YouTube Orthodoxy

Allison Josephs: Trying to “re-brand” Orthodox Judaism.

by Sharon Udasin

Allison Josephs sits in her bathroom in a green facial mask, relaxing in dark blue towel-turban and peeling cucumber slices off her eyes.

“Dear Jew in the City,” she recites. “My friend just told me that Orthodox people consider women dirty when it’s their time of the month. And that’s just so horrible — I mean, it’s a natural bodily occurrence. How could they make it into something so negative?”

Josephs, 30, is single-handedly trying to “re-brand” Orthodox Judaism, and in doing so has just finished broadcasting her first season of “Jew in the City,” a Web series (JewintheCity.com) that attempts to dispel negative myths often associated with religious Jewry and give it a hipper, more modern cast.

Many of these myths Josephs herself firmly believed as an adolescent, before she made the gradual switch from Conservative Judaism to Modern Orthodoxy during high school and her college years at Columbia. Among other questions, her series of two-minute Webisodes explores whether or not Jewish women are considered dirty during menstruation, whether woman in Orthodox Judaism are treated as inferior and the idea that Orthodox couples are never sexually intimate. The infamous “hole in the sheet” is one of her favorite topics.

“I’ve gotten asked that question by so many people,” said Josephs, who wears a trendily highlighted sheitel, chandelier earrings and a perfect manicure in most of the videos. “I wanted to handle the question in a modest way, but not dealing with the question doesn’t help either.”

In that particular episode, Josephs makes clear that Orthodox Jews are certainly not sexually “oppressed” and explains that “knowing someone in the biblical sense” is actually one of the holiest mitzvahs in Judaism. She surmises that the “hole” myth probably arose from a pair of tzitzit hanging on a clothesline, because tzitzit resemble a sheet with, well, a hole in the middle for the head.   Continue reading…

[[This blog post was originally written for Jewlicious.com]].

(I know I live in New York, but today I need to comment on an issue surfacing across the Atlantic Ocean — in the United Kingdom.)

If a new bill passes next month in the United Kingdom, British same-sex couples will soon be crushing glasses and signing ketubahs with the official blessings of their rabbis and families.

A group of Liberal Jewish rabbis and Anglican ministers have come together in favor of an amendment to the country’s 2010 Equality Bill, which would allow same-sex civil partnerships to take place in British synagogues and other religious institutions, writes Jessica Elgot, a reporter at The Jewish Chronicle in London. The Equality Bill, she continues, will be up for debate in the House of Lords next month, and currently has the support of Liberal Jews, Unitarians and Quakers. You can read through Parliament’s discussion of the bill here, by scrolling down to the paragraph just above sub-head “25 Jan 2010 : Column 1199.”

“[The amendment's] intention is to remove the prohibition against civil partnerships taking place in religious buildings,” the document reads. “I shall repeat that: it is to remove the prohibition against civil partnerships taking place in religious organisations. It is a straightforward amendment. It does not seek to force religious institutions to host civil partnerships and I would not intend it to. It simply has to be a matter for them to decide whether or not they wish to do so.”

As in most of the United States, gay marriages are still not recognized by law in the United Kingdom. But in Britain, where church is not separate from state, the government can take this prohibition one step further. Civil unions may be permitted throughout the country, but at the moment, these same-sex partnerships cannot occur within the boundaries of a house of worship.  That’s right, it’s currently illegal for a rabbi to unite two men or two women under a chuppah in England.

And now, at the behest of some forward-thinking Quakers, the House of Lords is aiming to repeal this ban.

While same-sex marriages are only legal in a few select states here in America, all religious institutions have the power to conduct same-sex civil unions if they so choose, and many have been doing so for quite some time. Synagogues all over the US perform same-sex marriages, like Sha’ar Zahav in San Francisco, where marriages went from being not recognized by law, to being recognized, to now unfortunately not being recognized by law once again. In New York, Congregation Beth Simchat Torah performs many marriage ceremonies, even though gay marriage has never ever yet been legal in New York State. Even in Israel, where laws are strongly influenced by an Orthodox rabbinate, is doing a very good job welcoming theLGBT community into its fold.

Although the laws should certainly be changed to make same-sex marriage legal both here and in the United Kingdom, a religious institution should always be a place of refuge for every congregant it serves — no matterwhat the law says.  I hope that when the House of Lords takes this bill to the floor next month, the British government does decide to allow for marriages to occur within the synagogues, whether or not they are officially recognized by the country.

And in yet another progressive move for Britain, Schools Secretary Ed Balls recently decided that all secondary schools, including parochial schools, will be forced to teach “full, broad, balanced curriculum on sex and relationship education” — which includes topics like sexually-transmitted diseases, contraception, pregnancy, abortion and homosexuality, The Telegraph reported today. This means that religious schools — even Orthodox Jewish schools — will need to address topics like civil unions and same-sex parenting without any homophobia whatsoever.

I wonder how Britain’s haredi communities are going to respond to this…

_ _

Sharon Udasin is a staff writer at The Jewish Week. Follow her on Twitter or e-mail her at sharon@sharonudasin.com.

_ _

I also posted a lengthy comment in response to Jessica Elgot’s article here, on The Jewish Chronicle’s Web site.

Orthodox Compulsive Disorder?

“You see a lot of compulsive behaviors with the intention of undoing something that has been done wrong,” said Dr. Jeff Szymanski, the executive director of the International OCD Foundation. “I have to repeat it until it’s done perfectly.”

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

‘Mr. A” is a 43-year-old chasidic man who is so afraid to make mistakes in his daily prayers that he cannot bring himself to get out of bed until noon or 1 p.m. The reason? Obsessions he’s faced since his days in yeshiva, when he was consistently the last person to finish praying each morning.

“He thought he was just more religious than everyone in the class,” said Dr. Steven Friedman, a professor of clinical psychiatry at SUNY Downstate, who was addressing a group of fellow therapists. “Patients who have religious obsessions often don’t recognize or admit that they have symptoms.”

Friedman was speaking to a group of 30 therapists — at least 20 of them Orthodox Jews — who had gathered for a three-day conference this week at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn sponsored by the Behavior Therapy Training Institute of the International Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Foundation. While the Institute holds about three of these meetings annually, this was the first conference tailored specifically to the needs of Orthodox Jewish therapists, who had been unable to attend regular Saturday programming.

Sessions last weekend were largely the same as any other Behavior Therapy Training curriculum, aside from Friedman’s Sunday afternoon lecture about “Religious Scrupulosity,” which targeted obsessions and compulsions rooted in Jewish ritual. In addition to discussing these specific behaviors and treatment techniques, the doctors focused on the unwillingness of many Orthodox Jews to even seek treatment, in a community where mental health issues are somewhat taboo.

“You can speak Yiddish like I do and you’ll still find that that won’t get you access to certain populations,” Friedman said. “Since the community is so small, most of them you know and it’s one degree of separation. If you give me the name of an Orthodox person in the United States, I can find someone who knows something all about them.”

“This is problematic when you do therapy,” he added.

OCD is a genetic disorder that equally affects men, women and children of all backgrounds, typically appearing between the ages of 10 to 12 or in late adolescence or early adulthood, according to the Foundation. On average, OCD inflicts 1 in 100 adults and 1 in 200 kids and teens, amounting to about 2 to 3 million adult cases and 500,000 childhood cases in the United States alone. Because OCD runs in families, there is a 15 percent chance that a patient’s child will also exhibit OCD, though not necessarily in exactly the same form, Friedman explained. For example, he said, a parent might be an incessant hand-washer, while the child might become a compulsive checker.   Continue reading…

_ _

This article was also reposted on the blog FailedMessiah, and has many interesting comments below it.

Also reprinted on VosIzNeias, with additional comments.

The Rebbe’s Relief Effort

Rochi Zarchi, a Chabad emissary in Puerto Rico.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Given the range of duties undertaken by a female Chabad emissary — from teaching Hebrew school to hosting communal holiday meals — leaving her community behind for even a few days is a difficult task. But for two emissaries who joined 4,000 of their sisters here for a convention last week, leaving their homes in the sunny Caribbean was particularly challenging.

When the Jan. 12 earthquake shattered Haiti, Rochi Zarchi of Puerto Rico and Michal Pelman of the Dominican Republic —along with their husbands Shimon and Mendel — immediately sprung into action to assist with the disaster relief effort. Day after day, Zarchi and Pelman prepared kosher food bundles and supply packages to ship to victims and rescue workers in Haiti.

“We’re not on site, especially because every island is its own island. [Haiti] is not a bridge away or a boat ride away,” Zarchi said. “But we did coordinate many different forms of support and food for everyone, as well as kosher provisions for the Jewish relief and Israel division. Seeing what’s been going on there, it’s unbelievable what a disaster can do.”

The Chabad Haiti Relief Fund, under the joint auspices of Chabad Lubavitch of the Dominican Republic and of Puerto Rico, received grants from both the American Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Coalition Disaster Relief that paid for convoys of food, water and medical supplies shipped to Haiti. Zarchi said that she and her husband prepared their contributions and sent them over to the Pelmans in the Dominican Republic, who in turn took care of getting everything to the final destination in Haiti.

Despite the islands’ relatively close proximity, San Juan, Puerto Rico, is still more than 400 miles away from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with an ocean and the Dominican Republic in between.

“It’s frustrating because, of course, you’re limited,” Zarchi said. “But we’re putting in a substantial amount of effort, and my kids feel so proud because their parents are involved. They see all the different Haiti relief funds, and they feel like they’re spearheading an effort.”  Continue reading…

Mumps Spreads To New Communities

by Sharon Udasin

A mumps outbreak in the Orthodox community, which began last summer, has spread beyond Williamsburg and Borough Park to include scattered incidents in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Far Rockaway, Queens, city Health Department officials say.

Far Rockaway pediatrician Dr. Hylton Lightman told The Jewish Week that he has seen about 20 mumps patients, most of them men between 17 and 23, as well as four or five girls and two mothers. Among his patients is a staff member at the Bnot Shulamith Elementary School in Woodmere, L.I.

Of particular concern to some doctors is that the age range of patients — who remain 80 percent male — now includes an older population of young adults, many of whom misplaced their immunization records after graduating high school, according to Dr. Jane Zucker, assistant commissioner for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In the affected communities, 70 percent of children under 18 have received their two immunization dosages, but for young adults statistics remain unclear.

“People who are not vaccinated have a higher rate of complications,” Zucker said. “We want people who don’t know their status to go and get vaccinated.” This week, the Department of Health will host free vaccination clinics in Borough Park and Williamsburg with Jewish organizations.

The total of New York City cases has risen to 909 as of Feb. 8. Outside the city, the state now accounts for a total of 928 cases, with 317 occurring in Rockland County and 611 in Orange County as of Feb. 10, according to State Department of Health Spokesman Tom Allocco.

The most common symptoms of the mumps are fever, muscle aches and parotitis, the signature inflammation of the salivary glands below the ear. Rarer side effects can include meningoencephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and pancreatitis, which can cause abdominal pain and vomiting.

Original version here.

(blog post written for Jewlicious.com).

He’s not quite Kim Kardashian, her sister Khloe, or even John Edwards – but he’s pretty damn sexy.

You know, those sagging man-boobs, that voluptuous beer gut (wait, Muslims can’t drink?) and that carpet of thickly matted chest hair – what more could a secretary desire on her first day of work?

“Do I turn off the light or do you?” the man says in a video, aired on Israeli television earlier this week. ”What is the procedure?”

Rafiq Husseini, a now former top aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas slides completely naked slide into bed, calling an unseen woman to join him, in what was allegedly an effort to trade his political influence for sex  This morning, however, Abbas dismissed Husseini from office and has formed a special committee to investigate allegations of corruption in his administration, West Bank-based Ma’an News Agency reported earlier today.

Along with a full-fledged video crew, former Palestinian intelligence official Fahmi Shabaneh had planted hidden cameras in the apartment, after being tipped off by the woman in question. Through a stream of text messages and meetings, Husseini had allegedly informed the potential secretary that if she wanted to be hired, “she needed to meet him in the bedroom for a little manual labor first,” according to FOX News. Shouldn’t politicians be smart enough by now to understand that if they are stupid (and/or horny) enough to engage in a sex scandal, there’s always bound to be irrevocable evidence?

After the news became public in Israel  through reports by The Jerusalem Post and Channel 10’s Tzvi Yehezkeli, even the editor-in-chief of Ma’an News Agency, Nasser Laham, wrote an editorial urging Husseini to step down, calling Husseini’s indecency an “embarrassment” to the Palestinian people – though, Laham does go on to call for Shabaneh’s arrest and makes sure to highlight all of Israel’s own financial and sexual scandals. In fact, the Palestinian Authority actually has a warrant out for Shabaneh’s arrest for his so-called “collaboration with Israel,” The Jerusalem Post reported.

And just when we thought Israel might be in the clear for once, relatives of Husseini and top aides to Abbas are naturally calling the tapes an “Israeli conspiracy”  blaming the Israeli government, Mossad and Shin Bet for the incident.

I’m sorry, but if a Palestinian politician can’t keep his pants on, it’s absolutely absurd to blame the Israeli government. Did Israel instruct this man to peel off his clothes, slide sexily under the covers and beckon an innocent woman to his bedside? I don’t think so. Likewise, did a team of Republicans conspire to film John Edwards’ extramarital tryst? I don’t think so.

I hope that for once, the media will give Israel a break and not assign blame where blame is so obviously not due. Blame belongs in one place in this scenario, and that place is below Husseini’s forestial belt-line.

_ _

Warning, the video below is quite explicit and disturbing to the eyes, in more ways than one.

Sharon Udasin is a staff writer at The Jewish Week. Follow her on Twitter or e-mail her at sharon@sharonudasin.com.

Hurling Curses Amid The Whitefish

A tense meeting Sunday at the Sixth Street Community Synagogue revealed sharp divisions at the shul.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

There is nothing remotely community minded about the war that is gripping the Sixth Street Community Synagogue.

Tensions at the East Village Orthodox shul, which have been building between old-timers and newly recruited younger members for six months, erupted last Sunday morning at a meeting to elect new board members

The two sides hurled curses at one another in the shul basement, where a spread of whitefish salad and bagels had been laid out. At one point, someone suggested that the police be called in to restore calm. And when new member Spencer Schneider rushed into the hall urging members to vote on his yellow ballots, which touted a slate of new board members rather than the white ballots made up of more longstanding board members, he got an education in shul politics, East Village style.

“Who are you?” Schneider said when approached by a longtime member of the shul. The man replied, “I didn’t see you in shul yesterday.”

The battle for the soul of the 70-year-old Sixth Street Community illustrates just how dicey it can be to try to revitalize flagging synagogues. Longtime members feel the shul — which has seen its membership double since last spring — is being stolen out from under them by carpetbaggers, new members who don’t even live in the neighborhood and who rarely attend services. The new members say they have revived a shul that was on its last legs, and that the old-timers want to strip them of their voting rights.
“We hoped that maybe someone who lived in the community would join,” Schoenfeld said. “I’d take a lie detector test — there’s not one new member that has been here on Friday night or Saturday. Not even their leaders.”

At the center of the struggle stands Rabbi Simon Jacobson and his Meaningful Life Center. A popular and charismatic Lubavitch-born rabbi and author, Rabbi Jacobson moved the center’s headquarters to the Sixth Street Synagogue two years ago. In lieu of paying rent to the shul, he agreed to renovate the entire basement floor and pay the synagogue 30 percent of the proceeds from his programs.

Rabbi Jacobson told The Jewish Week that last spring he was approached by then-Board Chairman Matthew Pace, asking if he would encourage some of his participants to become shul members. The rest of the board was aware and in favor of a membership drive, part of which would solicit Rabbi Jacobson’s crowd as new members, according to board meeting minutes obtained by The Jewish Week.

“I said to them, ‘Are you sure that’s what you want? Because if people start becoming members, members are shareholders,’ ” Rabbi Jacobson said. “They said ‘We’re sure that’s what we want.’”

Within a few months of the initial membership drive, the synagogue population grew significantly. But for the old-timers, the effort seems to have backfired.  Continue reading…

_ _

Lots of comments also on my article via Failed Messiah, but I have a bit of a problem with how they presented the story.

(blog post written for Jewlicious.com)

The countdown to Super Bowl XLIV (that’s 44, people) is exactly 2 days: 2 hours: 42 mins: 2 secs, but since the Giants aren’t involved, I honestly couldn’t care less. What I can’t help but wonder, however, is what Chabad is doing about the game this year.

You see, it’s been two years since Eli Manning’s “miracle drive” — the 38-yard seemingly impossible pass to David Tyree, followed by a game-winning touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with only 39 seconds left. But that same day, some avid fans credited the Giants’ Super Bowl success to a source far mightier than Manning’s nimble arm and Tyree’s solid grasp — these fans felt that their newfound tefillin addiction had given the Giants that extra wind. After the team began that season with a lousy 0 and 2 record, lifelong fan Jay Greenfield finally caved to his Chabad rabbi and friend, Yisroel Shemtov, who had been pestering Greenfield about wearing tefillin. If the fan would strap on the prayer boxes just three times each week, Rabbi Shemtov would add the New York Giants to his prayers and ask for a little divine intervention on behalf of the beloved team.

This Sunday in sunny Miami, the New Orleans Saints face the Indianapolis Colts, led by Eli Manning’s older brother Peyton — also known to be a miracle-worker of sorts. As usual, Chabad is getting in on the action.

Rabbi Zev Katz, director of Chabad of Miami Beach (also known as “Chabad on Wheels”) has been at it all week — wrapping tefillin on visitors and locals alike who are gearing up for Sunday’s game. Throughout the week and all day today, Rabbi Katz says he’s had his mitzvah tank parked on Lincoln Road, a thoroughfare for shopping, dining and tourism in Miami Beach. And he’s had no trouble getting Jewish passers-by aboard the Chabad mobile, doing everything possible for just one more mitzvah. He even went so far as to invite anyone reading this post to attend Shabbat at his Chabad House, located on 309 23rd St.

Until then, he’ll continue to get football fans to wrap themselves with tefillin.

“We had one guy who was 13, and he wasn’t really religious at all,” Rabbi Katz said. “But he said he would do it for the Saints.”

Also in the region, Rabbi Shuey Biston (Chabad of Parkland – North Broward and South Palm Beach) is hosting a kosher Super Bowl party with over 100 guests at a community member’s home, where fans will gather first for a service, and then to watch the game.

“We always have a Super Bowl party every year,” Rabbi Biston said.

Of course, not every Saints or Colts fan will actually get to the Miami region this weekend, but Chabad in Louisiana is bringing together Jewish Saints fans for some social action. The Chabad Jewish Center of Suburban New Orleans is striking up a Super Bowl pool, where local fans have the opportunity to win up to $1,800 ($450 per quarter) just by donating $36 or $72 to the center’s educational programming.

I guess we’ll see on Sunday whether or not that 13-year-old Saints fan’s prayers were strong enough to give New Orleans’ Drew Brees the edge he needs to defeat a seemingly invincible Peyton Manning of Indianapolis.

Speaking of Mannings, let’s rewatch those final moments of Super Bowl 42, especially since the Giants were certainly not interested in offering us New Yorkers anything similar this year. And hey, maybe if a few more Giants fans (Dad?) try strapping on tefillin at their tailgating parties, next season will be a different story.

Sharon Udasin is a staff writer at The Jewish Week. Follow her on Twitter or e-mail her at sharon@sharonudasin.com.

Does anyone else remember this amazing MS-DOS game? My brother and I used to play it (sometimes with our parents) on repeat as kids. Kind of resembled the Game of Life, except that your groceries could spoil, you got loads of doctor bills and your landlord could garnish some of your wages. Not to mention Willy, who lifts your wallet, and the guy at Monolith Burgers. Anyway, my brother just discovered that some genius decided to make Jones available for free, online play without download.

Enjoy! http://home.broadpark.no/~kboye/jones/jones.html