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Author Archives: Mel Weiss
August 27, 2007 by Mel Weiss
Political Theology, Take Two
So I spent many hours this week watching the recent CNN special, God’s
Warriors (on YouTube, where you can
find it, too). Whew! What a complex and complicated set of information
to absorb. It’s been a constantly playing record in my brain: how on Earth
are we meant to deal with people who insist on fusing politics with their
own fervent political beliefs?
The special itself was pretty enjoyable. Mostly, although obviously a
gimmick for better ratings, I was pretty impressed that CNN supported such
a project in the first place. To devote six hours to God’s
Warriors—a.k.a. the extreme fusion of religion and politics—is to first
and foremost commit to making people admit that the problem is not only
“over there;” it’s a universal problem. Letting Chrisiane Amanpour run
the show was a good idea; she never once let slip any personally-held
religious beliefs, and she although she often questioned people with a
gentle incredulity, she let almost all of them talk openly in response.
And she did manage to bring up women and a very simple gendered analysis
of the whole deal—“Fundamentalism of any stripe is bad for women,” which
is true enough.
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August 20, 2007 by Mel Weiss
Political Theology, Take One
You know when you spend a lot of time thinking about something, and then suddenly it seems to be everywhere? I’ve had that feeling recently. First, Ruth Wisse’s almost-out book, Jews and Power, showed up in the Lilith office, and within a day I’d devoured it. Then, this week’s
New York Times magazine features a cover article entitled “The Politics of God”. And this coming week, CNN is featuring a series of specials on political/religious figures in Islam, Christianity and Judaism. As someone who can’t get her mind off of the connections between
religion and politics, it’s kind of like the world’s been reading my mind.
The excellent Jews and Power focuses on Jewish politics—or rather, the ways Jews have constructed and envisioned power, which was generally distinct from hegemonic views. But it nicely illuminates the way that religion can not only influence how politics are conducted, but how for much of the world, for nearly all of history, religion has been political. If we find ourselves surprised by that fact, it’s as much a product of our American history as our modernity. We’re so removed from Europe’s religious wars, from everything from the Hussite massacres to the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. I think sometimes it makes it hard to understand a lot of the rest of the world.
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August 13, 2007 by Mel Weiss
Voting and "the Israel issue"
I had the extreme pleasure of being hosted this past weekend by an older couple—a good friend’s grandparents—who found me confusing and, I hope, fairly enjoyable. I think they were a little perturbed when they found us lighting Shabbat candles in the kitchen, but were both surprised and pleased to learn that I’ve studied Yiddish. My grasp of the language is far from what I’d want, but I’ve put some time in learning both Yiddish songs and American Yiddish culture, so I can carry a conversation. I learned about the International Workers’ Organization, where one of my hosts studied Yiddish fiction. (“So it was like the Arbeiter Ring?” “Far to the left.” “Socialist?” “Worse!”)
I happened to learn about a segment of their family—not religious, but also not tapped into the same sort of secular Jewish culture that these staunch leftist Yiddishists were—that voted Republican. Because of “the Israel issue.” And, given that I had lit possibly the first Shabbat candles their kitchen had ever seen, and that I was wearing a Hagshimim shirt emblazoned with “I LOVE ISRAEL. I WANT PEACE,” they were curious to know my view on this. And my response is, it infuriates me.
I don’t believe in one-issue voting, actually. In a lot of ways, it bothers me. I almost decked a young man in a London bar who scoffed that the only reason I disliked George Bush was because of the Iraq War. Now, I happen to be someone who thinks the Bush administration lied about the casus belli and then mismanaged the thing right into the ground, but I’m also a domestic policy wonk, and I can talk your ear off about Congress’ prescription drug plan. My reasons for currently being nauseated by Republicans are quite diverse.
Of course, there are times when I, too, falter in this regard. I might not think Ron Paul was such a nut if he weren’t anti-choice. I can’t really reconcile the fiercely Libertarian message of ”The biggest threat to your privacy is the government” with the idea of “Dear women, we’d like to dictate exactly what you may and may not do—because we’re the government and we know better!” You might call this one-issue voting, although I wouldn’t vote for him anyway.
Further, voting because of “the Israel issue” strikes me as a singularly bizarre way to enter American politics. If you live here, and have no plans on moving there, then maybe your first and foremost concern will be who’s going to make sure that you can get affordable health insurance, access to free speech, money for college, a job, a home not invaded by local pollution, relief funds if a hurricane strikes, etc. I care about foreign policy, too, but I live here, and the here stuff is what most immediately affects me.
Look, like the tee-shirt says, I love Israel. I have gone many a round with some beloved and less-beloved lefties about why Israel is not always in the wrong, and has, you know, the right to exist. But I have also gone several rounds with American Jews who really believe that loving Israel—the modern nation, not the messianic dream—means supporting it unconditionally. And I think that’s a load of crap.
For me, the beauty of discovering politics was about realizing that I am actually affected by these things, and the realization grows stronger all the time. I love Israel and am affected by it, but in a different—and frankly, more removed way—than I am affected by environmental deregulation that lets arsenic get into the tap water. And so my political concerns for Israel are definitely present—I would never vote for a candidate who outright declared Israel the enemy of America—but I see them in the context of larger, more immediate concerns.
There’s a lot of other things mixed in here that I’m not going to talk about—everything from the flaws of the Jewish Emancipations in Europe to the nuances of modern Zionism. It’s an interesting topic and surely one that we’ll see crop up again—and again and again—as the clock ticks down to election ’08. It’s good, I think, to bring this issue out in the open and discuss it like adults, avoiding wherever possible delegitimizing the opinions of those who disagree with us. But I’d still rather fight about healthcare.
–Mel Weiss
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August 6, 2007 by Mel Weiss
Are Affiliations Necessary?
I was asked to explain two things this weekend, and the more I think about them, the more I wonder how related they might be, and how useful it may or may not be to treat them as comparable. Those two things were the term “post-denominational” and what I think about voters who don’t affiliate with particular political parties.
For maybe a year and a half now, I’ve been exploring what
post-denominational Judaism is, could be and could mean in general for Jews, and I’ve
forgotten that such issues are still pretty fringe. There’s a great article from the Jerusalem Post on post-denominationalism, and it mentions my favorite indie minyan, the first place I ever heard describe itself as “post-denominational.” To do an extremely Reader’s Digest recap, post-denominationalism is a thought, a theory, a new way of enacting Judaism that rejects the idea that denominations are the best vehicle to carry us into the next century. Why worry about Conservative/Orthodox/Conservadox/Reform, etc.? We have other words to define ourselves (like “traditional” vs. “non-traditional”, egalitarian vs. not, more halakhically-bound vs. less so, and oh-so-many other categories that sites like Jew It Yourself help us learn to use). Why be more divisive than necessary?
Well, according to Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky of Ansche Chesed in New York, because it’s the only way to get anything done. Using Max Weber’s church/sect breakdown, Rabbi Kalmanofsky concludes that one major reason to allow your small, “sect-y,” invigorated, manageable sect grow larger, less manageable, bureaucratic and obtuse (as a “church”) is because it gives you the clout—and the numbers, and often the cash—to get something done.
Rabbi Kalmanofsky has many ideas on the topic, but I leave those to another venue. I ran up against this idea—that it’s more important to have the numbers and bulk to raise money and cause fear—in political conversations recently. And thus we come to middle-of-the-road voters. I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that there is a single American who hadn’t decided at least what party he or she intends to vote for, but of course they exist.
So, is it more important that I describe myself as a progressive or a liberal or a Democrat? I’m fully registered, and all those words are true. There are things the Democratic party does that I don’t agree with, and certainly that individual Dems do that I outright reject (Harry Reid, I’m looking at your flag-burning vote right now). But I strongly affirm my allegiance to the party, even when it makes me want to retch a little. Why? Because it’s the only way to insure that things get done. How else to accumulate money, support, and votes for issues I care about? The two-party system is pretty entrenched, and so I play along with it.
I’m not done thinking about the structural similarities between these two issues. For all that Judaism is not a two-party system, certain money, as well as a lot of power and prestige, flows along “partisan” lines. How should I reconcile my interest in post-denominationalism with the part of me that fiercely guards my voter registration card? For how long ought the pressing demands of practicality rein over a more intuitive self-definition.
Well, once we’ve got a Democrat in the White House, I guess I’ll have more time to worry about this sort of stuff. So I guess I’ll check back in with more ideas in November.
–Mel Weiss.
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July 30, 2007 by Mel Weiss
Democracy on (Internet) Prime Time
I’m all about free video clips on YouTube, but the recent Democratic debates constitute a category of their own. CNN and YouTube teamed up to bring questions to the candidates straight from you, webcammed America. It may have been tacky, it may have been a ploy that let the candidates continue to mouth their stale rhetoric, but at least it was a great help to those of us without cable, because the answers got posted on YouTube, as well.
I’m struck by the great diversity—of technical quality, of political savvy—and by the candidates’ highly varied abilities to relax for half a moment. Some schmuck asked Senator Clinton (why can no one call her that?) if she thinks a woman president could be taken seriously by the Arab world. Quite rightly, and with a slightly wry tone, Sen. Clinton explained that there are other countries in the world with female leaders—like Germany, and India—and they seem to be doing okay on the stage of international diplomacy. What she did not point out was that the gender of our great leader is definitely not the thing currently afflicting our current foreign policy. Nor did she point out that getting fair shakes right here in the enlightened West can sometimes be trying for a female candidate as well. (I promised myself I wouldn’t write about the Great Cleavage Insanity until I can talk about it sans nausea.)
There were plenty of religious questions, including one truly righteous query from Rev. Reggie Longcrier about the legitimacy of using religion to deny gays the right to marriage, given that America is now mostly in consensus that it was probably wrong to use religion to justify slavery, segregation and to keep women from voting. John Edwards has an interesting response to this, which is that although he feels “tremendous personal conflict” over the issue, he doesn’t think his personal religious beliefs should collide with the law. This is something I’d like all politicians to talk about more, because let’s face it: you can’t get elected president right now if you don’t have a great deal to say about your faith.
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July 23, 2007 by Mel Weiss
On Religion, Politics and Middle Eastern Outsiders
One big story in the international department this week is sure to be Turkey’s recent election. I’ll own up to a minor obsession with Turkey’s history and politics, but I do think this election has, in its own peculiar way, implications for Israel. (For a great wealth of information on the Turkish election, check out The Economist’s website, because they’ve done a super job of following the issue for months; the most recent article can be found here.)
To make a long story extremely short, Turkey’s democratically-elected government, under the Justice and Development (AK) Party, is more Islamic-leaning than any administration has been since Ataturk’s great secularist reforms in the 1920s and ‘30s. Intriguingly, it’s also the most reformist—legalizing such previous crimes as speaking Kurdish—and strongly continues the tradition of upholding secular institutions. A crisis was precipitated when the current president declared his intent to nominate his foreign minister to a vacated judicial post. The Army posted its intent to enact a coup on its website, the AK administration decided to call early elections, and generally the conflict was brought to the surface. But clearly the will of the people has been made known, because the AK party just won the elections.
So, what’s the connection? Well, it starts with the same neither-here-nor-there position occupied by both Turkey and Israel, Middle Eastern countries who are/think they are/want to be European. Turkey has, of course, applied for EU membership so many times that they can probably fill out the applications in their sleep, and while there has never been more than whisperings of an eventual application by Israel, I have no doubt that the average Tel Avivian would consider herself more European than Middle Eastern. Further, Turkey’s outsider status as a non-Arab country has eased Turkish-Israeli politics, at least for a long time. (Dr. Neill Lochery, a well-respected academic, has suggested that Turkey’s rejection from the EU will have long-reverberating repercussions for this relationship, since competition for the same, more local markets in inevitable. Of course, he also said that Israeli tourism to Turkey would eventually subside because “how many leather jackets can you own?”) (more…)
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July 15, 2007 by Mel Weiss
Dangerous Bedfellows
I opened an innocuous-looking email here at the Lilith office last week and found we had been cordially invited to the 2nd Annual Israel/Washington DC Summit sponsored by Christians United for Israel (CUFI). It’s a sweet thought, but I personally intend to pass. In fact, the whole thing creeps me out like you can’t believe.
I’d hate for anyone to think that I have a problem with Christians or Christianity, because that’s not true and not what this is about. But Christian Zionism makes me uneasy, as I think it’s just a sugar-coated offshoot of a highly politically-motivated Christianity—a proselytizing, anti-separation-of-church-and-state, messianic Christianity. And while people are allowed to believe whatever they want, these folks certainly aren’t my vote. (For a great and terrifying read, check out Michelle Goldberg’s book, Kingdom Coming.)
Rev. John Hagee, who’s been highlighted speaker at a recent AIPAC conference, heads CUFI. I almost don’t mind that his friendship towards Israel is predicated on the idea that we Chosen Folk must all be gathered there before Christ can return to Earth to judge us; I’m much more concerned at the rapturous welcome he and other Christian Religious Rightists have been given by the right-inclined section of the American Jewish community. Now, I know it’s not easy to be a supporter of Israel on the left—I went to a very left-wing college and got in my fair share of near fist-fights. However, we need to have a serious discussion inside the Jewish community about this phenomenon.
And it is definitely a phenomenon. In 2002, the Zionist Organization of America awarded Pat Robertson the “State of Israel Friendship Award.” Yeah, that Pat Robertson. Yes, yes, the man who said—not insinuated, but said, on his national television show—that Ariel Sharon’s stroke might have been divine retribution for giving land to the Palestinians. Ditto, Rabin’s assassination. Of course, Mr. Robertson also believes that feminism is a “socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians”. He said that in The Washington Post, people! What was the ZOA thinking?!
This is going to come back to haunt us in domestic policy in the near and very-near future. No matter what your view of secular humanism (fundamentalist Christianity’s sworn enemy), Jews in America benefit from the separation of church and state because we’re a teeny tiny minority. It’s there for those of us who don’t want to pray somebody else’s prayers in public school, or have judicial decisions passed down based on religious beliefs we don’t share.
Look, I know that Israel needs support—although it does boggle the mind that the same people who discipline their children can’t conceive that sometimes unconditional support is less than helpful—but we can’t let support for Israel be the cost of our participation in egregiously misguided unions. Jewish organizations—some of the most mainstream among them—are getting into bed with people who speak out against Muslims, gays, feminists, and compromise. There has to be another way.
If all this fails to convince you, check out Rabbi Eric Yoffie’s article in the Forward on why this phenomenon is bad for the Jews. That’s something we can all agree to worry about.
–Mel Weiss
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July 9, 2007 by Mel Weiss
Legislating Fairness
I’d like to take a moment to talk about American law, and race, and we the (Jewish) people. It came up when the Supreme Court decided that Brown v. The Board of Education never happened, and it comes up all the time when I want to talk about affirmative action. I find many Jews—at least socially liberal, economically comfortable, white-passing Jews—have a real mental block about affirmative action (which was certainly related to the recent Court ruling—it’s still affirmative action even if the parties in question are fourteen). I think a lot of that block is the sense that if Jews, a minority that certainly did tend to arrive in America with almost nothing, have been able to “make it,” then certainly any and everybody should be able to. I think such a train of thought, although entirely misguided, does display a continuing value placed on education, work, and self/communal-reliance. Nothing wrong with that, but it ignores a few basic points, the first of which is that Jews did have something like affirmative action here in the U.S. They called it the G.I. Bill. One of the most pinko pieces of legislation to get rammed through a Congress, the G.I. Bill did things for the “white ethnic” working class (Jews, Irish, Italians, etc.) that would have never been otherwise imaginable. Free education?! Our current vet packages should be so nice. Among the thousands of soldiers (mostly white, from a segregated armed forces) who received a free college education this way were both of my grandfathers—the first in their families to go to college in this country. Yes, education is a value in the Jewish community—no doubt. But yes, we got something from the government too, once. It leveled the playing field—not such a horrible thing.
It’s important to note that the G.I. Bill helped men far more than women—and that shows, too, in a pay gap that still has not resolved itself, despite the pretty permanent place of women in the workplace now. I’m not going to get into the various theories about why such a pay gap exists—and there are plenty—but just put on the table the fact that it’s sexist and wrong. I’m as in favor of a meritocracy as the next citizen, but I’d love something in place to help modulate fair hiring practices and make sure I can sue for equitable wages.
And finally, we’re part of a religious and, to some extent, a cultural community that absolutely dictates fairness in our business conduct. More than the requirement to allow extra wheat for gleaners—that’ll come when we discuss welfare—and even more than the exhortation “Justice, justice shall you pursue,” we have very specific instructions about how we are to conduct ourselves in the business realm:
“Thou shall not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small. Thou shalt not have in thy house divers measures, a great and a small. A perfect and just weight shalt thou have, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have.” (Deut. 25:13-15)
Fairness, real fairness even where we might lessen our own profits, is a commandment. Justice and fairness sometimes require a small sacrifice on our part, in the sense of not taking that which might not be ours by right. Not every group has access to such an ancient and meaningful system of holy obligations, and it’s time that we support their implementation in our day to day lives.
–Mel Weiss
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July 2, 2007 by Mel Weiss
Supreme Court to Home Health Workers: Screw You
In yet another example of how the U.S. Supreme Court devalues women, we have the settlement of Long Island Care at Home v. Coke, and it is grim. Essentially, the ruling states that home health care workers—a group that logs in at over 90% female—should be included in what are legally known as “companion services.” This is a big deal, as the 1974 Fair Labor Standards Act exempts “companion services” from the minimum wage. Just to clarify, before the Court assigned home health workers this legal position, the category of “companion services” was mostly populated by babysitters, dog walkers, and that neighborhood kid you pay a dollar to come feed your cat. (For more on this, check out a great NOW article on the subject.)
Leaving entirely aside for the moment the fact that even if these women were accorded the minimum wage, they might not be clocking in a living wage, let’s turn briefly to the incredibly patronizing tone this decision inscribes into law. This is an immense devaluation of some of the hardest work being done in this country—notably, work that has been historically handled by women.
This isn’t merely a case of straight-up and down misogyny (or racism, for that matter, with women of color radically outnumbering all others in the field of home health care), especially since the workers won their first round, pre-Supreme Court, in the NY State Court of Appeals. Jacki Lyden and Nancy Solomon of NPR report on the case made by lawyers during the trial that paying home health aides and others in the field a minimum wage would bankrupt an already imploding health care system. I won’t be the one to say that isn’t true—but it sure isn’t a solid reason not to pay these workers the wages they’re most certainly due. (And, as the child of a health-care-oriented social worker, I’m assured that many of the problems bound up in our entirely backward system are going to remain problems until the people who work on the ground with patients—meaning nurses, aides and home health providers—are paid enough to feed their own families.)
Lilith has been dealing with the related social justice issue of domestic workers for a while, so I know there’s a tzedek issue at the base here, but in the spirit of bi-partisanship, let’s explore the me-factor, the thing that ought to drive this home for us all: we have grandparents. We have parents. We have ourselves in ten, twenty, fifty years. We may need someone to help us or our loved ones into and out of bed, in or out of the tub, help eating, help with medication. And if we value ourselves and our loved ones, we should value those upon whom they and we will rely.
The Supreme Court’s ruling was embarrassing and demeaning, and it will only serve to hold together for whatever meager amount of time remains a faulty and punishing national system of health care. Rock on, team.
For those of you who are into that sort of thing, you can read the full decision here, and check out the official statement by the 1199SEIU HealthCare Workers Union.
–Mel Weiss
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June 24, 2007 by Mel Weiss
Jews, Women, History, Politics
I read the newspaper a lot. I read blogs, I have a news-journal habit I can’t afford, and I listen to my roommate playing NPR in the morning. I am into politics. I am a Jewish feminist who is into politics. They’re vital. Molly Ivins used to say that people can’t afford not to be interested in politics—they affect every waking moment of our lives.
I’ll be spending my time on this blog going after political issues and figures large and small, but I wanted to take one post to explain what I see as the intersection of my identities with how I view the political playing field—it’s only fair prep. My view of the world is governed by two defining ideas, and I’m pretty sure they spring from the same places as the Jewish feminist thing.
1) Historical context. I am obsessed with historical context. I think it goes to the core of pretty much any political—or for that matter, sociological—phenomenon. I don’t think a Jew can afford to be devoid of a solid understanding of historical context—it’s better than psychiatry for helping you crack the code of why people do like they do. Jews, particularly, are a people with a long collective memory, and I’ve whetted my historical teeth on the ideas in this extended history.
2) A global context for local action—and for global action as well. Going well beyond the dictum that all politics are local, this is something I think feminists were quick to grasp onto, owing probably to the fairly universal phenomena of patriarchy and misogyny. Things going on in one part of the world generally have repercussions in other parts—more now, in our hyper-interactive world. Think Turkey’s current struggle in balancing Islamism and democracy—much more complicated than it sounds, actually—isn’t going to affect Israel’s regional relations? Try again. I want to understand the global ripples for each individual drop into the pond.
These two things deal, temporally and spatially, with the interconnectedness of everything. Such is the governing concept of how I deal with the politics, and you’ll be able to see how those two things emerge for me in looking at the everyday goings on wheelin-n-dealin’ machinations of political machines of all sizes.
—Mel Weiss
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