Rabbi Gabe's New Book

I just picked this book up off the "To Be Reviewed" shelf at Tikkun and it made me really happy. This is the book that Gabe Greenberg, my old counselor and close friend, co-wrote when he was a senior at Wesleyan. Not only is this an amazing achievement for Gabe, but it's also a really important topic at the moment, and it's getting a good amount of press. It was reviewed in the most recent issue of New Voices with an awesome interview with Gabe, and the Amazon site is getting a lot of hits (although, one of the "suggested reading" on that page is The Israel Lobby).
I started reading it so that I can write the review for the next issue of Tikkun, and I'm really enjoying it so far. It's partly a historical analysis of the Western world's relation to Islam, and it's partly a book about how Arabs are conceived in the media, (similar to my last post) focusing on political cartoons and how they represent American society and its anxiety towards Islam.

I can't wait to talk to Gabe about this book, he's a really great guy. He worked at Adamah (which I hope to do someday), then he went to Israel and studied at Hamivtar for a little while, now he's at camp doing an organic farming elective for the kids, and soon he'll be going to rabbinical school.
Kol hakavod, Gabe! Hope that your book becomes standard reading material for classes in Arabs in the Media and Middle East Studies.

Why, Adam Sandler, Why?

Last night I was intending to see this really cool documentary at the Pacific Film Archive called The Decline of Western Civilization (with the director present) about Punk in the early 80's, but it was sold out. So after some discussion, we headed over to pay 10 bucks for Adam Sandler's new movie about an Israeli hair dresser.
I'll admit, it was exactly what I expected it to be. It was incredibly stupid with some funny slapstick and we were the only ones in the theater laughing at the Israeli jokes. But one thing that I didn't expect to see (although I guess I should have) was all the horrendous stereotyping that went on throughout the film. I didn't like constant use of the word feygele to make fun of hair dressers (yet a fair criticism of the macho attitude of Israeli society), and the terrible way that Palestinians were portrayed. Jack Shaheen is having a field day with this movie.
At the beginning there was a funny bit of dialogue that showed that the makers of the movie weren't total Islamophobic idiots. As Zohan, the superhuman Israeli counter-terrorism commando, has a fight scene with Hamas terrorists, in between punches in kicks they begin to argue about the conflict saying, "you know, its not so cut and dry, we've been here for a long time" "Right, and there were never any Jews in the Middle East." After hearing that exchange I had false hopes that the movie would continue with witty, intelligent humor instead of Sandler's usual poo poo jokes, but I was wrong. I should have remembered that movies like this are funny for the first ten minutes in order to hook you, and then they just get stupid.
They started blurring the lines between Arab and Palestinian, at some points given them Saudi head coverings, confusing the Lebanese flag with the Palestinian flag, and persisting the Arab stereotypes that have been going on since the beginning of Hollywood. The writers must have done their homework. I can just see them watching Lawrence of Arabia, taking notes, and saying, "Yeah, thats offensive and inaccurate, let's add that to the storyboard." Having the evil Palestinian leader surrounded by a harem of belly dancers and making the Arabs so incompetent that they couldn't figure out how to make a bomb, forcing them to call the Hizbollah hotline, must have been taken straight out of Arabs in American Media 101.
I understand that stereotypes are funny and that they are an easy way to introduce a character in a short period of time, but we shouldn't be trying to persist those stereotypes. It is movies like these that lead to the experience that I had in the airport in Detroit. Producers should start focusing less on "how can we make the most money with the least amount of thought" and more on "how can we make a great movie that will be funny for a mainstream audience."
Even comedic movies that focus on stereotypes can be made intelligent. Take Borat, for example. It was a smart film because they used stereotypes to poke fun at the kind of people who use and believe these stereotypes. So although there were parts of the movie that seemed anti-semitic, in reality they were making fun of anti-semites and may have even opened peoples consciousness to antisemitism. We need more Sacha Baron Cohen films.

Some PR for graphics art and the NSP

By the way, I made the last two images for Rabbi Lerner as postcards/buttons to that promote the Network of Spiritual Progressives.

JetBlue Cargo Cults

Coming back from the Brit Tzedek V'Shalom conference yesterday, I made a stop at the airport chapel at Dulles International to daven mincha.
I've always found those things intriguing because it's a space for everyone of any faith to pray; in fact it's a beautiful symbol of interfaith acceptance. It's true that not everyone would pray in an interfaith chapel (most notably, ultra-orthodox Jews because you can't daven in a place of avodah zara, and they consider Christianity idolatry), but for the majority of people who would want a space for prayer at an airport, they are placed into a room where all faiths interact, whether they want to or not.
I had prayed in an airport chapel before, but this time I truly had a soulgasm of religious pluralism. I never pray mincha, but I decided to do it that day, so I followed the qiblah arrow in order to find East (I always jitter with interfath excitement when I do that) and I prayed with unbelievable kavana (which happens next to never outside of kabbalat shabbat). When I finished and turned around, there were three other people in the room: a muslim TSA employee doing salah, a Catholic woman kneeling, and a man meditating. It was truly a beautiful sight.
It makes me wonder, what is unique about an airport that such a space can exist? I mean really, an airport? When I think interfaith activity and multiculturalism, certainly that is not the first thing that comes to my head. But it makes sense - everyone has to fly somewhere, sometime. You always see people of all different backgrounds in airports wearing a hijab, or a kippah, or a sari, or a Buddhist robe, so everyone needs to pray too, isn't that why the interfaith chapel exists?
I wouldn't want my davening experience to always be in an interfaith setting because I usually love the exclusivity of my own community synagogue (although there is probably some significance to the fact that I had amazing kavana at that chapel, which is so rare. But then again, maybe it was superficial kavana because I subconsciously wanted to give religious Judaism a good name by giving my audience a show of religious devotion), but it's a great opportunity to experience that, especially in such a random location.

A Utopian Rant. Thanks for that Rabbi Lerner!

Sometimes I feel like the Rabbis kinda hijacked Torah.
Every mitzvah was commanded in order to be suitable for the times. The sacrafices were only done because that was the way people connected to G-d at that time, now we connect through prayer because we have progressed with time. Similarly, we were given loads of laws on kashrut because that's how people ate back then, but now we can be progessive about dietary laws by keeping vegetarian (with a hechsher tzedek of course). So too, we were polygamous at a time and now we stay devoted to one person. It's too bad there is no sanhedrin to be able to further progress in halacha. Hehe, I guess the further West I go, the more liberal I get, and the more I reconnect with my Conservative roots.
But as we can see with the recent ridiculousness of the High Rabbinical Court in Israel, a sanhedrin wouldn't be the best idea at the moment.
The only way that we can progress in halacha is if all Jews can agree on certain changes. And that can only happen if all Jews unilaterally support something (which, at the moment, seems impossible). That's why when every Jew in the world will get together and support something (or at least keep two shabbases) the moshiach will arrive. Only then can we move foreward in halacha towards a place that is objectively progessive towards a utopian society.
Now I understand better why groups like Chabad and Aish are trying to get all Jews to become more religious. I disagree with their method though, I think it is something that can only happen organically and I sure hope that in the times of moshiach everyone will not be either Chabad or Aish. I think pluralism is a more feasible option.
It definitely works, and the more I travel, the more I see it working successfully. I saw it at the Mission Minyan and I saw it on Shavuot. On Shavuot, the entire Jewish community of Berkeley got together and had a unified Tikkun Leil Shavuot where rabbis and scholars of every denomination were giving lectures or programs throughout the night. It was a beautiful thing and someone said it's the only place in the world where that happens. Obviously, not everyone in that room would agree on a utopian vision of society, but I think that working together and having dialogue with each other is better than trying to convince everyone else that your way is right. I don't think that there's one type of Judaism that right. I don't even think my way is right (whatever that way is). Just as Judaism was meant to grow with the times, so will we continue to do so in the future, and the eventual Zion will consist of a society that is greater than any that exist today.
Amen Selah!