November 5, 2007 by Mel Weiss
I’m ready for some smaller government. Now, if you’ve ever met me (or read anything else I’ve written here), this might be a perplexing statement. How do you go from bleeding heart to…very not?
Well, to start, you read Naomi Wolf’s new book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. And you learn that asking the government to butt out a little isn’t a partisan concern anymore—it’s about fighting to maintain the essentially democratic nature of the United States. The book itself is not masterpiece of political polemic; the structure of a letter to a young patriot often feels forced. However. Wolf’s arguments, at their strongest, are terrifying. She spends much of the book explaining that America is, in fact, losing the precarious balance that the Founders established. The phrase “fascist shift” comes up a lot—but before you roll your eyes, know that she disclaims, early and often, that we’re not talking concentration camps, here. Fascism, a barely-definable phenomenon, can take many forms—just as we’re slowly learning that democracy doesn’t look the same for everyone. What we’re looking at is almost Fascism-Lite, if that—a nominally democratic system in which citizens have a sense that certain acts are out of bounds and so don’t participate.
I don’t mean things that are illegal—just things that might be considered beyond the pale, like protesting on the Washington Mall or checking “subversive” books out of the library or signing on-line petitions that your mother sends you. Of course, we’re looking at the possibility that such activities could actually be illegal, too—if they’re considered somehow a threat to national security. And the government will know about them, despite your first-amendment rights, because we’re letting the executive branch bypass more and more checks and balances in pursuit of wiretapping your phone, reading your email, and checking out your library records. And they’ll have established the legal precedent to detain even citizens indefinitely, perhaps unaware of the charges brought against them. And who knows by what means information might be forced out while you’re in custody?
I don’t think I need to really go into why this particular issue strikes me deep, not just as an American but as a woman and a Jew. Naomi Wolf makes the Jewish point pretty transparent at times—the word “Nazi” is pretty prevalent. No political system in the world has proven as safe for beleaguered religious and ethnic minorities as democratic republics, which is why no one who proudly claims both Jewish and American identity should support Guantanamo Bay and wiretapping and the not-so-subtle attempts to redefine torture, no matter what their political affiliations. And in anticipating the response of those who think that as long as they’ve got “nothing to hide,” I’d hope that our collective historical memory harkens back far enough to remember when being Jewish became something to hide from the state. And as a woman, knowing that the rights to my body are forever on the line in this country, I’m about as in favor of non-invasive government as I can be. If the essential liberty that the Founders wanted to fight for was bodily independence, then…well, I’m not going to pick that particular fight today, but it certainly makes the argument for choice in all corporeal things, wouldn’t you think?
I’ve grappled for some time with the deep fissures that are seriously disrupting our political landscape, and so it’s (almost) a relief to find something that I think we can all easily agree. In the interest of driving home a point, I’ll own up to a point of personal dorkhood: I own a well-thumbed copy of The Federalist Papers, the papers written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay to convince the New York state assembly to ratify the Constitution. Essentially anticipating and responding to concerns about this brave new adventure of democracy, the assembled papers are one big love letter to the concepts that fundamentally define our government. My man Mr. Madison hits the nail on the head: “The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men [or women!—NB] who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.”
How do we do this? I was disappointed that Naomi Wolf didn’t include a compendium of suggestions, but perhaps her one word of advice is worth all that: talk. Keep talking, keep reading, keep writing, keep making noise and making sense. We the people have been for too long to complicit in the slow strangling of our most valuable civic virtue. Let’s stop that.
–Mel Weiss
October 29, 2007 by Mel Weiss
You probably don’t have to think too hard to guess what my feelings are of the stereotypes of Jewish women as guilt-inducing shrews. I’m not much of a fan, to say the least. (For more on debunking that particular myth, check out Joyce Antler’s latest book, You Never Call! You Never Write!: A History of the Jewish Mother) However, some stereotypes do, in fact, come from somewhere, and the truth of the matter is that I am the most guilt-susceptible person you’ll meet. It’s actually quite fantastic.
And as much as this sounds like something I should be working out on an analyst’s couch, I like to see it another way. I think guilt has a lot of power to impel our virtue. As case in point, I give you my recent decision to attempt to stop buying new sweat-shop made clothing. This leaves me far fewer options than you’d imagine, although I’ve been getting sound shopping advice from such organizations as Co-Op America. My mother—perhaps the Ur-source of both my guilt and my values—accused me of launching this new scheme just to make it impossible for her to buy me clothes. (No comment.) As I explained to her, I just can’t deal anymore with the thought of seven-year-old children sewing my garments for pennies a day. I wish I could say it was a nobler sentiment than that—but I’d be lying. The sheer guilt of it started to turn into lead in my stomach, and a new Rosh Hashanah resolution was born.
Of course, guilt, like modesty, honesty and other fun –sty values, is only useful when it’s self-produced. We can’t count on others—like, say, those in positions of power—to be powered by guilt as much as by their own proclaimed altruism. But what we can do is harness our own feelings of guilt, when they arrive, and let them pull us toward more ethical behavior. That way, we can help turn that pesky stereotype on its head and improve the world at the same time—killing two birds with one stone. (They’re metaphorical birds, though, so don’t feel too bad about it.)
Other resources for sweat-shop free clothing:
No Sweat
The Progressive Jewish Alliance
Conscious Consumer
Mexicali Blues
–Mel Weiss
October 22, 2007 by Mel Weiss
Do you ever have that thing where you get really involved with your own life for a few days, and you don’t read the newspaper or hit the blogs or scan the headlines of the dude with NY Daily News who’s standing over you on the subway every morning with the same interest or gusto, and when you take a moment to regroup and reacquaint yourself with the landscape, you kind of want to scream? That’s been my thing the last couple of days.
It started when my mother, a health-care social worker, said I wasn’t allowed to bring up SCHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That’s because after initially passing the bipartisan bill, Congress was unable to muster the votes to overturn President Bush’s veto. (Do you know how your representatives voted? Find out!) The plan would have increased the program’s budget $35 billion over five years—an average of $7 billion a year. You might say that as a Republican, President Bush and the thirteen missing votes are concerned with fiscal spending. That might be true, if the proposed budget for 2008 didn’t include a 6.7% increase. (FYI, the biggest discretionary funding hike by far goes to Defense—natch! Health and Human Services, the department that deals with children’s health care, gets the barest nudge upward, while the EPA and Labor departments actually lose percentage points. Life’s funny like that.) You might, like some Republicans have chosen to do, say that the bill doesn’t focus enough on poor kids, that it caters to the middle class. To that, I’d say you need to check your facts, and I’d also counter with the concept that “poverty” has actually become something of a gray area. America has an almost unprecedented number of people living in what’s known as “near-poverty.” In fact, the number one factor pushing those in “near-poverty” into poverty is a medical trauma that isn’t covered by insurance. So you can see why our fearless leader would be so afraid that this bill would “federalize health care.”
October 15, 2007 by Mel Weiss
It seems that the question of communication versus righteous anger just won’t leave us alone. Frank Rich’s op-ed piece in this Sunday’s New York Times made me feel shame and rage in equal parts, and I spent the day indulging myself in various righteous media-related favorites, reliving furies current and present. I agree with Rich: we can’t let the fire go out on the issue of the war and its mighty fallout, and I’m ready to own up to every moment of complicity I’ve given this administration—not just on this issue, but on all of it: global warming, health care, public education, you name it.
But sheer anger won’t solve our problems. I’ve been on a Katha Pollitt kick recently—even after a summer of Molly Ivins, reading Katha Pollitt is kind of like getting your teeth kicked in by the truth. She’s clearly brilliant, and I am in awe of her. But she’s terribly alienating. However relatively topically as compared with the momentous other issues that face us, the symbolic battle over abortion is clearly of vast import on the political playing field. I have thought long and hard about abortion, choice, the relationship between how a government deals with abortion and what kind of roles women can fulfill in that society, what religion really says about abortion—and I feel I have nuanced, if very strongly held, opinions. But I don’t think I could really sit down and have a conversation with someone radically anti-choice: the rage gets in the way. While this may not bother me much personally, how will we ever get anything solved? How can we reach a compromise through all that anger?
(Of course, sometimes conversation is possible, even where unexpected or unlikely; I learned this week about Encounter for the first time, a program that seeks only to kindle a new conversation about Israel and Palestine. I will admit both the program and the frankness of the discussion around it were greatly heartening: I need to be reminded sometimes that these things are indeed possible.)
And then there’s the question of how much anger we women allow ourselves to exhibit publicly. Certainly our Woman in the Field, such as Senator Clinton is, isn’t great at it. Although Clintonian appeasement is often hailed as an important asset (by me as well as by far more knowledgeable politicos), you know and I know that Clinton saves her public rage for whatever Pres. Bush has done, and only releases it in a carefully staged manner. And well enough for her—the cries of “shrill!” come whenever she opens her mouth, anyway. But faced with such backlash, what should we as women do? Do we accept that women will always have to “be careful” what they say in the public eye? Do we respond to outdated and essentialist assumptions that women only ever want to talk things out with loud anger? Do we acknowledge that there may be some truth behind that stereotype? Do we prize our particular positions or our flexibility more? Or do we vary?
I want to find a balance, in my own life and politics, between anger and conversation. Without a combination we’re stuck, and it is, without a doubt, a vital time to keep moving forward. Your suggestions for this possibly life-long task are welcome: how do you find this balance?
–Mel Weiss
October 8, 2007 by Mel Weiss
The question of nation and religion loomed pretty large for me this week. I took John McCain’s comment that America is a Christian nation as further proof that he’s completely lost his mind (never mind any shot at the nomination). Jon Meachem writing a Sunday op-ed in the Times clearly differs in his opinion; he cites a 1790 treaty signed of the Barbary Coast as proof. I have a friend who is an expert on America’s interactions with the Barbary Coast (go know), and when I called him to quote-check, he recited part of the treaty to me, and it’s true—there’s a specific clause saying that, unlike Europe, America is not a Christian nation and so should have no unbridgeable religious differences with other nations.
And then there was the Bill Moyers’ Journal piece on PBS about CUFI and Christian Zionists—my favorite national perversion. At one point, Mr. Moyers tried to get his guests to be reassuring by asking if the percentage of Americans who believe in dispensationalism (the belief that the Rapture and End Times prophesies, including a divine war, will only occur when the Jewish nation is reconstituted in the Land of Israel) is small or large. Quite small, his guest assured him. Only about 20 million Americans. I’ll admit to cracking up when that came on—what else can you do? It’s only, like, two-and-a-half the current population of Israel. It’s not even twice the Jewish population world-wide. So why get worried? This is theater, people!
Except of course it’s not. And the problem, frankly, isn’t just in America. Turkey’s women are protesting new clauses in the Turkish Constitution that describe women as in need of protection. (We all know what that means.) Iran recently celebrated Quds Day (al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem) as “the day for the weak and oppressed to confront the arrogant powers,” except, of course, if you happen to be a woman who’d prefer not to cover her hair. And our own Rebecca has kept us updated on Israel’s struggles to pull itself firmly into the present with something resembling gender equality under the law.
It’s got to be clear by now that I’m a pretty big fan of the doctrine of separation of church and state (or synagogue and state, mosque and state, whatever). If there’s anything that might ever change my mind, though, I saw it this weekend at one of the Day of Action for Burma rallies. In a crowd at Union Square, people tied red bandanas around their arms, lit candles, and knelt in prayer as Buddhist monks chanted. And they also shouted along with the man with the megaphone. And what were they shouting, these people who want only not to brutally oppressed, who want to support their country’s monks and religious structure, who want a little food on their children’s plates? “United States, please help Burma. United Nations, please help Burma!” Whether or not it crosses my own separation fence between religion and politics—how can you not be impressed with that?
–Mel Weiss
October 1, 2007 by Mel Weiss
I’ve had, for obvious reasons, Sukkot on the brain this week. One of the themes I’ve been dwelling on, if you’ll forgive the pun, is that of the small world. When we “dwell in the Sukkah,” we’re meant to shrink our whole world down and fit it in. And whenever I stop to really notice, I live in a small world—we all do. Not just a flat one (I think of that as a purely economic term), but one that’s steadily shrinking in economic, social and political ways. In the spirit of the holiday, then, a small round-up of goings-on across the not-so-very-wide world. They’re a part of our lives, too.
The Matthew Shepard Bill actually passed in the Senate, leaving only the votes and vetoes of the House and our President between an amended hate crimes law that specifically mentions crimes committed against people based on “gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability” and you. There’s been a great deal of commentary about how hate crimes are already against the law, which makes this law irrelevant and yet another infringement on your red-blooded American rights—a murder is a murder, right? Except that of course it isn’t: we have a system that differentiates between manslaughter and murder, because intent counts. Interestingly, this law has seen all of its hard-core support from the gay community—but the “gender” part affects us all.
Domestic Workers United are in the news again, as their success in passing the “nanny bill” in New York is held up as an example for other communities of domestic workers attempting to secure some variation of a domestic workers’ bill of rights. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that domestic workers make an average wage of $17,000 a year. (For more reading on this issue vis-a-vis Jewish women, click here and here.)
Myanmar, sometimes known as Burma, is imploding. The military regime clamped down on gas prices early last week, and it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. (One visitor told Lilith that when the gas prices spiked, so did bus fares–immediately and by a great deal, stranding many at work with no way to get home.) Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, including the country’s much-revered and rarely-political monks, who have taken to ignoring the military’s orders not to march and have subsequently been fired upon. The Democratic Voice of Burma has ongoing updates, but certainly it looks like it’s going to get worse before it gets better. We’re talking about a nation lacking pretty much any rights for its citizens, with an economy propped up by oil and China. Certainly, sanctions against the regime, which have recently been enacted here in the U.S., are a good idea, but the people of Burma deserve our solidarity, as well. They’re fighting the good fight against some pretty tough odds.
Treyf up your sukkah. Yeah, I’m not wild about the language, either, but there’s no denying that Jewish Women Watching’s new campaign has a lot to say to us about the spirit of the holiday and how we can improve ourselves with sometimes painful honesty in this new year. You can download their sukkah decorations here, and then “upload” them to a nearby sukkah yourself.
There’s lots to be done in our ever-smaller world, where the problems of the world become our problems, too. Luckily, Sukkot helps us focus on the positives, putting a new spin on the old Oscar Wilde quote: we may be all of us in the very temporary Sukkah, but at least we can all see the stars.
–Mel Weiss
September 24, 2007 by Mel Weiss
The High Holiday season maybe technically over, but the lessons we take away will, I hope, linger a bit. I had the pleasure of spending Kol Nidrei at Rabbi Judith Hauptman’s Ohel Ayalah services, and, as expected, I had a phenomenal time. Rabbi Hauptman brings an upbeat and genuinely friendly feeling to the services;
we were at one point instructed to speak to one another during the t’fillot “so that this’ll sound like a real Jewish event.”
We did a quick review of the liturgy, and Rabbi Hauptman spoke about the rabbinic period (please don’t ask me which) when it was decided to change the language of Kol Nidrei—from the releasing of vows made the previous year to asking that vows to be made in the year to come be forgiven. It had to do with how Jews were perceived in non-Jewish courts, and the change is reflected in what we see versus what we read in the Hebrew version of the Kol Nidrei liturgy. (For anything more detailed than this, it’s probably best to ask for yourself.) And thus, Rabbi Hauptman encouraged us to make vows about the year to come—New Year’s resolutions, if you will. Don’t not make them because you might not keep them, she said. You’re saying aloud now that you know your vows could be fallible! But if you don’t make them, there’s no chance.
On a personal note, it’s a comforting thought. Who doesn’t want to revel in their own human fallibility sometimes? But, of course, I just had to bring it around to politics. And thinking about this idea—that we shouldn’t be afraid to dream big—especially in the things we’d like to improve—just because our plans may not work out made me reconsider the somewhat cynical pragmatism I’ve adopted in evaluating our political leaders.
I have high expectations of government and political leaders, I’ll admit it. I believe, sincerely, that government can and should be an actively instrument of good for the citizens of a country—I don’t believe it to be the lesser of evils. And so when I feel repeatedly let down by those in charge, I sometimes affect a more disparaging view of the process and the participants; I say that I want the candidate who can do the least damage, or the candidate with whose plans I feel the most familiar; or whose ideas I think could get past an oppositional legislature, if need be. Pragmatism certainly has its place in evaluating politics and political leaders, but to adhere to it too stringently is to take the possibility of poetry out of leadership. Although our leaders—potential and otherwise—may make vows they will not be able to keep, if they don’t vow it (whether “it” is lower carbon emissions, universal health care, better schools or a safer world), it’ll certainly never happen. I was happy for the reminder.
–Mel Weiss
September 17, 2007 by Mel Weiss
It’s politics slightly closer to home this week—politics of the Jewish community. Specifically, the return to chauvinism. You might think I’m taking about the now-(in)famous Maxim/Israel spread, but no—we’re on to the next insulting incident for women. It seems the JNF—yep, the people who plant trees in Israel and gave you those little blue tzedakah boxes at Hebrew School—have decided to have a fund-raiser in which you can bid to win a trip to the Playboy mansion. Fun for the whole family!
I don’t know what makes the head honchos (and honchas) of the JNF think that this is remotely legitimate. I mean, I really don’t know. Is there some deep-seated Zionist connection with Playboy? Some hidden Herzlian tract on how exploiting women’s physical attributes helps build the homeland? Can somebody fill me in?
I think I’m doubly offended, as a commentator on Jewschool put it, because this crap wasn’t even perpetrated by the likes of Heeb Magazine, the smirking post-irony frat boys of modern Jewish intelligentsia. At least when they offend me, I get the feeling that they’re doing it on purpose. I may not like that, but it has its place, I suppose. The controversy around the JNF kerfuffle, however, seems to mildly surprise its leaders:
“If people don’t want to bid on it, they won’t,” said Anita Jacobs, the director of the JNF’s Greater New York branch, which is organizing the auction. “This is America.”
Asked if she thought Playboy objectifies women, Jacobs replied: “No, not at all.”
But in an era when the divide between the heads of the Jewish institutional world and the rest of us becomes larger and more painfully difficult to bridge, every effort at communication across the divide holds ever more tenuous possibilities for real communication or a whole lot of disillusionment. It works in both directions, I know—but what a throwaway moment. Because young men aren’t going to travel to Israel because they saw a spread in Maxim. They’re not going to be more dedicated to eretz yisrael because they won a subscription to Playboy. (Similarly, nobody should vote for Hilary Clinton based on her cleavage.) And the rest of us out here—feminists of all genders, as well as those who merely have sound taste—are running, screaming, for the hills. Looks like Israel’s getting one less tree this year.
Have something to say? Drop JNF a line, or leave a comment below. In fact, do both.
–Mel Weiss
UPDATE:
According to the fine folks at Jewschool, the outraged voices of a lot of folks have turned the tide of misogyny. Huzzah!
September 10, 2007 by Mel Weiss
What a week for confusing politics and conflicting ideas! Wednesday night, I had the extreme pleasure of seeing Ruth Wisse’s Jews and Power being released. I know I’ve written about it before, but now is the time to pick this book up and give it a read, because it falls into that small and precious category of readings that, even if you hate them, will make you smarter. The book delves into perhaps the most pressing issue regarding the psychology of modern Jewry: how much power is “right”? It’s an honest accounting of how political systems work, and it essentially repeats the Zionist idea that Jews can be a nation like other nations—and provides ample evidence that the insistence that Jews supercede even their own strict moral codes evolved during history into something dangerously pathological. It’s not the easiest theory to swallow coming from a liberal political perspective, but it’s compellingly argued. This is, of course, a most simplistic rendering of her arguments, so go read the book yourself.
Thursday night, however, was something of an antidote: the Jewcy protest at the 92nd street Y.
September 3, 2007 by Mel Weiss
There’s been a lot going on in politics this last week, at least
scandal-wise. There’s already been an almost obscene amount of airtime
and column space devoted to the gentleman from Idaho’s exploits in
cruisin’, and since I’ve had my lit-student hat on more recently, I want
to talk about literature and politics and the Jewish community, right now.
I love learning about the connection between literature and
sociological/economic/political periods, and it’s what originally drew me
to Jewish literature and Jewish academia in the first place.
I read an excellent Jewschool post on Cynthia Ozick’s recent response to reviews
of Tova Reich’s novel Our Holocaust in The Jewish Week. Since the
review will be pretty useless unless you’ve heard of the book (which is
certainly an excellent read, and worth your time even if it infuriates
you), a quick recap: Reich uses Our Holocaust to skewer “the
victim-commemoration industry,” and it gets pretty intense. And whether
you think it’s brilliant satire or petulant cruelty, the fact remains that
it is, in fact, demonstrative of the kind of tension that exists regarding
Holocaust memorialization, both culturally and politically.
Whether it’s the struggle to define a Jewish identity and to fight
assimilation or the very real role the ADL plays in determining whether or
not the U.S. Congress recognizes the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust and
“the g-word,” as Abe Foxman puts it, are disputed territory right now.
(The Forward has taken a look at the ADL’s role in all this.) One of the main arguments for the ADL’s continued stance that it would be bad for Congress to recognize the Armenian genocide is that it would upset Turkey, an important ally for the U.S., and an even more important one for Israel. This argument may well prove correct, but then again, if Kurdistan cedes from Iraq—something analysts deem possible—Turkey’s going to invade and declare war with us, so our caution on this may be worthless. Also, it’s mildly morally reprehensible.
This is something that will have very real consequences in our world,
but who are the two making the most noise—or at least the noise that gets
a lot of coverage—over this issue? A novelist and a literary critic.
Both women. I can’t verify that there’s something to that fact, but I
think there’s a definite legacy—both distinctly Jewish and distinctly
feminist—at work. Because we still see a media imbalance
that penalizes women (and the Jewish press is not necessarily excluded),
women who want their voices heard have learned to speak out as loudly as
they can, exercising to their full advantage their blasting wit (Reich)
and the sheer force of their intellect (Ozick). And tapping into a richly
literate and socially attuned stream of Jewish culture helped them do it
in the realm of literature.
I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground for any further updates on this
particular issue, but mostly I’ve been enjoying yet another example that, in
our day as in days past, the best place a Jewish feminist can go for her
political fix is sometimes the arts section.
–Mel Weiss