Jewfem Blog

(The analysis of cultural differences contained below is based on my doctoral thesis, available at the Hebrew University library and other places). Last night, a 16-year old boy shared with me some insights from his recent experience of switching to an all-American school in Israel. "Our classes are conducted all in English," he said, "but that wasn't the best part. When kids wanted to talk, they raised their hands first! Now that was surprising!" As if to say, in his entire repertoire of experiences in Israeli classrooms, he has never seen kids systematically raising their hands to talk. His comment underscores the depth of cultural differences between Americans and Israelis. The Israeli culture of discourse, full of constant interruption, heavy gesticulating, and unsmiling, un-nuanced interactions, can be quite jarring to many Anglo immigrants (though those of hailing us from New York perhaps shouldn't rush to judge.)

In today's Ynet Tomorrow morning, as my youngest child starts first grade, I am doing what perhaps I should have done long ago: I’m taking my child to the farm. She will be spending her school days at the Ecological Farm in Modi’in, the first class in a fledgling experimental school called “Ma’ayan,” literally, “spring.” There, in a house made of clay and recycled materials in which the toilets do not flush but their contents are re-entered into the ground, where a goat my daughter fell in love with named Maya gave birth last year to twins “Rami” and “Levi”, where the surrounding sounds are not of cars honking and teachers yelling but of mules, chickens and dogs communicating, where young adults come from all over Israel to work as organic farmers – this is where my five year old child is beginning her formal schooling.

My 16-year-old daughter pierced her nose today. After months of negotiation and debate, in which her family members tried a variety of methods to deter and discourage her (ranging from the rational, “Won’t it hurt when you sneeze?” to the more primal “Eeewwww!”), I finally made a deal with her. I said she can do it on the condition that she lets me blog about it. How’s that for 21st century parenting? I figure, if she gets freedom of expression, so do I…. READ THIS POST ON THE SISTERHOOD BLOG OF THE FORWARD

As the air changes and we start to feel the occasional cool breeze marking the end of summer, I soak in thebittersweet emotions of milestones passing, the world shifting, and life moving on when we weren’t looking. Thissummer was my daughter Yonina’s bat mitzvah. The third in the family – we now have a houseful of teenagers, itseems – each event was marked differently, reflecting not only our evolution as a family but also the changingclimate in Orthodoxy around girls in synagogue.

Last week, President Obama named 16 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, including Mary Robinson, known for publicly opposing Israel. Below is Hadassah National President Nancy Falchuk's letter to President Obama regarding this choice:

It's not every day that I get to stand in line behind a snuggling couple in the supermarket.At first I thought the couple in front of me today were father and son because of the apparent age difference. But I quickly realized, it was not parental affection I was witnessing but more like the wanna-jump-your-bones type. Now that was novel, and quite nice, actually. So gay life has finally arrived in Modi'in. It took the tragic, horrific terror attack on the LGBT club last week to remind Israel that this is a vilified community that deserves widespread support.

For many Americans, "Women to the back of the bus" echoes of Rosa Parks and the racially segregated American south. Forothers, Jerusalem's "holiness" requires special considerations. Still for others, the violence that women face when they get onto the bus -- tired, hard-working women, who just want to sit down and are often harassed by haredi men -- is its own, new brand of an Israeli social ill that needs to be seriously redressed. All these perspectives and more came up on Nettie Feldman's Anglo-Israeli Internet radio program, "Rusty Mike." Nettie's Afternoon Shmooze show is broadcast live on the www.rustymikeradio.com site each Thursday, from noon to 2 pm, when she plays great 60s/70s music, chats and presents a topic for the week. Listen to the July 23 schmooze on gender-segregated (mehadrin) buses here.

This is published in today's English Ynet edition. The announcement this morning by Interior Minister Eli Yishai of Shas that the foreign workers will undergo a "massive expulsion" is surprising not because of Yishai's undaunted ability to withstand public pressure. We've seen that before. What shocked me was his rationale: "Whoever is found will not receive refuge - - just like every 'civilized' country in the world," he said. Actually, the word he used, "metukenet" is difficult to translate. Based on the root "teken", which means either "correct" or "standard", it seems to mean that in a medina metukenet all norms are in order, that rules and regulations are in place to ensure a perceived decorum. Well, chasing out refugees may make us like other nations, but it will hardly make us civilized.

I've been spending the past week with a very special group of American Jewish educators. These teachers, here for a week-long program on Jewish peoplehood at the Beth Hatefutsoth School for Jewish Peoplehood Studies, come from all over North America and have in common one things -- that they are all implementing the curriculum, Facing History and Ourselves. This is one of the most remarkable pieces of educational work I have ever encountered, a Holocaust curriculum that is so much more. It's about teaching kids to take responsibility and create a different world, one in which hatred and bigotry cannot flourish. "By teachingstudents to think critically, to empathize, to recognize moral choices, to make their voices heard, we put in their hands the possibility - and the responsibility - to do the serious work demanded of us all as citizens," is what the FHAO Facebook page says.

Excited emails keep coming in from all over the world, "Did you see Michael Broyde's article on women rabbis?" And so despite my discomfort with this whole episode, I'm reposting this blog so people understand the whole picture before they get too excited. Rabbi Broyde took the time to write to me and insist that he absolutely, unequivocally, does NOT favor women rabbis, and that anyone who reads his article and comes to the conclusion that he DOES favor women rabbis would in no uncertain terms be mistaken. He also had some other choice commentary that I believe sheds light on the inner workings of the Orthodox establishment. Let's just say I'm not impressed.