The Lilith Blog

March 19, 2008 by admin

Making Noise

The current issue of American Jewish Life magazine has a feature on “Women Who Rock,” including Sophie Milman, Marissa Nadler, Regina Spektor and Neshama Carlbach. In an introductory essay, Mordechai Shinefield writes, “most times the religion and gender of these singers are incidental. When I listen to Sophie Milman I’m not thinking of synagogue or Hebrew school; I’m reminded of smoky jazz clubs and speakeasies. Which is to say, these artists are more than the sum of their categories.”

The just-released album from Yael Naim — who’s so far best known forher song “New Soul” being used as the soundtrack for a ubiquitous Mac commercial — features a “piano-driven” cover of the Britney Spears song “Toxic.” The new album’s booklet is printed in both English and Hebrew, and the songs are sung in both English and Hebrew, with some French thrown in. Naim is the first Israeli to make it to the Billboard Top 10.

Basya Schechter has just released her fifth studio album under the name Pharaoh’s Daughter. “Haran gets brazen and thumpy, with
infectious melodies providing excuses for post-punk girly abandon,” says the Jerusalem Post. Despite this, somehow “at least four of the disc’s tracks are based on traditional Sabbath table hymns….Overall, Haran feels like a return to Schechter’s earlier, more Suzanne Vega-influenced songs, but at the same time, the album probably reaches further into the bag of ethnic tricks than any Caucasian-developed song cycle has before.”

On the more canonical side of things, New York magazine profiles Bette Midler upon the opening of her Vegas extravaganza, The Showgirl Must Go On: “Midler knows she doesn’t possess the instrument that would allow her to just stand at a microphone in velvet and diamonds, like, say, fellow Semitic icon Barbra Streisand. ‘She sings like a bird. I don’t,’ Midler once told a friend.” . The New York Times is pleased to find that the former Miss M has “lost little of the verve, bawdiness and originality that first captivated gay audiences back in the early 1970s.”

Off in another medium, NJ painter Janet Boltax’s exhibit The Jewish Identity Project: Portraits and Commentary is on display at the West Orange JCC through May 4th. Feeling conflicted about her religious identity, Boltax decided to explore what Judaism meant to other people. The resulting 18 portraits include Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Jews; African-American Jews, Jews by choice, an Iranian Jew, and two self-portraits, displayed alongside interviews with the subjects.

— Eryn Loeb

The Lilith Blog

March 18, 2008 by admin

Putting Ourselves Up for Sale?

In Suze Orman’s latest PBS special, the personal finance guru exhorts women not to volunteer, not to “put themselves on sale.”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I am becoming increasingly aware of just how much Jewish communal life relies on volunteers, many of whom are women.

To me, Orman’s directive sounds a lot like 1980s second-wave-feminist calls for women to put their kids in daycare and become, essentially, men. And, like some of our foremothers, Orman is missing the point. Real equality between the sexes, true equality of opportunity, will come not from women’s abandonment of our traditional role as caretakers, but from men’s joint assumption of it.

Over the past month I have become involved in a major fundraising effort for my son’s Jewish day school. At the initial meeting, I looked around me at the group of highly educated, professionally experienced Jewish women who were donating their time and talents to the school. Why shouldn’t we be doing this, I wanted to ask Orman. This is good work, important work, even though it is unpaid work.

A few days later I visited an old friend. We’ve known each other from toddlerhood, and, though we are quite different, share a deep bond that comes from years of shared experiences. I told her about the volunteer work I was doing for the school—and she laughed.

Her laughter hurt me, not just because it was rude, but because it was a split-second, unguarded, and thus very telling, response. It went to the heart of the mommy wars, a topic we’ve been delicately mincing around for years. (Seven years ago, our children were born within a few weeks of each other. My friend went back to work on Wall Street after six weeks, whereas I have never returned to my job.) My friend feels that paid work is by definition more legitimate than unpaid work. She sees volunteering as frivolous busywork for bored ladies who lunch. I see it as the least I can do to further the wonderful work the school does in general, and the financial aid it gives my son in particular.

I will always love my friend. She has been in my life far too long for that to change. But I fear that our friendship is devolving into a bond based on where we’ve been instead of who we are.

(For more on the Mommy Wars, check out this article from the Lilith archives.)

–Claire Isaacs

The Lilith Blog

March 13, 2008 by admin

Know any Israeli Accountants? Just One Condition…

In the spirit of “aliyah adventures,” I record here a transcript of a conversation I had this afternoon with an accountant in Jerusalem:

“Hello, this is Avrum, returning your call. You left a message at our firm this morning?”

“Yes, thanks for getting back to me. I am looking for an accountant who can assist me with my Israeli tax return. I was wondering if you could help.”

“Yes, absolutely, we can help. Do you need help with a US return, or Israeli?”

“Israeli only. I have an accountant in the States.”

“Are you sure you don’t need US?”

“Yes.”

“OK. What do you do?”

“Well, I have a few jobs. I work for an Israeli company, but I also freelance as a writer and editor. Oh, and I sort of wrote a book this year – though not a ‘real’ book.”

“What company do you work for here?”

“A literary agency.”

“Do you represent writers in Israel?”

“Um, no, just writers abroad. We sell their translation rights.”

“Oh, I see. And what kind of things do you write?”

“Oh, it matters? OK. Mostly about Jewish things – about how learning Talmud intersects with my daily life.”

“I see. What is your marital status?”

“I’m divorced.”

“When did you get divorced?”

“Two years ago.”

“I see. Well, I don’t do Israeli tax returns –”

“What? You mean—”

“No, but my associate does. You should talk to him.”

“He is American? Or Israeli?”

“He’s like me. American-born, but made aliyah twenty years ago. His kids are Israeli, like mine. So you can talk to him. But you should know that I’m actually a writer, so we have a lot in common.”

“Um, yes.”

“I write for the Wellington Hills Online Journal – have you heard of it? I have a weekly column. I can give you the link. Do you have a pen and paper to jot it down?”

“Yes. No. Sorry?”

“You see, I think you might want to represent my screenplay. I could pay you an hourly rate, say. How much do you charge?”

“Um, no, I don’t represent writers – well, perhaps I should just call your colleague. What is his name?”

“Yossi. I’ll give you his number. But wait, I have to ask you a question. It’s a little off-the-wall. Is that OK?”

“Off-the-wall?”

“Yes, if you pardon the expression. How old are you?”

“For tax purposes?”

“No, no, you see – if you are single then we have that in common, in addition to being writers. How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

“Thirty?”

“Well, actually twenty-nine, to be precise.”

“Oh….. I see.”

“Um, I really appreciate your assistance, perhaps I could get the number –”

“Yes. You should know that I never pick up clients. Ever. You are the first!”

“Thanks, I mean, yes.”

“Maybe we could meet for coffee to talk about my screenplay?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not single.”

“No, you’re kidding me! You never said that!”

“But the phone number –”

“You still want my number? Maybe keep it on file?”

“Oh, I meant –”

“Sure, yeah. I’ll give you my cell phone. 050 841 9926.”

“Yes, OK, well – thank you for your professional assistance.”

“Yes, I have your information, we’ll be in touch.”

“Goodbye, then.”

“Goodbye – oh –” (click)

Still in the market for an accountant. Preferably female, or at least married.

–Chavazelet Herzliyah

The Lilith Blog

March 12, 2008 by admin

How 'Bout a Reading List?

“Be warned,” Ellen Litman writes in Ha’aretz. “The Book of Dahlia is not the kind of book in which a girl gets an incurable brain tumor and learns an important lesson….[T]he cancer fails to reform her. She remains her nihilistic, wisecracking self – an antihero of sorts – unwilling to fight for her life the way everyone expects her to.” Though slightly less enamored, the LA Times admires author Elisa Albert’s “relish for poking fun and puncturing stereotypes.” Nextbook also has a podcast with Albert.

At Radar, Emily Gould talks to Sloane Crosley about Crosley’s forthcoming book of personal essays, I was Told There’d Be Cake. “Reading the book is like having an incredibly engaging conversation with a charming quirky girl,” Gould writes. “But there’s a problem: The blurbs are really good….the kind of praise that makes backlashes begin months before publication, especially when the author in question knows everyone in publishing and is young, attractive, and famously nice.”

Speaking of such backlashes, you can expect one when Rivka Galchen’s novel Atmospheric Disturbances comes out in June. (I thought the book was pretty great.) You can read an excerpt here. And here’s a lovely essay Galchen wrote for the NY Times last summer.

In Rachel Pastan’s novel Lady of the Snakes, protagonist Jane Levitsky tries to balance a tenure-track position (and her in-depth research into the fictional Russian novel from which the book takes its name), with being a wife and mother. It may be telling that the Washington Post finds that “Nineteenth-century Russia doesn’t hold a candle to the contemporary story of this two-career marriage full of dirty dishes, student papers and a screaming baby.” But “Pastan’s writing is fluid and frank, and her characters are luminescent. Many women will recognize this as a realistic portrayal of the rewards and the pitfalls of trying to have it all.” The Washington Jewish Week explores the Jewish side of the book and its author.

In the Forward, Eli Rosenblatt interviews Leela Corman about her forthcoming graphic novel, Unterzakhn. Corman explains, “I think that if you set out trying to make people confront something, the work will be at very best one-dimensional and probably intolerable.”

Rachel Shukert, who wrote the Heeb article about Jews and blowjobs that I mentioned awhile ago, has a book of autobiographical essays coming out at the end of April, called Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories. It is awesome. From her account of being a precocious Holocaust-obsessed kid, to a piece about watching helplessly as her beloved grandmother dies, Shukert’s stories are almost bizarrely relatable. She captures the experiences of Jewish adolescence (youth group, heritage tours, Bat Mitzvahs and so on) with amazing accuracy. Really: I laughed out loud through most of it, until the final essay actually made me cry.

— Eryn Loeb

The Lilith Blog

March 12, 2008 by admin

Reflections on International Women's Day

Saturday March 8th marked 100 years of commemorating International Women’s Day. (Mazel tov IWD!)
A lot of people are skeptical of such Days with a capital D, but — like birthdays — these Hallmark-like days of social consciousness are an opportunity to remember the things we should always keep in mind, such as that the people in our lives are important to us, even when they’re not turning a year older, and that, every day, women all over the world are still fighting for equality.

It’s worth noting how Jews around the world marked IWD this year — in Israel, a revelation of how far Israeli women still have to go to be on economic par with their male counterparts, and in the U.S., a show of solidarity by Jewish women for females in more dire straits than they are in the rest of the world.

In honor of IWD, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics released new data on the state of Israeli women. The bad though less-than-shocking news is that (after hours worked are factored into the equation), they earn 22.5 percent less than men do. (Without factoring in time worked, the average woman earns 63 cents to the average man’s dollar. By contrast, the average American woman earns 77 cents to the average American man’s dollar. Certainly not perfect, but better.) The statistics compare average wages earned by women versus men rather than comparing women’s and men’s salaries for the same job, so the disparity can be accounted for, at least partly, by the fact that women tend to work in lower paying positions than men do — despite their being more highly educated than men, on average.
What to make of these statistics is a subject for another, longer post, but here are a few resources on the subject:
In The Jerusalem Post, Asher Meir, research director at the Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem sees no cause for alarm in these statistics, arguing that the wage gap is due not to discrimination but freely chosen adherence to traditional gender roles, in which women stay at home more and thus earn less, while men work more and thus earn more. As Meir acknowledges, though, women’s rights groups argue that the current structure of the workplace discourages women with children who would like to be as career-oriented as their husbands. Additionally, a fascinating 2006 NYT article identifies circumstances explaining why the progress of American women in the workforce seems to have hit a brick wall.

On a different note, in America, Phyllis Snyder, president of the National Council of Jewish Women, marked IWD by encouraging the Jewish community to focus on women outside of the Jewish community. In an op-ed in The NY Jewish Week, Snyder urged “support for strong, evidence-based global HIV/AIDS prevention programs” as the program governing American aid for HIV/AIDS prevention, PEPFAR, comes up for renewal:

For the millions of women whose lives have been impacted by the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, the struggle for justice and equality is more dire than the earliest advocates of a March 8 holiday could have imagined. According to the United Nations (UN), three-quarters of all HIV-positive Africans between the ages of 15 and 24 are women.
Thankfully, the US is a leader in the fight against AIDS through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has provided $15 billion to combat AIDS in Africa since 2003. President Bush’s breakthrough effort is to be highly commended. But money is not enough. If those billions are not spent wisely, countless preventable deaths will result.
[…]
When sex is the topic, the fundamentalist right goes into high gear, and HIV/AIDS is no exception. The result has been that from the start, one-third of PEPFAR dollars for prevention have been restricted to abstinence-only programs — no matter that for the majority of these women, abstinence is not an option. Although abstinence-only as a means of preventing both pregnancy and disease has been widely discredited by scientific studies, broader successful African prevention programs promoting safe sex and condom use have become suspect and, in some cases, have been abandoned. Furthermore, organizations receiving PEPFAR funds must adopt a specific policy against “prostitution and human trafficking,” which increases stigma and constrains outreach to this high-risk population.
Now PEPFAR is up for reauthorization and the struggle to clear away these crippling provisions is underway. Sadly, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs has just passed a bill that incorporates the legacy of abstinence-only. …
… Targeting women is key to reversing the HIV infection rate in Africa. The Senate needs to reauthorize PEPFAR without chaining this vital program to provisions that hinder rather than help AIDS prevention among women and men. An International Women’s Day dedicated to that goal would be a worthy commemoration of the women’s marches for justice and equality of a century ago.

I mention these two particular items because, taken together, they’re a good reminder of the balance we ought to strike between trying to better our own situation as women in the western world while keeping in perspective that, compared to women in so many other parts of the world, we have it pretty darn good, and that we should help those less fortunate than we are in whatever way we can.

–Rebecca Honig Friedman

The Lilith Blog

March 6, 2008 by admin

Hideous Kinky

The other night, a friend and I went to a reading at the East Village’s cozy KGB Bar, part of the KinkyJews
reading series (KinkyJews bills itself as “the next generation of Jewish kinksters”). It was pretty packed. The lights were turned way down, and there were condoms with the “KinkyJews” logo sticker on them scattered across the tables and the bar. There were also slim wooden paddles emblazoned with the KinkyJews URL. Yeah, woo, kinky!

The reading was decidedly unsexy, too self-conscious to be much more than yet another erotic reading series (and New York has plenty), this time for a specific demographic. Even after listening to six readers, I’m not sure what it is that separates kinky Jews from any other group of vaguely artsy people who like their happy hour(s) sexually charged. The readers didn’t seem to be sure, either. More than one paused after their story mentioned a bialy or something similarly symbolic, saying something to the effect of “ha ha, that’s the Jewish part.” Sure, the readers themselves were all Jewish – the organizer told the audience that KinkyJews welcomes all kinds of Jews, and all kinds of kinks – but I’m not sure why kinky Jews need their own space. Unless the hope is that bringing together kinky Jews will result in kinky Jewish couplings (and isn’t it always?). Also: one of the advantages to being Jewish is that you have lots of venues like this in which to promote your work, as long as you’re willing to do so under the Jewish
umbrella.

There were some cool stories: Will Heinrich read his hilariously understated “Stalin’s Mustache,”, Margot Leitman had a funny piece about mistakenly believing that she was pregnant after she, as a 7th grader, made out with a boy in a vacant lot (desperate, she turned to the Tampax helpline for answers). There was a generic story about masturbation, a stunningly unfunny account of visiting a sex club, a quick tirade about playing strip dreidel, and Sam J. Miller’sdependably provocative short story “Auschwitz Blowjob.”

Aside from the continuing reading series (the next installment of which will be back at KGB on May 22nd), KinkyJews are hosting a Purim Striptease Extravaganza later this month (“Come revel in post-Purim merriment as we imbue ourselves with the spirit of King Achashverosh’s grand striptease feast”), and their Third Annual Kinky Seder in May: “While maintaining key elements of tradition…we have a humor and hedonism infused chocolate themed Seder with four cups of chocolate milk, chocolate covered matzah, Hillil S’mores, and more. Have a wild time with the search for the chametz kit (candle, feather and wooden spoon), Passover erotica, maggid show and tell, re-enactments [of] slavery and redemption, floggings a-plenty, new friends and fun!”

I dunno. I’m not denying anyone their kinks, but this sounds sorta like the kind of thing that was supposed to entice us to join the Temple
youth group as teenagers.

Interestingly, the seder is $30 for couples (of any gender) to attend, $25 for single men, and only $10 for women and students under 25. This seems to say a lot about the general make-up of the KinkyJews, and what kind of people are missing and therefore greatly desired (hint: people with vaginas). Or maybe they’re just compensating for the wage gap.

— Eryn Loeb

The Lilith Blog

March 5, 2008 by admin

Portman’s Spicy Interfaith Flick

Israeli born actress, Natalie Portman recently made headlines for designing a new line of vegan shoes. (When I want to find stylish, leather-free shoes to match my vegetarian values, I head to Payless – but if Portman wants to make the $200 version, more power to her.)

Before the buzz about her humane footwear had a chance to subside, Portman was back in the news with another vegetarian venture. She’s set to star in Mira Nair’s new movie, “Kosher Vegetarian,” – which, like Nair’s last movie “The Namesake,” explores an interfaith romance. This time, the couple will consist of a Gujarati guy (actor, Ifran Khan) and Jewish girl (Portman).

When I posted a notice about the forthcoming flick on The Jew & The Carrot blog, a few more right-leaning readers got bunched up about the very thought of an interfaith relationship portrayed – and therefore somehow validated – on the screen. (Since I am the product of an interfaith marriage, their consternation really gets under my skin…but that’s another post.) To me, what’s more interesting than the same old conversation about how much intermarriage is ruining Judaism is the title of Nair’s film.

Supposedly, Kosher Vegetarian is only a tentative title, and my guess is that they’ll come up with something slightly sexier by the time the previews come out. But I find it fascinating that, at least for now, Nair hangs the movie’s emotional premise on food. As The New York Times’ recent article “I Love You, but You Love Meat” attested, the food we eat (and, more importantly don’t eat) can become a critical aspect of our relationships. If one partner is adamant about a particular dietary restriction, while the other is not – eating meals together (which is arguably the heart of most relationships) can get sticky. In the end, some couples break up solely because their culinary bottom lines do not meet. Whether or not Nair intends to place significant emphasis on food in her movie remains to be seen. But her title stands as a powerful reminder about how much our food choices impact our daily lives and relationships.

Luckily for “Kosher Vegetarian’s” star-crossed couple, Indian food is particularly amenable to the kosher laws. Now they just have to get past the in-laws.

–Leah Koenig

The Lilith Blog

March 4, 2008 by admin

Philanthropy Begins at Home

We all know the stereotypes about Jews and money, but what if you’re Jewish and you don’t have any money to speak of? It’s one thing to help the UJA/Federation raise money for Jews facing persecution in third world countries, but what about when the need for charity lies closer to home?

My son attends a Jewish day school. He gets what used to be called a scholarship but is now called financial assistance.

I love N’s school. I love the warm environment and the excellent teachers. I love it that his principal knows who he is. I love the fact that he reads Hebrew as well as English, love that the songs he sings are Jewish songs. The school both challenges and nurtures my son—it’s true, the platitudes found in school promotional brochures really apply. Of course, for $16,000 for first grade, I should expect nothing less.

I wish that Jewish schools (and synagogues) operated on a sliding scale system. It seems correct to ask people to pay a percentage of their income, rather than charging everyone the same tuition or membership costs. My husband and I have not officially joined the shul we attend because we cannot afford it.

I wonder if the reason the sliding scale system has not caught on is because of the golden rule—the person with the gold makes the rules. If you’re rich, a sliding scale works against you. On the other hand, N’s school has many very generous, wealthy families. With all the money they donate to the school on top of the tuition they pay, they may in fact approximate what a sliding scale payment would be for them.

But then there is what I call the Water Fountain Factor (WFF). If families with lots of money gave more to the school because they had to, there could be no water fountains (or classrooms/libraries/early childhood centers, etc.) named for them. They would not be able to feel particularly good about the money they gave to the school, and their generosity would not be made public.

When I was in college, I read an essay by Audre Lorde called “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” In it, Lorde observes that slaves, particularly house slaves, knew much, much more about their masters than their masters knew about them. It has been 20 years since I read that essay, but I have never forgotten Lorde’s message: the have-nots always know more about the haves than vice-versa. Money and status don’t just buy things, they buy a privileged, easy ignorance.

Last year, on N’s first day of kindergarten, I saw that the children’s cubbies were organized in birth order, with the child’s birthday posted above the cubby. N shared his date with another boy, and though their birthdays weren’t until spring, I made a mental note to work out the kids’ party schedule with the other family.

About five weeks before the big day (which fell on a Sunday, making it quite easy to pick a day to celebrate), I called the other mother to work out the conflict. She had no idea what I was talking about; had never realized that the boys shared a birthday. In fact, she told me, she had just ordered the party invitations the day before. (That’s right, ordered the invitations. From a printer. As though it were the child’s Bar Mitzvah.)

Long story short: N shared his birthday with J, the richest kid in the class—possibly in the entire school. J’s party was held in his giant, over-the-top house, which features a full-size gym/basketball court (complete with snack bar, N informed me). There were waiters passing baby lamb chops, carnival games and rides, basketball games, and, instead of goody bags, a giant candy “bar”—bins and bins of different candies—from which the kids could pick the sweets they wanted.

Now, J’s family is very generous to the school—and they get honored for it. But how wonderful would it be if they gave the same amount of money without the fanfare. Biblical tithing—ma’aser—would do much more for Jewish organizations than the WFF model. It is true that “Ein kemach, ein torah” (without money, there can be no torah). But it is also true that “Lo al halechem livado yichyeh ha’adam” (man cannot live on bread alone). Out of the tension between these two principles, both equally true, we must forge a new way of funding Jewish communal life.

–Claire Isaacs

The Lilith Blog

March 4, 2008 by admin

Orthodox Slam Safe Sex Campaign

Looks like Agudath Israel has taken a cue from Israel’s Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger. As the JTA reports, the “leading U.S. umbrella group of fervently Orthodox Jews” (the fervent equivalent to the more moderate Orthodox Union), “accused New York City of promoting casual sex”:

In a letter to the New York City Department of Health’s assistant commissioner for AIDS prevention, Monica Sweeney, Agudath Israel of America objected to a new ad campaign designed to promote condom use. Aguda argues that the ad campaign “affirmatively encourages young people to engage in casual sex.”
In our community — and, I am sure, in many others as well — the message our clergy, educators and parents try to impart to our children is that a lifestyle of promiscuity is not only dangerous but also inappropriate,” wrote David Zwiebel, Aguda’s vice president for government and public affairs. “By what right does the New York City Health Department deign to undermine that message?”

Whoa there, Nelly.

Is New York City responsible for not offending the moral sensibilities of conservative groups, or is the city responsible for the health of its residents?

A reader of Jewess sent in this article with the note, “Does this really affect the agudah community???” Clearly, the Aguda community is not the target audience of NYC’s safe sex campaign. But the city can’t choose who sees the advertisements for the NYC condom, which use the tagline “Get some,” hanging in the subway. Members of the Aguda community certainly ride public transportation (often with their heads in a book of prayer or Torah, I’ve noticed — perhaps an attempt not to look at such offensive ads or offensively dressed people). In that sense, the campaign does affect their community.

Most interesting is the Aguda’s acknowledgment that it does — that their youth are not immune to the messages of the culture outside the ultra-Orthodox community. Yet, also interesting — though not surprising — is their not acknowledging that this particular message of safe sex might actually be beneficial to certain members of their community. As the JTA mentions, “Aguda noted that it objected to the distribution of free condoms even without the sexy ads…” So it’s not just the message, it’s the actual distribution of condoms.

The impact free condom distribution has on their community is more puzzling. Is Aguda trying to exert control over the morality of the city, trying to make it into a place they can feel spiritually comfortable living in (and if that’s it, what about the myriad of other morally questionable goings-on in the city)? Or are they objecting to the possibility that their members can also access those free condoms?

It seems to me there must be some concern about the latter. In which case, the Aguda should take its tacit acknowledgment that its community is not immune to ideas and influences from secular culture — nor are they immune to hormones, for that matter, which are not religiously observant by nature — to its inevitable conclusion: People will stray, and do. For whatever reasons, the ultra-Orthodox community is unable, or unwilling, to provide certain resources and protections to its members. The Aguda should be thankful that the city picks up its slack.

–Rebecca Honig Friedman

The Lilith Blog

February 28, 2008 by admin

Amelia Bedelia marries a Babylonian

As a child, I was a big fan of the Amelia Bedelia books. This popular series featured a dark stocking and apron-clad housekeeper who was famous for her silly but well-intentioned errors. In Amelia Bedelia Plays Baseball, the eponymous heroine is instructed to run home and so she runs all the way to her house. In Amelia Bedelia Goes to School, she is told to take her seat and walks out of the room with her chair. On in on, in story after story, Amelia Bedelia delighted me and countless other children with her literal-mindedness.

Although it is years since I read these books, I was reminded of Amelia Bedelia today when I learned daf yomi, a program in which Jews all over the world participate in a seven-year cycle to learn the entire Talmud at a page-a-day rate. We learned today about a man from Babylonia who married a woman in Eretz Yisrael who was strikingly similar to my favorite housekeeper. Here is the story as rendered on Nedarim 66b:

A man from Babylon came to Israel and married a woman there. He said to her: “Cook me two lentils.” She cooked him exactly two lentils. He got angry (literally “he boiled”) at her. The next day he said to her, “Cook me a seah’s worth of lentils (a very large quantity). She cooked him exactly a seah. He said to her, “Go bring me two pumpkins.” She went and brought him two candles (because in Eretz Yisrael, the Babylonian word for pumpkin means candle). He grew furious and said to her, “Go smash these candles against the bava (the Aramaic word for gate). Beside the gate sat the sage Bava ben Buta rendering judgments. She came to him and smashed the candles over his skull. He said to her, “Why did you do that?” She said, “I did as my husband told me.” He said: “If you did your husband’s will, God will grant you two sons like Bava ben Buta.”

Like Amelia Bedelia, this hapless housewife from Eretz Yisrael can’t seem to stay out of trouble. She takes everything literally, and is consequently always in a fix. As with the Amelia Bedelia books, which were written by children’s educator Peggy Parish as a way of teaching children about language, the Talmudic story serves as a lesson about the nuances of language (particularly as it varied between Bavel and Eretz Yisrael) and the danger of too much precision. The Talmud is comprised of halacha, legal discourse which deals with the right way to live life in all its minutiae, and aggadah, stories that fly in the face of legalistic details and show life in all its complicated messiness. This passage is of course a part of the aggadah, and it serves remind us that no matter how much we seek to dictate and regulate, there will always be the Amelia Bedelias among us who ensure that life is always full of delightful surprises – so long as your name is not Bava ben Buta!

–Chavatzelet Herzliya