Category Archives: Orthodox-Bashing

Unreal

I was recently privileged to spend the good part of a week on the tree-studded rural campus of my alma mater, Yeshivas Ner Yisroel (the Ner Israel Rabbinical College, according to the sign at its entrance). As always, visiting the place where I studied some forty years ago was an enthralling experience.

There have been changes, to be sure, at Yeshiva Lane, the winding private road that is the yeshiva buildings’ address. What was the main study hall in my day now serves the yeshiva’s high school division; and a magnificent newer beis medrash stands where, in the 1970s, an old house occupied by a faculty member’s family sat on a hill. New housing has risen up for faculty and married kollel students – there is a long waiting list of kollel-fellow families living “in town” (that is to say, Baltimore and its suburb Pikesville) who are anxious to move onto the yeshiva campus. (Kollel fellows who can no longer afford to be engaged in full-time Torah study understand that their campus apartment or townhouse should be offered to a a full-time kollel fellow’s family.)

Torah life and study, and children, permeate Yeshiva Lane. Students and staff members walk to or from the study hall, often in studious conversation with one another; and parents driving cars and vans shuttle their children to schools “in town.” After school hours, the bevies of bicycles lying near the entrance of each of the apartment buildings welcome their owners back. A small playground suddenly comes to life, echoing with the sweetest sound in the world, happy kids at play.

On the Sabbath, the scene is idyllic. With no traffic, carpools, appointments or any reason to rush, a special calm settles over the campus. The songbirds that must have been there the entire week suddenly stand out, adding avian Shabbos songs to the ambiance. In the afternoon, after services and the festive Shabbos meal, parents sit on the balconies of their homes, watching their children at play, or study or just relax. A special lecture is offered for women, and husbands take a break from their studies to allow their wives to attend. Everyone looks after everyone else and everyone else’s children. The community is a model of caring. Every neighbor is neighborly.

Life on Yeshiva Lane unmistakably revolves around the study halls, where a total of close to 900 boys and men delve into the Talmud and other Jewish sources, usually studying in pairs. And the dynamos that are the batei medrash operate on Shabbos no less energetically than during the week, and are filled with young and not-so-young men from early morning until late at night.

I took the opportunity to spend a couple hours in one of those study halls; it was hard to find a seat. I applied myself to my own studies for most of the time, and then listened in to several of the pairs of students studying in my vicinity. It was as if I had been transported four decades into the past; the material and method of learning were more than familiar. And four decades hence, I realized, the room’s walls would hear the same sort of academic conversations, about the same texts. The Torah has been the focus of Jewish minds over millennia; and always will be.

Like all good things, though, my visit came to an end and I returned to a very different “ultra-Orthodox” world, at least a very different depiction of it than the one I had just experienced.

My job immerses me in the media. And awaiting me were the usual reports and blog postings about Orthodox Jews’ real or imagined crimes and misdemeanors, and the regular opinion pieces equating Orthodox belief and standards with backwardness, sexism, “phobias” and intolerance.

A special welcome-back “present” was a long frothing-at-the-mouth diatribe in a respected Jewish periodical, written by a self-described “polymath” angrily decrying the growth of the charedi community and its “Jewish fundamentalism,” which, he contends, “threatens the fabric of American Jewish life.” The would-be dragon-slayer railed against “the coercion and ignorance prevalent in American ultra-Orthodox communities”; asserted that charedi lives are “a distortion of Judaism” and fuel an “apparatus of fear, manipulation and power mongering”; sees something sinister if not criminal in the acceptance of Pell grants by yeshiva students who qualify for them; and sounds a dire warning that, because of charedi Jews’ generally large families, “New York Jewry, within a generation, will be fundamentalist, poor, uneducated and reactionary.”

Two depictions of the same subject, one a Rembrandt, the other a Picasso. What comes to mind is the famous musing of the Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu. “Last night I dreamt that I was a butterfly,” he told his students. “Now I do not know if I am Chuang Tzu, who dreamt himself a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he is Chuang Tzu.”

No, reality wasn’t what I returned to last week, but rather what I left behind. The portrait painted by a jaundiced media and the precious polymath is the dream, a fever dream. What I saw in Baltimore – which is duplicated in every charedi community I’ve lived in or visited – is the reality.

Savage Ignorance

It’s difficult to know whether shock-jock Michael Savage is in fact the actual person whose Bronx-accented ranting emanates daily from radios across the country, or whether that voice belongs to an adopted persona, a cantankerous, rude and hilariously self-aggrandizing misfit who seeks to capitalize on an assortment of angers lurking in the dark corners of listeners’ souls.

Certainly the fact that the former Michael Weiner adopted the name “Savage,” of all things, and that the portly 70-ish fellow introduces his program with abrasive headbanger music more suitable to a pierced punk rocker than a political pontificator would seem to argue for the alter ego case. So would optimism about the human condition: It would be disturbing to know that such an abrasive person was in fact real.

Already disturbing is the fact that the fellow (or his affected persona) has Jewish admirers. Those fans apparently figure that someone who voices fury for terrorists, bashes Israel-bashers and claims to stand up for traditional morals not only can’t be all bad but must be all good. No logic there, of course, but no one ever claimed that fandom is fettered by reason.

And so some Orthodox Jewish admirers of Mr. Savage (or DR. Savage, as he prefers to be called – he earned a Berkeley Ph.D. in “nutritional ethnomedicine”) were pained to hear the talk show host spend most of two programs last week spitting outrage at a Jewish ritual and its “bearded guys” practitioners.

The ritual, metzitza bipeh, or oral suctioning of a circumcision cut – a practice widely observed in Chassidic and yeshiva-centric communities – is hardly a good poster child for religious freedom. That it appears strange and even dangerous to uninformed people unfamiliar with the rite is entirely understandable.

But ignorance – something Mr. Savage champions himself as helping lesser people overcome – remains ignorance; and its promotion, heavily larded with ill will, is offensive. It might not be surprising in a radio personality who famously once asserted that in “ninety-nine percent” of autism cases the child is just “a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out” and on another occasion told a listener who dared take issue with him to “Go eat a sausage, and choke on it.” But the offensiveness remains.

Yes, New York Mayor (a.k.a. “Nanny-in-Chief”) Michael Bloomberg, with the assistance of the New York Board of Health, has waged war on metzitza bipeh, claiming that it has been the cause of infections of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 (the cold sore virus, carried by most of the population but which can be dangerous in babies). That fact was the extent of Mr. Savage’s research of the issue. But it has been compellingly asserted by objective scientists that the mayor and health board’s claims are without basis in fact.

New York Westchester Hospital Chief of Infectious Diseases Dr. Daniel S. Berman, Beth Israel Hospital director of epidemiologic research Dr. Brenda Breuer and Columbia University Professor Awi Federgruen, an expert in quantitative methodology, have all publicly called into serious question the claim that metzitza bipeh represents any quantifiable danger to babies.

(There is, of course, a slightly increased danger of any infection at the site of any open wound – including a circumcision, even when metzitza bipeh was not performed. But such increased risk of harm doesn’t approach that of the increased risk to life and limb attendant to, say skiing, bicycling or crossing a Manhattan street – even when the “walk” sign is on.)

Affidavits by each of those intrepid professionals (none of whom carries any brief for metzitza bipeh; their only goal is to defend the integrity of science and its objective application to life and law) can be read at http://protectmilah.org/ (on the click-through to the second page of the site).

Had Mr. Savage taken the time and care to actually research the issue of the Jewish ritual’s alleged dangerousness before launching his crude tirade, he might have been less inclined to render a judgment so quickly, absolutely and rudely. But that would have required fairness and objectivity, not to mention good will toward people with whom he has little in common.

And such things, admirable though they are, don’t do much for ratings.

Musing: When Hatred Deserves the Worst Label

The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles recently posted the offering of one Liami Lawrence, in which he celebrates the new Israeli government’s lack of “fat men in their black coats” who “write out blank checks for their rabbis and yeshivas” – yeshivas, he continues, whose students “sit back and pretend to study… and make babies.” He insinuates that charedim in Israel don’t pay taxes, that they “force” women to sit in the back of the bus in charedi neighborhoods and that their behavior can be characterized as “schnorring, lying and cheating.”

Often, and rightly, bemoaned is the use of terms evocative of Klal Yisrael’s worst enemies in personal or political discourse where it has no place. Taking a hard line on defense or the budget should not render anyone open to being called a Cossack or a Nazi.

But then there are cases where, were a word replaced with “Jew,” the yield would be something recognizably Streicherian.

Mr. Lawrence’s eruption qualifies, I think, for that distinction. And the Jewish Journal bears responsibility for spreading the hatred here.

A Good Eye

One thing I was not prepared to find when I scanned the op-ed page of The New York Times this past Friday was reference to the perennial dilemma of what bracha, or blessing, to make on Crispix, the breakfast cereal whose morsels each consist of one side rice and one side corn. (No authoritative decision was offered; two separate blessings are the recommendation I’ve seen in more reliable sources).

That oddity (for the newspaper, that is; the Crispix question has been revisited numerous times in the Shafran home) was mentioned in the context of an article by columnist David Brooks entitled “The Orthodox Surge.”

Despite the nervous-making title – when I think “surge,” hurricanes and armies come to mind – the piece was a welcome respite from the sort of coverage of the Orthodox Jewish community more commonly found in the media. Orthodox-related happenings regarded as news fit to print usually consist of actual or alleged criminal acts committed by individuals in the community, or practices the paper’s readers are likely to find socially illiberal or bizarre. Even reportage of wonderfully positive happenings, like the gathering of 90,000 Jews this past summer at MetLife Stadium to celebrate Talmud-study, are carefully tarnished with negativity.

The Times’ article about the Siyum HaShas was peppered throughout with things like the substantial cost of the mechitza (curtain separating the men and the women present) at the event, and the fact that Orthodox women don’t traditionally study Talmud. Instead of interviewing any of the tens of thousands of such traditional women of all ages present at the event who fully embrace the concept of religious gender roles, the reporter managed to ferret out the rare feminist Talmud-student instead to quote at length. The piece deserved a prize, the “Agenda-Driven Journalism Award.”

Back, though, to Mr. Brooks. As a columnist – not to mention, an uncharacteristically conservative one for the paper – he does not have to toe any liberal line. And so he was free to approach his subject, the growth and values of the Orthodox community, without the usual mud-colored glasses.

Taken by his guide, Rabbi Meir Soloveitchik, to a large Brooklyn supermarket catering to the Orthodox, he found the religious safari enlightening.

He describes being impressed by how Orthodox Jews hew so carefully to their “collective covenant with G-d,” by how, “deep down,” observant Jewish life “is based on a countercultural understanding of how life should work.”

“They go shopping,” he writes, “like the rest of us, but their shopping is minutely governed by an external moral order.” Their religious laws “give structure to everyday life… infuse everyday acts with spiritual significance… build community… regulate desires… making religion an everyday practical reality.”

All in all, a straightforward, accurate depiction of the community and its values. And so, predictably, it stuck uncomfortably in the craw of some, chagrined that Mr. Brooks had dared focus only on beauty and not warts.

And it wasn’t only the usual bloggerei who simmered, but even as accomplished and respectable a person as Jane Eisner, the editor of the Forward. Ms. Eisner complained that the Brooks column hadn’t noted that “ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn, while experiencing an enviable surge in population, is also weighted down by increasing poverty, enhanced by the large families and devotion to pure Torah study that Brooks extols.” And she didn’t miss the opportunity to remind the paper’s readers that scoundrels exist among the Orthodox as elsewhere, heralding accusations of improprieties in the community – and, of course, her paper’s brave dedication to ferreting out and publicizing them.

Graciously acknowledging that, indeed, “there are magnificent aspects to the devout practice of religion,” she made it clear, though, that there are “troubling ones as well,” and that Mr. Brooks did a disservice to his readers by presenting only “one gauzy moment.”

I’m reminded by the Talmud’s teaching that one can gaze upon something or someone with either a “good eye” or a “bad eye,” with benevolence, that is to say, or with something else. It is unfortunate, but some of our fellow Jews seem ill-disposed toward us Orthodox. Part of the reason may be that the image of halacha-committed Jewish life inherently discomfits them, makes them wonder if traditional Judaism’s core belief system may still be relevant, even… Divine. Another part, perhaps, is simple fear, of something else Mr. Brooks notes, that the Orthodox community’s growth is positioning it to be “in a few years… the dominant group in New York Jewry.”

We’re sorry. We’re really not trying to take over, of course, any more than Jews as a people are aiming at world domination, as some anti-Semites contend. We’re just trying to live our lives as we believe G-d wants.

I think there’s a takeaway for us Orthodox Jews from Mr. Brooks’ recent column: Despite the determination of some to portray our community in dark hues, and despite the fact that there will always be individuals in our own midst who will provide them fodder, if the rest of us – the vast majority – endeavor to just live our lives in consonance with what our religious tradition teaches is G-d’s will, at least an objective observer will see the verdant forest for the occasional sickly tree – will see our community for what it actually is.

Abusive Journalism

A number of years ago, a neighbor of mine, a business professional, shared a secret and a request. He told me that he had been found guilty of a crime – a dishonest financial reporting to the federal government – and was awaiting sentencing. He fully admitted that he had acted wrongly and offered no excuse for what he did. My neighbor is a kind, reasonable, family-oriented and charitable person. I drew on what thespian talents I had cultivated many decades earlier in high school, and feigned not being shocked.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” was all I could say. Then came the request. “Could you write the judge a character reference letter?” he asked.

“Of course,” I answered, without hesitation. My neighbor’s punishment would have great impact on his future, his family and his friends. Here was a good man who did a bad thing. The judge knew about the bad thing; the least I could do was describe the good man.

And so I did, the next day. I’ll never know whether my letter, which acknowledged the crime and sought only to provide an honest assessment of my neighbor as a person, had any effect. He was sentenced to a year in prison and served his sentence.

What brought that memory to mind was the most recent example of “creative” reportage in a Jewish newspaper. “Orthodox Rabbi Defends Jewish Psychiatrist Convicted in… Assaults” read the headline of a report in the Forward on February 8.

Now what kind of stupid fellow, I thought, would defend the abusive actions of a doctor? When I saw the name of the rabbi, however, I realized that the headline had itself probably been abusive, of the truth.

Rabbi Yisroel Miller is well-known as a caring, sensitive, accomplished and respected leader of a congregation in the Western Canadian city of Calgary. He previously served a congregation in Pittsburgh and has been honored with rabbinic leadership awards by the Orthodox Union and the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools; he received a special award from the United Jewish Federation too, for his work to build bridges among diverse groups of Jews. He has authored four well-regarded books of essays on Jewish thought.

Ah, I thought, and now he’s defending the indefensible? No way.

No way, indeed.

Upon closer inspection, the Forward piece exposed itself as an example of something less than responsible journalism. Oh, pshaw, let’s be straightforward: it was make-believe muckraking.

What Rabbi Miller did, it seemed, was just what I did for my neighbor – and what innumerable rabbis, priests and ministers (not to mention friends, relatives and others) have done out of a sense of mercy and propriety: ask a sentencing judge to take their impressions and information into account when deciding the punishment for someone guilty of a crime.

And yet the article was not only headlined to make it seem as if Rabbi Miller had defended the criminal – which he hadn’t done; his letter is explicit and clear about that – but led readers to imagine that he had minimized the crime. The rabbi is introduced in a sentence recounting how the defense attorney characterized his client’s crimes as “minor offenses” and how he “then proceeded to read aloud from a letter from… Rabbi Yisroel Miller…[of] Calgary’s Orthodox synagogue.”

Perhaps, I thought, the article’s writer had just somehow neglected to quote whatever part of Rabbi Miller’s letter “defended” the accused. I searched in vain. The Forward report included details about the 74-year-old defendant’s conviction, and angry comments about him from various people. But the only portions of the letter quoted were the rabbi’s plea to the judge for leniency in sentencing the defendant, including his experience of the man as having always possessed a “humble manner,” the observation that “The bad does not erase the good” and the fear that “a prison term would be a death sentence” for the doctor (who was reported to be frail and in the early stages of dementia).

So I contacted Rabbi Miller directly, and asked to see the letter myself. He readily sent it to me and it was, as I had expected, nothing more than a plea for leniency. In it, he explicitly declares himself unqualified to opine about the defendant’s guilt or innocence and, equally explicitly, acknowledges the “darkness of the human soul” to which even otherwise good people can succumb. At no point in the letter does Rabbi Miller try to minimize the seriousness of the charge against the defendant; at no point does he in any way “defend” him.

I asked the rabbi how he feels about being maligned by a national newspaper. “I myself don’t blame the Forward too much,” he responded, kind soul that he is. “After all, it’s their parnassa [livelihood].”

Rabbi Avi Shafran

Reflections on Jews, Judaism, Media and Life