The Lilith Blog

April 8, 2008 by Mel Weiss

Israel, Sans Rhetoric

I’m in the midst of the strange experience of having my hopes renewed by The Economist. (Despite our occasionally divergent political ideas—and the fact that I don’t know anything about economics—I covet the magazine’s haughty, intelligent, smartass-in-the-back-of-the-classroom-cracking-comments tone.) This week’s special report focuses on Israel, and if you’re discouraged by the whole matsav, you should really, really take the time to read it.

Why? Because it pretty much fulfills Herzl’s “a nation among the nations” dream, treating Israel’s problems like the problems of any other country. This is unbelievably refreshing, especially if you’re burnt to a crisp on the kind of lunacy provoked by the Ms. Magazine/AJC “scandal.” Here, rhetoric is sidelined and the focus is on such pieces of data as Israel’s “Gini coefficient,” a measure of income inequality, which is currently oneof the highest in the world. (A phenomenon whose effects on the ground were well-explored, by New Voices magazine, which doesn’t get enough credit for their efforts to address Israel honestly from the perspective of young, progressive Jews.) Israel’s famous capacity for small start-ups is hindered by their early sell-offs, which means the capital generated by the final company goes somewhere else. Although the military situation has led to a thriving technologies sector, the global trend towards biotech and alternative energies may leave Israel behind. The Economist, perhaps somewhat obviously, rates Israel’s economic vulnerabilities more vital than its security concerns.

There’s plenty of social and political discussion in these fourteen pages, as well. It would seem that there’s lots to be said about Israel’s
problems from a place of dispassionate observation, and even if I could never pen such work, damn, was it nice to read them. Feeling more
critical of Israel these days, I still have no real interest in engaging with the “Israeli apartheid” crew. Call it intellectual laziness—I’m just
done, and if I’m done, how must this feel for people who’ve been having this conversation for the last 60 years or so?

Would I have loved to see more in there about women, especially in the section about social relations between haredim and secular Jews? Surely, but that’s not The Economist’s beat (although I was very pleased to see a quote from Ruth Calderon, recent Lilith author). But even though The Economist couldn’t care less about feminism, the aforementioned debacle highlighted the continuing use of this supposed “the Left hates Israel” conundrum to sideline those of us who, yup, are progressive, Jewish, in favor of the Jewish state, and critical thinkers. Straight up facts and figures give us cover and a way to have the conversation without the migraine.

If anything, this was a wake-up call that if we can talk about Israel without devolving into rhetoric, there’s lots that can be said. And
reactionaries like myself, whose response to fierce infighting about Israel is to turn up my headphones and turn the page, can get educated on
our own terms.

–Mel Weiss

The Lilith Blog

March 31, 2008 by Mel Weiss

Urban/Legends

I am a happily self-conscious urban chauvinist, and that’s a fact.  I just love cities.  As much as I love nature and the pastoral, I just feel very tapped into the same primal instinct that led to the construction of Uruk, back in the day—people like people, and the bustle and the anonymity and the economic possibilities and all the other stuff that has been drawing people to cities since time nearly immemorial.

People, it should be noted for the record, who included a massive part of the world’s Jewry.  Certainly not all (and for more fascinating reading on the rural/urban split for Jews, read this), but there’s no denying that cities have helped define the Jewish experience in most of the world and throughout much of history.  I’m deep into Yiddish poetry right now, and all of the poets we’ve been reading lived and worked in the same neighborhood where I remember buying bialys as a kid—a single anecdote in service of the point that we’re uniquely situated to appreciate cities as Jews.  (Eventually, I’d like to argue that the urban experience had a heady influence on feminism and women’s rights, but I’m behind in my research on that one, so give me a few weeks.)

But I’m starting to fear for cities—mine included—in a big way.  Not just in the little ways that a slowly failing transit can make you paranoid—we’re talking about one of those
skyrocketing-rents-failing-economy-and-watching-too-many-episodes-of-The Wire kind of fears.  Fears that, even though cities have served as cultural, intellectual and financial springboards for our predecessors (indeed, very smart people claim that they still are), we’re going to manage to commodify them right into something else, something more stratified and foundationally shaky than what’s around now.  Urban sprawl, gentrification, decrepit infrastructures—these are real problems, and we—as citizens as well as residents—haven’t always done the best job in working to understand how cities work and what makes them healthier, not just more profitable for a few.

Although it’s certainly contrary to the trope and propagandistic norms, I think of cities as having the same sort of vitality that I’d want in a country—and in a world.  I may  sometimes mock the earnestness of local people dedicated to a neighborhood community or sense of borough solidarity, but that’s my own unfortunately sense of ironic “I’m too cool for that,” which is gross.  Cities stand for our ability to live together, so let’s strengthen them if only as a mnemonic of the larger potential they represent.

I know we have people checking in from all around the globe, so I won’t list too many local ways to help your cities (although if you live in New York and are looking for somewhere to start, I can make some suggestions).  I do invite you, however, to leave comments discussing problems and pleasures of your cities.  Feel free to leave links.

–Mel Weiss

The Lilith Blog

March 25, 2008 by Mel Weiss

Marriage-Minded

I had the supreme pleasure and honor of attending a wedding this weekend. It was so lovely, and the couple seemed so happy, that I considered revoking my recent decision to elope, if ever the opportunity arose. (Watching the wedding-preparation process is terrifying.) Then I went to the opening of “Di Ksube” (“The Wedding Contract”), an Israeli play about what really is at the heart of relationships (and how wrapped up we can get in the superficialities of it all). All of which got me thinking that marriage (or a vague legal equivalent) looks like it might be a nice thing, for me, one day. (Somewhere is cyberspace, my girlfriend is freaking out right now. Just kidding, honey!)

Marriage is not for everyone. I am, I assure you, beyond cool with that. And, frankly, if we could keep this issue in the private sphere, I wouldn’t much care one way or another. Pieces of writing like Emily Yoffe’s absurdist exercise on Slate’s website might enrage me, but I’d have a beer with my “marriage is ridiculous” roommate, or any one of the psychologically-scarred people who would have so benefited from their parents splitting earlier, and we’d laugh at her ridiculous assertions that unmarried parents are the greatest shande of our times, and we’d read fabulous feminist rebuttals and everybody could be happy.

Alas, I read sub-heads like “Out-of-Wedlock Births Are a National Catastrophe,” and all I can hear is our fearless leader pronouncing that “My administration will give unprecedented support to strengthening marriages.” I have flashbacks to the Healthy Marriage Initiative rhetoric of yore, which caught on in places like West Virginia to the extent that they’d up your welfare if you got married. Isn’t that nice?

I’m not clear on what our current candidates have to say about the issue, although I suspect both Democratic contenders have had life experiences that may have disabused them of the ideas that marriage is a panacea—or that, if your parents don’t stick together, you’ll be a screw-up. Senator McCain? Anybody want to chime in on this one?

Does government ever have to care about marriage? I guess sometimes, like deciding how married people should be taxed versus how single people should be taxed, or if legal amnesty should be provided to the foreign spouses of immigrants, or if we need to amend the Constitution to protect it from those crazy gays (you know, those folks who are always whining about how they want to get married), and so on. And while I support Emily Yoffe’s right to spout whatever misogynist, dated nonsense she wants, I hope she’s aware that these are still live wires she’s playing with. There are an unbelievable number of ways that marital status is used formally and informally to manipulate women, but there’s neither time nor space for all that in this post. (There’s also ample cringe-inducing stupidity in Yoffe’s unexamined assumptions that the correlation between low marriage rates and poorer people is a causal one. Post hoc ergo propter hoc just isn’t true. But more on that another time.) After a whirlwind weekend of marriage-related events and reading, I just had to point out that the insanity continues. I don’t see the trouble in saying that I think marriage is a beautiful thing—a mitzvah and a simcha both—and adding as a caveat that that’s nobody’s business but mine.

Oh, okay. Maybe my partner’s, too.

–Mel Weiss

The Lilith Blog

March 17, 2008 by Mel Weiss

All the News that's Fit to…Something

It’s difficult to write about how aggravated you are about the media’s focus on glitz—when they’re supposed to be writing about politics, when it means that, when you’re supposed to be writing about politics, you’re focusing on media glitz. It’s “meta” in a most annoying way, plus I generally prefer not to make problems worse. But lately I feel like any ground we gained in the first half of the world’s longest primary—gained ground in my world represented by increased popular interest in the mechanics of governance—has been lost to the sordid soap opera antics of business as usual. And press as usual.

Okay, look: Eliot Spitzer paid a woman for sex. There it is. He happened to break any number of laws doing it (I’m still not sure how such a zealous reformer could miss the Mann Act, but whatever). I don’t really care about his sex life, to be honest. I think I could get my feminist credentials checked over this one, but it’s really not of great interest for me—certainly I am less interested in using this incident as a jumping-off point for larger debate than others. Is that unfeminist? If people want to theorize, they should only live and be well, but isn’t the commentary field a little crowded right now? By all means, we can use this as a launch pad for a new round of “Should sex work be decriminalized/legalized/federally funded/etc.” But it worries me when this sort of story (or, for that matter, the whole Obama’s pastor shindig) dominates the news cycle while China beats up Tibet, oil’s going through the roof (much to some people’s surprise), and South America’s looking unusually bellicose.

Obviously, salacious gossip holds people’s attention (obviously, myself included). And of course we all want to talk about what everybody’s talking about and figure out how it affects us as individuals and groups. But I would love most would be for Jews and feminists—two groups who carry the reputation, however deserved or undeserved, of seeing the world through a very narrow prism of self-interest—to lead the charge in saying, we don’t care as much about these relatively cosmetic issues. And we will not be diverted from our mission of provided you news that is vital to your real life.

So…nu?

–Mel Weiss

The Lilith Blog

March 10, 2008 by Mel Weiss

Economies of Scale

I feel chastened, somewhat, having written about my ambivilent attitude towards Israel just days before murdered eight students in a yeshiva there. That the yeshiva is associated with the religious nationalist faction is useful background information, but to make any sort of political pronouncements regarding that fact, to make any political pronouncements at all, feels too much like making hay with the blood of children, if you’ll pardon the jumbled metaphor. It’s a horrible thing, and certainly Jews–all people possessed of a sense of right and wrong–grieve deeply. The news of these boys’ deaths hit hard, and seemed to spread quickly, and to catch people’s attention. While the deaths of children seem always to have slightly more of that effect, a great deal of the story’s weight was surely that it had happened in Israel, where many Jews tend to take things more immediately to heart. And yet the same day, 68 people died in a double bombing in Iraq. Over a hundred more were injured. Such headlines have ceased to shock me, ceased to horrify and electrify the general populace. It’s the second failure of shock and awe.

As much as tragedies make us feel the puniness of politics in the face of human life, it’s the overexposure to this kind of news, the spiritual ennui it induces, that is the real tragedy. We burnout from too much terrible news. Yet this horror should help form the shape of our politics, if not the specifics, to force us to build fences between what we are willing to accept and what is trayf to us. Waves of violence and destruction are pounding at the world, and we can’t let the sheer enormity of it all numb us. The outrage that the Jewish community is–rightly–feeling and displaying in the face of these deaths (and the subsequent celebration of Hamas members) must enhance and sharpen our outrage at the torrent of deaths in Iraq and in the Congo, the poverty of the Philippines and Haiti, the political repression of Zimbabwe and Burma. Let it fuel the sentiment behind Rav Nachman’s prayer for peace, and when we cry out, “Let peace fill the earth as the waters fill the seas,” let us work together to make it a reality.

Remaining horrified and yet still hopeful is a tall order in a scary world, but weeks like this week make me think that the combination of horror, hope and a renewed commitment to peace may be the only thing to see us through to the other side.

–Mel Weiss

The Lilith Blog

March 4, 2008 by Mel Weiss

“From the Stone to the Rocket”

It is not a great time for Israel right now. The military has pulled out of northern Gaza, and it’s not looking too good. Fawzi Barhoum, the spokesman for Hamas, had this strategic planning to share: “What we learned from Hezbollah is that resistance is a choice that can work.” Great. On what could perhaps be called the upside of things, Haaretz reports that 64% of Israelis think that their government should engage with direct talks with Hamas with the aim of establishing a ceasefire. (If you’re interested in signing a petition in support, do it—the more moderate voices in the conversation, the better.)

If that weren’t enough, the New York Times magazine covered the problems of proving you’re Jewish…in the Jewish state. Although the article itself is about getting married, the problems of having a state-regulated religion come to the surface quite often, it seems. (The problems of getting married, while irksome, are surely not as bad as the problem of getting a get, a Jewish divorce, if the rabbinate doesn’t feel like granting you one.)

Talk about having your dirty laundry out there. And there are surely those who will use these two very different situations—military/political and social/legal—to trash Israel, which is a very simple-minded response. I’m put in mind of a conversation I had with a relative. I was trying to explain that the disaffected youth with whom I passed my time—people who went to protests for fun in college and now almost invariably work at non-profits and have big dreams for the world—didn’t hate America. When you care enough to work hard to change something, I wanted to explain, it must mean you love it very much. We can, we must and we will look at Israel without rose-colored glasses but with a pervasive sense of hope.

I’ve talked a lot recently about talking about Israel, and I’ve realized that it’s not easy for me. Honestly, I’m tired of defending my position from either extreme, and I generally prefer to keep my mouth shut. But everywhere I go these days, smart people keep telling me that the only way we can do this is to get everyone talking, peaceably. So please consider yourself invited to leave your thoughts, hopes, dreams, disputations, whatever, here. Keep it respectful and constructive, and we can all grow together from it

–Mel Weiss

The Lilith Blog

February 17, 2008 by Mel Weiss

Movin' On Up

Well, the primaries are a-passin’, and while the outcome’s definitely still up for grabs, it sure feels like a picture is coming into focus, doesn’t it? Some candidates are movin’ on up a little bit faster than others, I think. And so we, the nation, must move our thoughts along as well. I enjoyed the constant infighting and logarithmic calculations provided by such a large initial number of candidates, but the focus keeps telescoping, and now we’ve got columns in the NYTimes advising Obama and McCain on how to attack each other,
and a piece by Camille Paglia at Salon.com about the meta-attacks happening in each party. (Also? I know I just linked, without irony, to something Camille Paglia wrote. The next time I claim any level of inclusivity, I’m holding this up as evidence.)

Apparently the news about Kosovo’s independence caused a lot of public celebration in New York today. Of course, the opposition stepped it up as well, as Serbian youth rioted in Belgrade. Last night, a friend and I saw the truly excellent “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”, a Romanian film that deals with a needed abortion in the Nicolae Ceauºescu era, so that part of the world was on my mind anyway. Although I refuse flat-out optimism right now, that film reminded me both that there are revolutions worth having, and also that they don’t always work out perfectly. I will try to remain hopeful that Kosovo really is moving up.

And, just when I was feeling that all this political stuff was so removed from me, I discovered that I heart Hannah Farber. Her post on jspot, Jewish Funds For Justice’s blog, calling out both the Atlantic and the rabbinical council (and, really, much of the Jewish establishment) for the ridiculous marry-and-reproduce pressure facing Jewish women is awesome. The personal is damn well political, and I was so pleased to hear an intelligent and articulate Jewish woman throw down like that. Unfortunately, I have since been reminded that the well-worded arguments she makes are in no way new—that this pressure has been something Jewish feminists, and others, have been attacking for some time. Who’s ready to move on up from here?

–Mel Weiss

The Lilith Blog

February 12, 2008 by Mel Weiss

The Rock and the God Place

So here, essentially, is my conundrum: I started in on Mordechai Kaplan. I got through just enough of Judaism as Civilization to know we’re pretty doomed if we think of Judaism as just a religion—don’t build it to be something more encompassing. And I’ve gotten just far enough through a brand new book, Righteous Indignation, to be convinced that the grassroots are definitely already there. Forty articles about how to integrate Jewish values and social justice, by the people out there in the field doing it. Every day I think about the real race coming up after this summer—how hard the Democrats, in either case, are going to have to work to remind the general public that the Left can have the moral hand, too. And now the Atlantic shows up in my mailbox. With several main articles on religion as a global political phenomenon, my attention piqued at the theory that, since state-mandated religion has passed out of fashion and religions now follow a more market-place lifecycle, there’s bound to be some major niche-attracting going on. So we’re looking at a rise, I’d like to wager, of religiously-identified lefties. Are we all going to play nice? And am I really comfortable with this trend?

I’m discomforted by my own discomfort. But there it is. What do we do with this, we adamant separation-of-church-and-state nuts? Especially those of us who are willing to locate some of our progressive values in a religious place? I’m eager to hear from y’all out in the blogosphere, because I’m finding this one pretty slippery, and I think it’s important. So leave your thoughts below!

–Mel Weiss

The Lilith Blog

February 4, 2008 by Mel Weiss

Touchdown?

There is much—much, much—to think about, as we sit during one Super day, anticipating another. (Non-US blog readers: It’s Super Bowl Sunday, meaning there’s a lot of yelling in the apartment above me about American football, and Super Tuesday, when over half the nation’s primaries are held, is fast approaching.) I, myself, am extremely gratified at the voter turnout we’ve been seeing. Read the headlines for any of the recent primaries or any predictions for the upcoming one. Other than some concerns about the weather, everyone’s generally optimistic. I’m immensely pleased by that. To be honest, although I’ve given my own private endorsement, I could pretty easily live with an Obama or a Clinton presidency. I’m just ready for it, and grateful that so many people have become motivated. (There’s a great article on the real fundamental difference between the two available here.) I have noticed in myself a happy willingness to discuss politics anywhere, any time, and as often as I can. This is not necessarily a trait I share with all of humanity. But with this election, people who have never ever wanted to talk politics before are citing polls to me. I haven’t had to wait more than an hour after a primary to know the results—if I didn’t look them up, someone else had. It’s actually pretty amazing, and its doubly gratifying to feel it amongst my peers, a generation constantly accused of untoward levels of apathy.

But then, there’s often that attempt to divide us generationally, if we can’t be gotten at any other way, isn’t there? I definitely felt that way reading the New York Times article on how hard it is for feminists to find unity. The article managed to reduce Jessica Valenti, of the excellent blog Feministing.com, and Marcia Pappas, head of NOW-NY, to tired simplifications–the former to flirty flippancy and the latter to frumpery. Awesome.

Look, it’s not a big deal, certainly not given the other things we could worry about. But since I often feel these sorts of generational divides in the Jewish world as well, it’s something I think about a lot. And in an election that some claim is being fought generationally, I do think it’s relevant to worry about. My dad, a very middle-of-the road, politically reasonable fellow, is quick to remind me that if the Democrats have the slightest chance of messing something up for themselves, they probably will. So given this chance to fumble over some social scientists’ population breakdown, I’m afraid we’re go to lose possession of the ball on the first down, if you know what I’m saying.

So when you vote on Tuesday, if you’re in the half of America that will, vote your heart and your values—and don’t worry about what it signifies about you. And when Wednesday morning comes, let’s get together behind whoever we choose and say, onward into the future, young and old and everybody else together.

And, just for fun: file this under um….guwah?.

–Mel Weiss

The Lilith Blog

January 28, 2008 by Mel Weiss

Buy, Buy, Buy (A Round Up)

This week saw the breaking story—sorry—of Gazans blasting their way into Egypt to buy such advanced commodities as…milk. The world at large seems to have collectively looked at this with a resounding, “meh.” I don’t like to comment too much on Israeli/Middle Eastern politics because a) I have a fear of hyper-flammable materials and b) I don’t know enough to speak with much authority. In this case, however, whether you think this is good for Israel or bad for Israel, a sign that Egypt will take more responsibility for “the Palestinian issue” or that America should get more serious than Anapolis showed we were—you have to admit, people willing to blow a hole in a seven-mile wall to buy milk probably means that the ostrich approach won’t work for too long.

Speaking of buying things, welcome to morning in America. Yes, there may be a recession on the way; yes, the housing market may be imploding (thanks, subprime lending!); yes, things may not be looking up. Don’t worry: the U.S. government says “buy!”. (We’re good at that.) And to help us buy, we’re looking at a $150 million economic stimulus plan. I am not an economist, but $600 in my pocket sounds fine.

Except maybe I’d like to give mine back. I am so furious at the S-CHIP veto override that I could honestly vomit, and I can’t help but feel that this is, if not blood money, something pretty dirty. To recap, S-CHIP, a bill providing additional spending for children’s healthcare, passed the House. It passed the Senate. It got vetoed at the White House. A slightly revised version passed the House. It passed the Senate. It got vetoed at the White House. The House tried to override the veto and fell short by 15 votes. (Please, please, please, demand accountability from the people who represent you in our government.) This next step towards the nightmare of socialized medicine would have been paid for pretty much in its entirety by an increased tax on tobacco products, removing precious funding from nothing at all.

(Look, even if it doesn’t come across in my writing here, I am, by and large, a relatively reasonable human. I want to have the wisdom and patience to appreciate multiple points of view, and the understanding that there can be different paths to solutions and different values in play for various people. Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks, and so on. But I really, really don’t have the patience for this one. We’re talking about healthcare for kids. Kids! They can’t possibly have hurt anyone, haven’t “chosen” to go on welfare, haven’t voted for the wrong people. There is. No. Reason. To punish them. I come from a family where the phrase “As long as you’ve got your health…” was oft-heard and considered a Jewish value as much as—more than—most rituals. This sort of devaluation of children is anathema to me.)

So we’ll have more money in our pockets. As it turns out, buying stuff may not be that great for us, anyway. (Click through that link to see Annie Leonard’s fantastic mini-movie, The Story of Stuff. It’s a lesson in basic “eco” knowledge—economics and ecology—with a decided feminist twist. [Who else talks about breast milk?].) However, if you happen to be in front of a computer or tv Monday night, consider buying yourself a beer—it’s State of the Union time!

—Mel Weiss