Archive for April, 2009

**Note: I’d like to preface this post by telling you just how long and hard I’ve worked on this article. I have been working on it ever since my trip to Germany in August, and I ended up amassing over 10,000 words of material, which I’d like to hone into a book proposal (**any tips on that??**). This is the 3,500-word version that appears on the front page of this week’s Jewish Week. I hope you enjoy, and I’d LOVE to hear any reactions.**

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Bernd Wollschlaeger, carrying the Torah, broke from his parents to become a Jew. His father, left, fought for the Nazis.

Trekking through ice-coated fields in a brutally cold Russian October, Lt. Arthur Wollschlaeger pressed on, as he and his swastika-emblazoned companions conquered the western Russian city of Orel — another victory for the unrelenting German Werhmacht infantry. He had earlier taken part in invasions of Poland, Holland and France — a World War II military career that began when he first entered the Czechoslovakian Sudetenland, in 1938.

Half a century later, 30-year-old Bernd Wollschlaeger — Arthur’s son — trudged through olive fields in his Israeli Defense Forces convoy, a new M-16 slung over his shoulder as his unit approached Ramallah and set out to guard Israeli settlers living on the West Bank.

“I was a soldier very much like my father,” the younger Wollschlaeger, now 50, wrote in his self-published 2007 memoir, “A German Life: Against All Odds, Change is Possible.” He has been a Jew for 23 years.

Wollschlaeger, who grew up in a staunchly nationalist and Catholic home in Bamburg, Germany, first became fascinated with Judaism when he peered inquisitively at a six-pointed star that decorated an apartment near his dentist’s office. It was part of that town’s tiny Jewish community, he would later learn.

But the first incident to really ignite his passion for Judaism was the terror attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, a moment that shook Germany back to the largely unspoken atrocities of World War II.

Though pockets of Germans have been converting to Judaism since the end of World War II, Wollschlaeger is an early member of a little-studied second wave of predominantly liberal German converts, a small but growing group now two or three generations removed from the Holocaust. Local rabbis estimate that each year hundreds of Germans convert to Judaism.

Continue reading…

[[If that link does not work, read a cached version of the article here]]

[[Please note: the following is what I had hope this week's article would be]]:

Browsing a web site called Shaindy.com, you’ll come across the profile of 28-year-old Dinah – she’s a slender Satmar chasid from Brooklyn who’s “married and miserable” and seeks a male mistress who can satisfy her needs.

Her profile had 3211 views as of early Tuesday evening, though the site was periodically down throughout the day.

Shaindy.com is a social networking tool aimed at married men and women who would like to have clandestine affairs outside their marriages, according to the Web site. Launched by a Modern Orthodox Brooklyn resident on March 19, the site offers free standard accounts and two years of VIP access for $99, The New York Post reported. Once logged on, the user can create a profile, including everything from astrological signs to sexual preferences to orientation. No, not sexual orientation, frum orientation: “frum and hating/liking it,” “Never was frum, “Not frum anymore” and the every-ambiguous category, “Rather not say.”

“This is a site where you can speak and interact with married man and women with out jeopardizing your marriage and get support from other married men and women who seek the same,” the About section reads. The site’s creator, who only identifies himself as “Jerry,” refused to comment.

Adultery is by no means a new phenomenon among the ultra-Orthodox – just three years ago, The Jewish Week reported about the widespread usage of halachically sanctioned concubines, focusing particularly a site called Pilesgesh.org that promotes such behavior. Similarly, in the personals section of Craigslist, browsers can find many Orthodox men – this time, almost solely men – seeking out both heterosexual and same-sex extramarital affairs. For example, “Married frum from BP,” 30, writes that he’s frustrated at home and looking for some female friendship. Another solicitor, a 21-year-old closeted homosexual, warns that men who don’t know what “E”Y” [Eretz Yisrael] means need not reply.

“The fact that people who consider themselves religious and would interact about these things on cyberspace is astonishing to me,” said Michelle Friedman, M.D., director of pastoral counseling at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in Manhattan. “It’s a stunning contradiction.”

Like Craigslist and Pilegesh, Shaindy.com enables users to seek out “like-minded” people from the Jewish community and not, but the site operates in social network form akin to MySpace or Facebook – members can add each other as friends, leave comments and chat via instant messages. As of early Tuesday evening, 1015 members had already joined – 92 women and 922 men.

“The real story the need for us to always ensure that marriages both inside and outside the religious community are passionate,” said Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, author of the recently published book, “The Kosher Sutra: Eight Sacred Secrets for Reigniting Desire and Restoring Passion for Life.” Boteach believes that the Web site is little more than “a harmful gimmick” but argues that rabbis must educate couples before they resort to adultery.

The Jewish Week attempted to contact users who had listed their e-mail addresses on the site, but most didn’t respond – one member replied with a blunt “No thank you.”

But both Friedman and Rabbi Boteach maintain that the community must address the crux of the problem, which lies not in a virulent Web site but within the mentality of the community itself.

“The Internet poses enormous challenges and it allows people to enact all kinds of fantasies and desires,” Friedman said. “[This site is] a symptom of a much bigger situation, that the Internet allows people to do what they would never do.”

“My interest is not in the web site,” Rabbi Boteach concurred. “My interest is in the need for the religious community to ensure that people never even have to think about an affair because of issues in their marriages that can be addressed.”

“The fact is, that Judaism is a religion that celebrates sex.”

From the State of Israel’s official blog:

In a bold attempt to raise money for Israel’s growing green technology infrastructure, the State of Israel has decided to sell the naming rights of the Dead Sea to the Ahava cosmetics company. While the full details of the Ahava agreement weren’t made public immediately, officials emphasized that the money from the deal would go towards strengthening Israel’s commitment to renewable energy, already among the most advanced in the world. Continue reading…