Conservative Movement appoints woman to chair Rabbinical Assembly

cross-posted to Jewschool

Last Wednesday the Conservative Movement announced Rabbi Julie Schonfeld will succeed Rabbi Joel Meyers as Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Assembly--she has previously been functioning as the Director of Rabbinic Development for the movement. Rabbi Schonfeld is the first woman to be appointed to the head of a rabbinic body--she said to the Forward, “I think that my rabbinate is really defined by the ideals that I share with all of my colleagues and with all Conservative Jews worldwide, regardless of my gender.”

This announcement, to me, is a welcome surprise. Some personal thoughts after the jump... (click below)

I did not grow up in the Conservative Movement (or any movement). I did not grow up in a synagogue; and when my family did join a synagogue it was a breakaway shul with 80 families and no synagogue--monthly Kabbalat Shabbat potlucks were held at the rabbi's home, which was also used for B'nei Mitvah lessons and ceremonies and perhaps a wedding or two; high-holiday services were at the JCC, and featured the aging male rabbi and a middle aged female part-time cantorial soloist, part-time Opera singer (in my imagination). My female Jewish role models were my mother, grandmothers, great-aunts, aunts... and I guess Bette Midler and Barbara Streisand...

Today I have many female Jewish role models in my biological and spiritual families, including many rabbis whom I am blessed to have as guides and teachers. I remember a discussion my first semester of rabbinical school in my halakhah class (taught by one of said rabbis who have been instrumental in shaping what will be my rabbinate). We were discussing the practice of including the imahot (the Matriarchs--Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah). We were maybe three weeks into school, and I built up the hutzpah to ask this rabbi why she did not include the imahot when she was the shlihat tzibur (prayer leader). Her response was unexpected and it has helped me understand the movement which I chose to affiliate with. She said, more or less, that it gave the appearance that something had changed and been fixed, when in fact it hadn't.

What I understood her to be saying was that adding the imahot may be enhancing to one's prayer and a beautiful act (albeit questionable in Jewish law, in my opinion) it does not help bridge a very wide gender gap which manifests itself in name (we have "rabbis" and "female rabbis," it is a bizarre and uncomfortable phenomenom which can only be remedied by having "male rabbis" and "female rabbis" or, preferably, "rabbis"), in pay, in appearance, opportunity and so many other ways.

Rabbi Schonfeld's appointment as Executive VP of the RA is a much more meaningful testament to working towards gender equality in the Jewish establishment. As I've been writing this article, I've been thinking about how gender has played into my rabbinical school experience as I enter my fourth year, and I am surprised to be feeling (maybe I'm candy coating it) that I don't feel like the school I attend has "female rabbinical students" and "rabbinical students." (Ladies, gentlemen, what do you think? Am I nuts?) I'm thinking this may be, in the likes of homosexual inclusion and minority inclusion, a generational issue. That progress towards this end is inevitable in the near future.

As Rabbi Elliot Dorff, of whom I'm proud to have as a teacher and role model, said in the Forward that "It’s 23 years after the first woman was ordained in the movement. That’s a generation, basically. We’re finally at the point at which woman could be appointed to a major administrative post within the movement.” Likewise, it was around as long ago that the issue of homosexual inclusion was first brought up and it took around as long to begin to make meaningful change.

As I think of those that I have met who, in the next 1-10 years, will make up the field of American rabbis across the movements (beyond the "three"), I think we are in for a lot of progress in American Judaism. We love to shower ourselves with a dismal outlook on the future of our people in its spiritual expression. We bemoan intermarriage as our death, and in the wake of tears, we forget that people desire to be moved and engaged. We go back and forth over "legal" minutae for months on end, as if the title "rabbi" gives us true jurisprudence to dictate people's lifestyles. Again, maybe I'm looking through rose-colored glasses, but I want to believe that as this current generation of new rabbis grows and evolves into leadership positions amongst the administrative wings of the movement there will be much progress in our spiritual expression towards melting some of these cultural barriers that tend to erode and divide community.

I don't know Rabbi Schonfeld, or anything about her, but I look forward to meeting her, which I suppose is inevitable either in her capacity as Director of Rabbinic Development or otherwise. I trust that she can guide the Rabbinical Assembly for the next 20 years as ably as Rabbi Meyers has done for the previous two decades. Obviously, having a woman functioning as the chair of the RA does not mean that gender issues in the Conservative Movement will disappear. Nonetheless, it is a powerful symbol of the advancement of women in the Jewish establishment. I think it is also representative of a sentiment rising for more substantial moves towards justice and equality issues (a la Hekhsher Tzedek and Uri L'Tzedek).

It's not that I expect Rabbi Schonfeld to wave a feminine wand and fix everything, but I hope her appointment holds true as an example of a shift towards more true egalitarianism, "beyond the bima," so to speak.
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The Peace Team--Joint Israeli-Palestinian team to debut at Australian Football tourney

cross-posted at www.jewschool.com

Ha'aretz reports that a new team will debut next week at the Australian Football League's International Cup, a joint Palestinian-Israeli team dubbed, the "Peace Team".

16 nations will compete for the prize, but only one team will be made of two nations. According to the article:

"The Peace Team is funded by the Peres Center for Peace and the East Jerusalem-based Al-Quds Association for Democracy and Dialogue. The idea for the team originated when James Demetriou, brother of AFL Chief Executive Andrew Demetriou, was introduced to the Peres Center during a visit to Israel. Soon afterwards the AFL approved the project..."

According to the AFL's official site, "The combined Israeli-Palestinian Peace Team will make its International Cup debut against Great Britain in the second group of matches played from 1pm. Sweden, China, Finland and India will also compete for the first time."

In my opinion, real peace, not diplomatic peace, but real peace, peace between people, starts with cross-cultural projects like this one. Even something less public, like the G.ho.st online endeavor, is a positive thing. Palestinians and Israelis need to cooperate, and work together, to be able to live together. Even if peace is signed on paper, peace is not real until it is in the hearts of the inhabitants of the countries.

The Ha'aretz report implies as much, and adds this bit regarding the political difficulties:

With half the squad coming from East Jerusalem and the West Bank, there have been some difficulties. Training sessions, held mostly at Kibbutz Netivah Lamed Hey, near Ben Shemen, have been cancelled a couple of times due to closures of the West Bank.

One player from Hebron even pulled out of the team after receiving threats from fellow Palestinians who suspected him of collaborating with Israel.

But as Barassi said, the project's success is best measured by its effect on ordinary members of the community. And judging by the friendly interaction amongst team members, this has been the case.

The team has stuck to a tight schedule, given only a few months to learn the game and train before they leave for Australia on August 19.

But the important part is that the team is getting along; the team can serve as models for their home communities on the possibilities of coexistence and cooperation in the future.

For more information on the team from the Peres Center, look here.
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Georgian and Russian Olympiads embrace

While Russia belligerently furthers its invasion of Georgia, and while the Olympics get used to as a stage for abusive politics, Georgian and Russian sharpshooters put that aside for a congratulatory embrace.

CNN reports.
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Planet of the apes! Well... valley of the apes, maybe?

The last time there was a worldwide gorilla census was the 1980s, and at that time the world population was thought to be around 100,000. The World Conservation Society and the Republic of Congo are reporting that an estimated 125,000 gorillas are living in an 18,000 square mile area in the lowlands of central Africa.

Researches say that they have estimated the population in the area based on the number of "nests" they found. According to reports, gorillas sleep one to a nest. The large population find is leading researchers to believe the gorilla population is, in fact, not dwindling as had been the thought amongst environmentalists and scientists for years.

Just by association, this also means the general "adorable" factor of the world increased, as did the population of vegetarians... Just had to throw those in.
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'Texas to Tel Aviv'

Thomas L. Friedman has a great Op-Ed in the New York Times, where he imagines:

What would happen if you cross-bred J. R. Ewing of “Dallas” and Carl Pope, the head of the Sierra Club? You’d get T. Boone Pickens. What would happen if you cross-bred Henry Ford and Yitzhak Rabin? You’d get Shai Agassi. And what would happen if you put together T. Boone Pickens, the green billionaire Texas oilman now obsessed with wind power, and Shai Agassi, the Jewish Henry Ford now obsessed with making Israel the world’s leader in electric cars?

You'd have the start of an energy revolution.

You can read about T. Boone Pickens here, Shai Agassi is the founder of Better Place Project which seeks to make Israel fully equipped with an electric car "system" in the not too distant future.

Agassi's concept, backed by the Israeli government, is this--the electric car system will work similar to pay-by-minute cell phone subscription. Subscribers to the program would get a car and a battery. The roadways will be scattered with charging stations and garages where batteries can be replaced. The first cars, built by Renault, will be on Israeli roads next year.

Israel, because of its small size but large percentage of undeveloped land is an ideal place to develop the infrastructure for a countrywide electric car makeover. It will also serve as a great model for other nations to follow suit.

And I believe Mr. Friedman to be correct, combining the efforts of Shai Agassi and T. Boone Pickens together would make for amazing possibilities.

In days of hardship and strife, it is always nice to see positive news coming out of Israel.

Thank you, Shai Agassi, for striving to bring electric cars to the Jewish State.
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Will LA City Council ban plastic bags?

Shoppers of Whole Foods Markets are already used to this trend, but now the city of Los Angeles is taking action--and good thing. When people refer to 'plastic bags,' we are talking about polyethylene bags, a petroleum product. These plastics are made from the same oil as our gasoline and add substantially to worldwide pollution and waste.

The LA Times reports that the City Council of Los Angeles voted today to ban plastic carryout bags in the city's supermarkets and stores by July 2010, if the State of California fails to impose legislation requiring a $.25 fee on each bag requested from a store or market. The city hopes to reduce the number of plastic bags in LA by 30% by 2010.

Estimates say that almost 400 billion plastic mags are manufactured for use in the United States each year, 100 billion are thrown away. The fact of the matter is that plastic bags, while a nuisance and a danger to birds and sea life, are incredibly useful and practical. They are lightweight, compact and reusable--in other words, shipping and producing them is relatively easy. However we all need to be more responsible with how we use our plastic bags.

The simplest way to more responsibly use plastic bags is to use them as sparingly as possible. The most successful and sustainable form of recycling is reusing. By reusing we reduce waste and keep harmful product out of landfills. Plastic bags are great to take to the market to bring home your local fruits, veggies and flowers; they are handy trash bags for small bins and can even be used to dump organic kitchen waste to your backyard compost bin or heap, and then wash the bag and use it again. I just used a number of plastic bags to bundle clothes to donate. There uses are endless, and with so many billions of them being made all the time, isn't it time to stop using and producing new ones? The other way to help get rid of some of these bags is to buy reusable bags that are more durable and made of recycled plastic and/or glass or use baskets.

The LA City Council is taking a positive step to create a serious reduction in the amount of plastic bags in just two years. Regulating citywide business, in this regard, is not a solution. However, the statement to actively reduce the use of plastic bags by a substantial amount in a relatively short amount of time is a good model and sends a positive message.

Thank you, people of Los Angeles, for beginning to reduce plastic bags in our city.
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