually everything and became homeless.
Adding insult to injury, when the authorities found me living like an animal, instead of helping me, they arrested me.
I will do anything that Senator Kerry wants to insure that a Democrat is back in the White House come next year.
Bush has to go.
Sincerely,
Saddam Hussein
A spiritually inclined student is a happier student
Study finds link between faith and mental health
by Sarah Hofius
USA Today
October 27, 2004
College students who participate in religious activities are more likely to have better emotional and mental health than students with no religious involvement, according to a national study of students at 46 wide-ranging colleges and universities.
In addition, students who don’t participate in religious activities are more than twice as likely to report poor mental health or depression than students who attend religious services frequently.
Being religious or spiritual certainly seems to contribute to one’s sense of psychological well-being, says Alexander Astin, co-principal investigator for the study of 3,680 third-year college students. The study was released this week by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles.
Those who participate in religious activities also are less likely to feel overwhelmed during college.
Religious involvement includes such activities as reading the Bible or other sacred texts, attending religious services and joining religious organizations on campus.
These findings are important because psychological well-being declines during the college years, Astin says. One in five students has sought personal counseling since entering college, and 77% of college juniors report feeling depressed frequently or occasionally during the past year. Only 61% of the students were depressed frequently or occasionally when they first started college.
A high degree of spirituality correlates with high self-esteem and feeling good about the way life is headed. The study defines spirituality as desiring to integrate spirituality into one’s life, believing that we are all spiritual beings, believing in the sacredness of life and having spiritual experiences.
“Students seem to feel better about themselves if they see themselves as spiritual,” Astin says.
“In these trying times, it’s a positive feeling to correlate in people.”
But the study also finds that highly spiritual students are more prone to experiencing spiritual distress, or feeling unsettled about spiritual or religious matters, than students who aren’t as spiritual.
Being religious also could play a role in whether someone starts to drink alcohol while in college. Three-fourths of students who don’t drink beer before attending college won’t start in college if involved in religious activity, the study says, but only 46% of students will continue to abstain if not involved religiously.
Astin says the next question to answer is whether students who are more religious and spiritual are more psychologically healthy or whether the more psychologically healthy students are seeking religious and spiritual activities.
The research also finds that 77% of college students pray, 78% discuss religion with friends, and 76% are “searching for meaning and purpose in life.”
Strongly religious students tend to describe themselves as politically conservative, but they hold more liberal views on issues such as gun control and the death penalty, the research finds.
The project is paid for by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
The Daily Dodge
By JAMES BOWMAN
October 22, 2004; Page W13
Ah, satire! Or perhaps “satire.” Either way — with a single dose of irony or a double — it’s back. What the show “That Was the Week That Was” was to the Sixties, “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central is to the Aughties.
But there is a difference. The consumers of TV satire 40 years ago were assumed by the satirists to be pretty well-informed people already. Now there are indications that a lot of people, especially young people, are skipping the regular news and going straight to the satire.
According to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press earlier this year, 21% of people aged 18-29 “regularly” got news about the election campaign from “The Daily Show” or the monologues of late-night comedians — about the same number as watched network news shows or got news from the Internet.
If this is true, it could explain a lot about the way that Jon Stewart , “The Daily Show’s” mock anchorman, chooses to handle his subject. He offers a combination of real stories from the “wacky” end of the news spectrum — like the one about the Iraqi tourism minister whose job is to prevent tourists from coming to Iraq — and mockery of mainstream news sources, especially the pomposity of the network anchors and correspondents. And of course it isn’t just the media that are mocked: It is also conservatives, Republicans, the Religious Right and, most of all, President Bush and his administration.
Now he seems to be branching out into a sermonizing mode, if hypocritically. Last week he went on CNN’s “Crossfire” to tell co-hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala that they were “partisan hacks” who were “hurting America.”
A serious charge, you might think. Certainly Mr. Carlson thought so. He might have made something of the muddled thinking that lay behind Mr. Stewart ‘s charge of partisanship — against a show specifically set up to confront one partisan with another. But instead Mr. Carlson counterattacked, pointing to the softball questions that Mr. Stewart had asked John Kerry during the presidential candidate’s appearance on “The Daily Show.”
“I didn’t realize — and maybe this explains quite a bit,” Mr. Stewart shot back, “that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity.” He went on to compare what “Crossfire” does to “theater” and “pro wrestling.”
These comments led to more angry words, as each man insulted the other. But the anger generated by the exchange, and the insults that have continued since, only obscure what exactly was going on.
Mr. Stewart used his appearance on “Crossfire” to make a serious point, yet when it was taken up seriously he tried to retreat into his characteristic pose as a harmless comedian. “You are on CNN,” he said to Mr. Carlson when accused of sucking up to Mr. Kerry; “the show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.”
So then we shouldn’t pay any attention to him when he tries to be serious? I don’t think he quite meant to say that, and yet he is saying it, in effect, all the time. Under the cover of humor, his show routinely makes vicious points about, say, the Iraq war. Are we meant to think of the puppets when we hear such “Daily Show” bits or when Mr. Stewart endorses Mr. Kerry for president?
It’s a convenient double game. Mr. Stewart owes his success in no small measure to his irreverence toward the sanctimony with which the regular or “real” TV news conducts its business, yet there he is attacking one of the few news shows on television that has no room for the network “anchor” and his po-faced self-importance. Certainly Mr. Stewart ‘s criticism of “Crossfire” for its resemblance to pro-wrestling is odd coming from an avowed entertainer like himself. Could it be that he wants to corner the market in turning politics into entertainment?
Perhaps, but maybe it isn’t satirical competitors that Mr. Stewart fears from “Crossfire” so much as the threat it poses to the pomposity of his satirical subjects. That, after all, is Mr. Stewart ‘s bread and butter. More than anyone since Stan Freberg, whose radio skits about American history were also popular in the 1960s, Mr. Stewart has made his media fortune out of deflating the dignity of America’s politicians and statesmen, dead as well as alive.
Weighing in at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list last week, for example, was his “America (The Book)” — a mock civics textbook complete with an authentic-looking school-board stamp inside the front cover and a cover-line proclaiming: “With a Foreword by Thomas Jefferson.”
Those familiar with the Stewart technique won’t be surprised to learn that in this foreword the third president shows his familiarity with the language of the 21st-century streets and recounts the doubts of a certain “Sally” about his taking on such work: “You are the author of the Declaration of Independence. A scholar. A statesman. This is beneath you. It’s not even network.” Then he has “T.J.” sign off with a postscript: “Oh, and is it true Halle Berry is once again single?”
If the only thing he knows about Jefferson besides his authorship of the Declaration is the allegation of his sexual liaison with his slave Sally Hemmings, it doesn’t bother Jon Stewart — or his audience. Just as you don’t have to know the news to watch “The Daily Show,” you don’t have to know anything, really, about American history or government to enjoy “America (The Book).”
The mockery of “Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America” was affectionate and depended on the sort of knowledge about American history that could then have been taken for granted. Mr. Stewart sounds in his book as he does on his TV show — not affectionate but arrogant, as if he were way too cool to bother finding out the facts of the real history, or news, that he’s sending up. Who can take such stuff seriously?
Make no mistake: Mr. Stewart can be funny. His mock Larry King interview with Adolf Hitler in his earlier book, “Naked Pictures of Famous People” (1998), was hilarious, but it also made a serious point about how the media can be manipulated with the jargon of the therapeutic culture.
Lately when things have turned serious for a moment, Mr. Stewart has beaten a hasty retreat, as he did on “Crossfire.” Comedy without an underlying moral seriousness is a species of nihilism, as fatiguing as the Olympian posturings of the network news. Someone should tell Jon Stewart that partisan hacks are what made this country great. But he probably doesn’t care.
Mr. Bowman is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington.
Here it is, Jon Stewart on CNN’s “Crossfire” with Paul Begala (on the Left) and Tucker Carlson (on the Right). Jon was being more honest than he was funny, and well… it seemed to make Tucker a bit mad. But Jon refused to be Tucker Carlson’s “monkey.” View the full video here.
This is great! Click here from a Chanukkah song.