For all the problems with market-driven Judaism, there is one major benefit - it keeps synagogues and other institutions accountable to the needs of their members. I've often joked that given American Jews different tastes and preferences, what is really needed is a Zagat's guide for shuls, to help guide the serious shul shopper.
So, I can only say that the latest idea from the fertile mind of Mobius, Shul Shopper is genius:
Imagine the possible reviews:
Temple Beth Suburb (Services: 15, Facilities: 25, Programming: 17)
Congregants "dressed to the nines" flock to this stately, large, Conservative synagogue known for its "erudite rabbi" and "golden-tongued cantor." If your mind wanders during Musaf, there is plenty to gaze at in the spectacular stained-glass windows of the sanctuary or the brilliant Judaica collection in the lobby. The prized Speakers Series features a literal who's who's of American Jewry, capped by an annual lecture in which Alan Dershowitz presents his latest book. Critics claim that the davening lacks ruach, that the Hebrew school is a "soulless, Bar Mitzvah factory" and "good luck finding a kosher kitchen outside of the shul."
Minyan Meah Achuz (Services: 28, Facilities: 12, Programming: 25)
What began a traditonal egalitarian minyan is now considered to be "one of the most dynamic communities in America." Meah Achuz feauturs spirited prayer led with hauting melodies sung in 6-part harmony, lunch and learns from rising rabbinic stars and holiday programs with overflowing attendance. While the church basement decor is "not much to look at," survey applicants say the exact opposite about the "hip, attractive" 20 and 30-something crowd. Dissenters kvetch "if you don't know the service well, you'll get lost real quick" and snark "not everybody went to an Ivy League School - some of them went to Wesleyan and Duke..."
Any similarities to actual congregations are fully intentional.
Tasty commentary on politics, law, religion and more, without the fattening dogma. (The views expressed on this blog are the author's alone, and do not represent those of any past, current or future employer or his past, current, and future soulmate.)
January 29, 2007
Meeting W. at the CAFE
Gregg Easterbrook, writing in Slate points out something that jaded advocates of energy reform may have overlooked from the SOTU, which is that while Bush offerred mere rhetoric (the famous "addicted to foreign oil") in last year's SOTU, this time around W. is actually putting at least the first steps towards genuine energy conservation on the table.
Easterbrook wonders why Bush's proposal has met with a collective yawns from the mainstream press. Easterbrook then riffs on one of his pet themes during the Bush administration, which is that W. is not nearly the environmental despoiler he is made out to be. This happens to be one of the few areas where Easterbook, a incisive and contrarian thinker has repeatedly fallen flat. Perhaps Bush's critics demagogued a bit on mercury standards, but it strains credulity that an administration that repeatedly let industry draft environmental legislation, packed the EPA and Interior with corporate hacks and denied the existence of climate change for 6 years was anything other than a disaster for the environment.
Still, Easterbrook has a point - for the first time Bush seems to be putting something real on the table. Unlike the majority of Bush's SOTU initiatives (e.g. his tax cut for personal health insurance masquerading as health care reform), the CAFE proposal provides the Dems with a dilemma in that it is a genuinely sound public policy. Ignore Bush's offer, and they are complicit in maintaining the disastrous energy policy that 12 years of GOP/Big Oil control of Congress has wrought. Take Bush seriously (despite his utter lack of credibility on this front) and pass his proposal and you provide him with a genuine bipartisan accomplishment.
So what should the Dems do? Take him up on the offer. Unlike health care reform, energy reform can be done just as effectively in stages and every bit helps. Rather than waiting on a "comprehensive" energy reform bill that gives the GOP minority and Bush a chance to throw issues like ANWR drilling or ethanol subsidies into the mix, they should fast-track a CAFE standards bill modeled on Bush's proposal and put it on his desk to force him to pack his rhetoric with action. Either he signs it and everybody wins, or he vetoes it and gives Hilary, Obama or whoever is the Dem candidate in 2008 one more issue to attack the GOP's vulnerability on energy and the environment.
ON SECOND THOUGHT:
As Kevin Drum points out, on actual inspection Bush's CAFE plan has some serious flaws, with obvious loopholes written into the program. (It proves that my environmental wonk skills have grown rusty from years of disuse.) Anyway, strike the part about modeling the program after Bush's proposal - but the Dems should still fast-track a CAFE standards bill with teeth. Of course, the environmental policy wonk in me notes that a gas tax would be a far more efficient way of achieving the same goal of reducing fuel efficiency, but living in a nation where cheap gas is considered a constitutional right, that's not going to happen any time soon.
Last Tuesday, Bush proposed that the CAFE standard grow 4 percent stricter per year. Essentially, this would mean that each new model year would need to get one mpg better gas mileage than cars from the year before. The last time the federal fuel-economy standard was strengthened was 1988. Nineteen years with zero progress on mpg is the leading reason U.S. petroleum consumption continues to rise.
Easterbrook wonders why Bush's proposal has met with a collective yawns from the mainstream press. Easterbrook then riffs on one of his pet themes during the Bush administration, which is that W. is not nearly the environmental despoiler he is made out to be. This happens to be one of the few areas where Easterbook, a incisive and contrarian thinker has repeatedly fallen flat. Perhaps Bush's critics demagogued a bit on mercury standards, but it strains credulity that an administration that repeatedly let industry draft environmental legislation, packed the EPA and Interior with corporate hacks and denied the existence of climate change for 6 years was anything other than a disaster for the environment.
Still, Easterbrook has a point - for the first time Bush seems to be putting something real on the table. Unlike the majority of Bush's SOTU initiatives (e.g. his tax cut for personal health insurance masquerading as health care reform), the CAFE proposal provides the Dems with a dilemma in that it is a genuinely sound public policy. Ignore Bush's offer, and they are complicit in maintaining the disastrous energy policy that 12 years of GOP/Big Oil control of Congress has wrought. Take Bush seriously (despite his utter lack of credibility on this front) and pass his proposal and you provide him with a genuine bipartisan accomplishment.
So what should the Dems do? Take him up on the offer. Unlike health care reform, energy reform can be done just as effectively in stages and every bit helps. Rather than waiting on a "comprehensive" energy reform bill that gives the GOP minority and Bush a chance to throw issues like ANWR drilling or ethanol subsidies into the mix, they should fast-track a CAFE standards bill modeled on Bush's proposal and put it on his desk to force him to pack his rhetoric with action. Either he signs it and everybody wins, or he vetoes it and gives Hilary, Obama or whoever is the Dem candidate in 2008 one more issue to attack the GOP's vulnerability on energy and the environment.
ON SECOND THOUGHT:
As Kevin Drum points out, on actual inspection Bush's CAFE plan has some serious flaws, with obvious loopholes written into the program. (It proves that my environmental wonk skills have grown rusty from years of disuse.) Anyway, strike the part about modeling the program after Bush's proposal - but the Dems should still fast-track a CAFE standards bill with teeth. Of course, the environmental policy wonk in me notes that a gas tax would be a far more efficient way of achieving the same goal of reducing fuel efficiency, but living in a nation where cheap gas is considered a constitutional right, that's not going to happen any time soon.
January 18, 2007
Post-Post-Zionism
I don't get Post-Zionism. Its the not that the concept is difficult to wrap my head around. The idea is quite simple - that a Jewish state in Israel is no longer necessary or desirable. When I was first exposed to Post-Zionism, in Israel during the heady days of Oslo, it had a logic to it; it was wrong, but at least it made theoretical sense. Jewish nationalism after all would be an anachronism in a New Middle East, where Jews and Arabs lived together in peace, harmony. and hummus. Israeli post-Zionism in the Oslo era came from secular Israelis' ennui with living in the Jew among the nations. Post-Zionism was the desperate plea of Sheinkin Street for normalcy, for the sunshine of the Tel Aviv midrachov to escape from the dark shadow of the Judean hills.
But the latest wave of self-professed Post-Zionists are primarily progressive American Jews. The term, like many monikers employing "post" is embraced as an emblem of generational pride. It is a cry of disastified Hebrew School alumni who found the three pillar Holocaust, Israel, Federation model of civic American Judaism uninspired (not to mention the spiritual deadness of rote Bar-Mitzvah drilling.) I empathise with their plight. How could any of us not emerged at least "post-" something from that experience. I myself, came out post-denominational - I highly recommend it.
But those who would purport to claim that they've moved "beyond" Zionism, have the obligation of at least weaving a narrative of how Zionism became obsolete. The Sheinkin Street post-Zionists had such a narrative. Israel was created to provide Jews with a safe haven so that they could pursue a normal life (to the extent Aviv Geffen can be considered "normal") like anyone else. Imminent peace with its Arab neighbors meant that Zionism had accomplished its goal. Israel could now progress to being a state of all its citizens - allowing for an Israeli identity distinct from its Jewish roots. The problem with Olso post-Zionism was that Oslo proved to be a chimera. Peace was not just around the corner; rather what was around the corner terror campaign waged against the very symbols of normalcy of the post-Zionist dream: pizza parlors, cafes and university cafeterias.
The young American post-Zionists (or purely for the purpose of coining a gratuitous acronyms, YAPZ) don't speak of a messianic New Middle East. Rather, the YAPZ speak of the messiness of Zionism and their personal dillusionment with it. YAPZ are discomforted by the excesses of Jewish nationalism, indeed with the idea of a nationalism itself. They recoil at what fee as pressure to conform to the party line from the mainstream American Jewish community. YAPZ reject the idea that secular Jewish culture should be centered in Israel; rejecting a negation of the cultural Diaspora as much as they do the negation of the political Diaspora.
What YAPZ do not however, is provide a coherent narrative of the obsolescence of Zionism. Certainly, there is value in reclaiming Yiddish culture, but the idea that Israel has ceased to be an incubator of Jewish cultural creativity is absurd. One might not like all of the ideas emanating from Israel, but it remains a fertile source for Jewish evolution, if for no other reason than the sharp contrast it provides with American Jewish life. The concept that Israel has fulfilled its political mission - and that the Jewish people will be more secure should Israel lose its Jewish status runs headlong into present realities of Arab politics and the long historical track record of the Jewish Diaspora.
So, all of passionate arguments of the YAPZ reject not Zionism itself, but rather the childish, emotive brand that spoke to American Jews in the 1960s and 1970s - Boomer Zionism. But rather than replacing the childish Zionism of their parents with a mature, nuanced Zionism, YAPZ have turned to adolescent rebellion in choosing to identify themselves as "beyond" or indifferent to the Zionist project.
In reality the majority of these self-proclaimed Post Zionists are simply Zionists who oppose expansion of the settlements, or Zionists who believe Palestinian rights deserve more consideration, or Zionists who believe that American Jews should be able to criticize Israeli politics, or Zionists who prefer to listen to neo-klezmer than Sarit Hadad.
Above all these, bright, passionate, progressive American Jews need to see that it is time to stop rebelling against an Zionism they are embarrased by and time to start building a Zionism they can embrace.
But the latest wave of self-professed Post-Zionists are primarily progressive American Jews. The term, like many monikers employing "post" is embraced as an emblem of generational pride. It is a cry of disastified Hebrew School alumni who found the three pillar Holocaust, Israel, Federation model of civic American Judaism uninspired (not to mention the spiritual deadness of rote Bar-Mitzvah drilling.) I empathise with their plight. How could any of us not emerged at least "post-" something from that experience. I myself, came out post-denominational - I highly recommend it.
But those who would purport to claim that they've moved "beyond" Zionism, have the obligation of at least weaving a narrative of how Zionism became obsolete. The Sheinkin Street post-Zionists had such a narrative. Israel was created to provide Jews with a safe haven so that they could pursue a normal life (to the extent Aviv Geffen can be considered "normal") like anyone else. Imminent peace with its Arab neighbors meant that Zionism had accomplished its goal. Israel could now progress to being a state of all its citizens - allowing for an Israeli identity distinct from its Jewish roots. The problem with Olso post-Zionism was that Oslo proved to be a chimera. Peace was not just around the corner; rather what was around the corner terror campaign waged against the very symbols of normalcy of the post-Zionist dream: pizza parlors, cafes and university cafeterias.
The young American post-Zionists (or purely for the purpose of coining a gratuitous acronyms, YAPZ) don't speak of a messianic New Middle East. Rather, the YAPZ speak of the messiness of Zionism and their personal dillusionment with it. YAPZ are discomforted by the excesses of Jewish nationalism, indeed with the idea of a nationalism itself. They recoil at what fee as pressure to conform to the party line from the mainstream American Jewish community. YAPZ reject the idea that secular Jewish culture should be centered in Israel; rejecting a negation of the cultural Diaspora as much as they do the negation of the political Diaspora.
What YAPZ do not however, is provide a coherent narrative of the obsolescence of Zionism. Certainly, there is value in reclaiming Yiddish culture, but the idea that Israel has ceased to be an incubator of Jewish cultural creativity is absurd. One might not like all of the ideas emanating from Israel, but it remains a fertile source for Jewish evolution, if for no other reason than the sharp contrast it provides with American Jewish life. The concept that Israel has fulfilled its political mission - and that the Jewish people will be more secure should Israel lose its Jewish status runs headlong into present realities of Arab politics and the long historical track record of the Jewish Diaspora.
So, all of passionate arguments of the YAPZ reject not Zionism itself, but rather the childish, emotive brand that spoke to American Jews in the 1960s and 1970s - Boomer Zionism. But rather than replacing the childish Zionism of their parents with a mature, nuanced Zionism, YAPZ have turned to adolescent rebellion in choosing to identify themselves as "beyond" or indifferent to the Zionist project.
In reality the majority of these self-proclaimed Post Zionists are simply Zionists who oppose expansion of the settlements, or Zionists who believe Palestinian rights deserve more consideration, or Zionists who believe that American Jews should be able to criticize Israeli politics, or Zionists who prefer to listen to neo-klezmer than Sarit Hadad.
Above all these, bright, passionate, progressive American Jews need to see that it is time to stop rebelling against an Zionism they are embarrased by and time to start building a Zionism they can embrace.
January 09, 2007
Marginalizing or Mainstreaming Jewish Anti-Zionism
The AJC, the Brookings Institute of the American Jewish community, has recently published a controversial new report by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism", which essentially charges certain left-wing Jewish thinkers with giving "aid and comfort" to the anti-Semites. The targets of the reports range from explicit Jewish anti-Zionists such as Noam Chomsky and NYU professor Tony Judt to progressive Jewish writers such as Douglass Rushkoff and Daniel Boyarin, whose relationship with Israel is far more ambivalent.
Mobius, the creator of the progressive Jewish blog Jewschool, attacked the report in one of his trademark blistering blog posts and again in a radio interview on the show "Beyond the Pale".
At one level, Mobius is correct. The goal of the AJC report is precisely to ensure that certain views about Israel that are prominent among progressives remain marginal in American Jewish discourse. Rosenfeld does so by linking these views to anti-Semitism. Mobius, however, muddies the water a bit in his attack. Surely, anti-Zionists such as Chomsky and Judt are not merely "questioning Israeli policies." They are questioning the very existence of the state of Israel.
It is precisely this blurring of the line between Jewish anti-Zionism and other progressive Jewish criticism of Israel that is most serious problem with the Rosenfeld report. The report notes the dangers of hyberbolic rhetoric by Jews criticizing Israel; yet certainly some of this rhetoric comes from Progressive Zionists, who are seeking to reform the Jewish State rather than erase it. Similarly, a writer like Douglass Rushkoff, who finds difficultly idenitifying with Israel and finds meaning in univeraslist elements of the Jewish tradition, is best characterized as a-Zionist or ambi-Zionist. Rosenfeld paints with too broad a brush.
This lack of clarity, however, is not at the heart of Mobius' problem with the AJC and mainstream American Jewish community. Rather Mobius' main issue is that "opposing Jewish statehood for ethical, moral or religious reasons, or criticizing Israel for those reasons, is defined as antisemitic." In other words, Mobius objects to the effort to marginalize all progressive Jewish voices critical of Israel, including the anti-Zionists.
The question, therefore, is should anti-Zionism be mainstreamed in American Jewish discourse, invited back from the sidelines, where it has been banished since the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel. I believe it should not, for two reasons.
First, there is some merit to Rosenfeld's claim that Jewish anti-Zionism feeds into and abets anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism. There are certainly non anti-Semitic variants of anti-Zionism. Tony Judt, for example, appears to be motivated by a genuine post-nationalism prevalent in many European intellectuals. Similarly, there are academic arguments to be as to whether Zionism was the best solution to the "Jewish Question" in the 20th Century; but what is done is done, the overwhelming majority of the world's Jews outside North America have been gathered into the historic Jewish homeland. The idea of peaceful, stable, binational state given the current state of the Arab world is farcical. There is no end to a Jewish state in Israel that will not lead to tremendous Jewish suffering. Even those progressives who are ambivalent with the idea of Israel need to honestly address the reality of Israel.
Moreover, the "new anti-Semitism" described by the AJC is not a Zionist propaganda construction. There is a virulent rise in Jew-hatred, most significantly from radical Islam, that uses opposition to Israel as a front. The careful academic parsing of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism pales in the face of the blood libels played on Arab state television or the cartoons that pass for "political commentary" in Arab or Iranian newspapers. This is true engine of anti-Zionism in the world today, in which arguments against nationalism, ethnocentrism, and human right violations are focused solely on one nation - which is not coincidentally the Jewish nation.
Second, progresisve Jewish support and even tolerance of anti-Zionism is a disaster for Progressive Zionism. It blurs the line between criticism of Israeli policies and Israel itself.
It plays right into right-wing Zionists who dismiss all criticism of Israel as masking an agenda to destroy Israel. It saps energy away from those Diaspora Jews such as the New Israel Fund whose vision of Israel as a "light unto nations" runs counter to the American Jews who support the competing visions of the settlers and the haredim. Progressive Zionism acknowledges that Israel is imperfect, that Jewish nationalism - like all nationalism - is problematic, that there is a moral cost to assuring the security and freedom of the Jewish people.
Given the reality of the world today, anti-Zionism remains a dangerous idea, one that is rightly marginalized in the American Jewish community. However, considering the major problems facing Israel, external and internal, physical, moral and spiritual, the need for a vigorous Progressive Zionism has never been greater.
Mobius, the creator of the progressive Jewish blog Jewschool, attacked the report in one of his trademark blistering blog posts and again in a radio interview on the show "Beyond the Pale".
...[T]here is no safe space for legitimate criticism of Israel within the Jewish community itself. Those who question Israeli policies are hastily isolated, demonized, marginalized and excluded. The resentment of this treatment frequently results in movement towards the farthest fringes of the discourse and the adoption of a tarnished impression of the Jewish community.
At one level, Mobius is correct. The goal of the AJC report is precisely to ensure that certain views about Israel that are prominent among progressives remain marginal in American Jewish discourse. Rosenfeld does so by linking these views to anti-Semitism. Mobius, however, muddies the water a bit in his attack. Surely, anti-Zionists such as Chomsky and Judt are not merely "questioning Israeli policies." They are questioning the very existence of the state of Israel.
It is precisely this blurring of the line between Jewish anti-Zionism and other progressive Jewish criticism of Israel that is most serious problem with the Rosenfeld report. The report notes the dangers of hyberbolic rhetoric by Jews criticizing Israel; yet certainly some of this rhetoric comes from Progressive Zionists, who are seeking to reform the Jewish State rather than erase it. Similarly, a writer like Douglass Rushkoff, who finds difficultly idenitifying with Israel and finds meaning in univeraslist elements of the Jewish tradition, is best characterized as a-Zionist or ambi-Zionist. Rosenfeld paints with too broad a brush.
This lack of clarity, however, is not at the heart of Mobius' problem with the AJC and mainstream American Jewish community. Rather Mobius' main issue is that "opposing Jewish statehood for ethical, moral or religious reasons, or criticizing Israel for those reasons, is defined as antisemitic." In other words, Mobius objects to the effort to marginalize all progressive Jewish voices critical of Israel, including the anti-Zionists.
The question, therefore, is should anti-Zionism be mainstreamed in American Jewish discourse, invited back from the sidelines, where it has been banished since the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel. I believe it should not, for two reasons.
First, there is some merit to Rosenfeld's claim that Jewish anti-Zionism feeds into and abets anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism. There are certainly non anti-Semitic variants of anti-Zionism. Tony Judt, for example, appears to be motivated by a genuine post-nationalism prevalent in many European intellectuals. Similarly, there are academic arguments to be as to whether Zionism was the best solution to the "Jewish Question" in the 20th Century; but what is done is done, the overwhelming majority of the world's Jews outside North America have been gathered into the historic Jewish homeland. The idea of peaceful, stable, binational state given the current state of the Arab world is farcical. There is no end to a Jewish state in Israel that will not lead to tremendous Jewish suffering. Even those progressives who are ambivalent with the idea of Israel need to honestly address the reality of Israel.
Moreover, the "new anti-Semitism" described by the AJC is not a Zionist propaganda construction. There is a virulent rise in Jew-hatred, most significantly from radical Islam, that uses opposition to Israel as a front. The careful academic parsing of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism pales in the face of the blood libels played on Arab state television or the cartoons that pass for "political commentary" in Arab or Iranian newspapers. This is true engine of anti-Zionism in the world today, in which arguments against nationalism, ethnocentrism, and human right violations are focused solely on one nation - which is not coincidentally the Jewish nation.
Second, progresisve Jewish support and even tolerance of anti-Zionism is a disaster for Progressive Zionism. It blurs the line between criticism of Israeli policies and Israel itself.
It plays right into right-wing Zionists who dismiss all criticism of Israel as masking an agenda to destroy Israel. It saps energy away from those Diaspora Jews such as the New Israel Fund whose vision of Israel as a "light unto nations" runs counter to the American Jews who support the competing visions of the settlers and the haredim. Progressive Zionism acknowledges that Israel is imperfect, that Jewish nationalism - like all nationalism - is problematic, that there is a moral cost to assuring the security and freedom of the Jewish people.
Given the reality of the world today, anti-Zionism remains a dangerous idea, one that is rightly marginalized in the American Jewish community. However, considering the major problems facing Israel, external and internal, physical, moral and spiritual, the need for a vigorous Progressive Zionism has never been greater.