orthomom

(Tap, tap.) Is this thing still on?

2009-05-07T13:18:00.003-04:00

Hi.

Sorry I've been awol, I'm hoping to get back to posting more regularly on this site in the near future.

In the meantime, I will blogging a bit about the very local Jew vs. Jew conflict over here. Feel free to come on over, and keep checking back here for new content.

Eruv Enmity - Take II

2008-06-12T08:30:00.005-04:00

This article, about the efforts on the part of a Hamptons Orthodox community to build an eruv, is outrageous. It has a lot in common with a similarly offensive story I posted about some time ago that shows a proposal for an eruv eliciting wild overreaction and disinformation regarding its impacts and properties. Some choice bits from a story about this year's version of the eruv battle - over a proposal to install one in Westhampton Beach:

The negative e-mails started soon after word spread that the Hampton Synagogue was asking the tony Village of Westhampton Beach for a proclamation permitting it to erect an eruv, or symbolic boundary, around the synagogue.

It would, one e-mail said, “allow the Jewish people to pass through people’s property on their way to temple. ... It is the beginning of a ‘push’ by the rabbi to create another Tenafly or Lawrence [both have large concentrations of Orthodox Jews]. Shopkeepers have already been asked rather strongly to please close their stores on Saturday.”

Another claimed that the “natural outcome of a designated area would alter the real estate complexion and property values within the area. ... What is to stop the Orthodox from demanding that Christians, within the eruv, not put up say Christmas ornamentation on their properties within the eruv?”

There were also those who insisted that “people would not be able to drive cars in the eruv ... and that [Jews] don’t like to walk on sidewalks within the eruv because of the cracks in the sidewalk,” said Clint Greenbaum, a member of the synagogue’s eruv committee.

"Allow Jewish people to pass through people's property on their way to temple"? Stopping Christians from putting up Christmas ornamentation on their properties within the boundaries of the eruv? Where do people come up with these unfounded fears? And of course, no article about the encroachment of the Orthodox into a community would be complete without vague, unproven allegations of "Shopkeepers have already been asked rather strongly to please close their stores on Saturday" (previous versions of this canard here). While an eruv doesn't have any of the magical properties its opponents seem to ascribe to it, it does seem to have an almost magical ability to make reasonable people lose their rationality completely.

Oh, and who can ignore this particular tidbit, a fun little dig at our own South Shore community of Lawrence by a member of the Westhampton Beach eruv committee:

Joel Cohen, a member of the synagogue’s eruv committee, said he agrees that withdrawing the request was a prudent step.

“When a segment of a greater community feels threatened by an ethnic or racial group, the best way to gain acceptance is to explain it so there is no fear,” he said. “Shoving it down one’s throat leads to enmity. ... There is no intention by the rabbi to create a shtetl or another Lawrence.”

Sweet.

Racial Slurs and the Importance of Context

2008-06-05T16:51:00.004-04:00

Ben Smith, whose coverage of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination deserves some sort of prize, posts an image that brought a grin to my face:

Aside from the incongruity of Barack talking to two hasidic men, there is the use of the term in the headline ordinarily thought of as a racial slur: "schvartzer." Of course, the context here is entirely innocuous. "Schvartzer" is simply the yiddish term for black, and the headline is simply making a factual statement that Obama is the "first black presidential candidate."

And context is everything.

Little League Lament

2008-06-04T23:39:00.004-04:00

I guess something had to really annoy me to get me out of hibernation - and this is it:

Whose bright idea was it to run a bunch of little league games on the Sunday of Erev Shavuot??? The whole notion is just so, so wrong.

Why is it a wise idea to have people who will be ostensibly pulling all-nighters to learn for Shavuot spend the day leading up to it exhausting themselves by running around coaching/playing ball in 85-degree temperatures?

Also, did it occur to whichever shul youth directors or league organizers who planned the little league calendar that perhaps us mothers stuck in the kitchen simultaneously attempting to clean up from Shabbos and cook for Yom Tov might prefer to have an extra couple of pairs of hands available around the house to help out or to run errands?

If little league participants can get a week off for the Salute to Israel parade, there's no reason that the kids can't get another week off to properly prepare for the holiday of Matan Torah. There are some games scheduled for 3 PM on Sunday - which means there will actually be games in progress until just a few hours before the Chag begins!

It just seems to me to be a poor lesson for our children to be learning. I'm all for kids getting exercise and participating in team sports, but is it absolutely necessary to have them doing so in such an awkward and inopportune time slot? I'm sure not. The whole point behind the Orthodox little leagues is so that games can be scheduled for Sundays instead of Saturdays as in typical leagues, which would preclude Shomer Shabbat kids from participating. The decision to run the games this Sunday hardly seems to be in line with the concept of making the games in any way convenient for Orthodox participants.

Which reminds me of a similar situation we found ourselves in this winter. One of the orthokids plays in a popular hockey league in a local Orthodox high school. Games are generally played on weeknights. Somehow, it was decided when the calendar was planned that the Thursday night of Thanksgiving was off-limits for scheduling games, yet there were games scheduled for every night of Chanukah - and even running into the time to light candles, which meant that the whole family had to delay candlelighting until after my child's game. All in all, a poor show of prioritizing for my kids, in my opinion.

But hey, that's just me.

More Obama-Bashing

2008-03-04T08:17:00.003-05:00

This is classic (emphasis all mine):

Assemblyman Dov Hikind yesterday predicted that Jewish voters would make "a mass movement toward Sen. McCain" if Barack Obama knocks Hillary Rodham Clinton out of the race in tomorrow's critical Democratic primaries.

Hikind, an Orthodox Jew whose Borough Park district includes the largest Hasidic bloc in the United States, blasted Obama for what he called his half-hearted support of Israel and his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., who has repeatedly praised anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has endorsed Obama.

Hikind, a Democrat who has yet to endorse a candidate for president, said Obama had not satisfactorily distanced himself from Wright, his Chicago-based personal pastor, noting, "This is a man who thinks Farrakhan is a great guy and God's gift to the world."

Hikind went on, "Obama has said that you can be a supporter of Israel even if you're for giving up land to the Arabs, which is true - but for a guy running for president to take a position like this in advance of getting into office, combined with everything else going on in the Middle East, that scares the hell out of me.

Huh? It "scares the hell" out of Hikind that Obama says you can support Israel and still be for giving up land for Israel? What world does he live in? Does he think Hillary Clinton feels otherwise?? Most US politicians would admit that any peaceful settlement would include some concession of land to the Palestinians. Does Hikind actually expect Mr. Obama to take a public position on the matter that is to the right of GWB's current position?? And then what? Flip-flop after the election to a position more in line with just about every other politician in the country?? That sounds like a super idea. And did Mr. Hikind somehow miss when Mr. Obama clearly rejected and denounced Mr. Farrakhan, and called him out for being an anti-Semite? That Mr. Hikind feels that Obama hasn't distanced himself enough from Rev. Wright, who is claimed to be close to Farrakhan, is no more than guilt by association. Is such association more or less damning than Mr. Hikind's past association with Meir Kahana's militant Jewish Defense League and various other controversial settler groups?

I would guess Mr. Hikind is simply trying to do more of the same ignorant fearmongering about Obama that we have seen recently from other members of the Jewish community.

NYT on the Concert Ban

2008-03-03T00:48:00.004-05:00

The NYT covers the concert ban I posted about here.

Not much new there, but a few quick notes:

This comment is troubling:

Sheya Mendlowitz, the concert’s producer, said Mr. Friedman and Mr. Shor had known about the concert for months but had acted without warning, just two weeks before the show, causing $700,000 in losses.

“These two activists stirred up all the trouble,” said Mr. Mendlowitz, who has worked in the Hasidic music business for 27 years. “They just wanted to sabotage us.”

Regardless of how deeply these Rabbanim felt about the impropriety of the concert, if the allegations above are true, and those behind the ban knew full well the inconvenience that canceling it so late in the game would cause to so many, there's really not much excuse for waiting until the event had drawn so close to kick up a fuss. None.

However, as upsetting as such actions may be, they don't explain this ridiculous comment, by Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who, er, overstates things more than a bit:

“In all my 26 years of representing this community, I can’t remember anything that has so shaken the people,” Mr. Hikind said on Sunday.

Uh...I can think of a few. The Crown Heights riots? 9/11? Talk about an exaggeration on Hikind's part.

Another bone to pick with the story - the reporter discusses "Mr. Shor" - aka Rav Avrohom Schorr - one of the Yeshiva world's most prominent Rabbis, yet manages to bestow the honorific of "Rabbi" to the radio personality Zev Brenner, who calls himself Mr. Brenner in his own bio. A minor point, to be sure , but it shows how quickly and carelessly this story was cobbled together.

All in all, not our finest moment.

Local Rabbi Has it in for Barack Obama

2008-03-01T20:44:00.007-05:00

On the heels of one local Rabbi who made what can be misconstrued as an inappropriate comment regarding Barack Obama a few weeks back, another local Rabbi really went to town on the candidate in shul today. In a diatribe that, according to my unofficial polling, many congregants present found completely improper, he went off on Obama in a completely over-the-top fashion. The Rabbi criticized Obama's position Israel, and said he surrounds himself with Sonei Yisrael (haters of Jews) and Sonei Eretz Yisrael (haters of the land of Israel). The Rabbi compared Mr. Obama to Haman, to FDR (that people loved FDR too and didn't realize what a Rasha he would turn out to be), and in what should really just invoke Godwin's Law, he actually ~~compared the man~~ referred* to... Hitler himself (that people dismissed Hitler too as just being all talk).

Now, I don't believe at all that Obama is anti-Israel. I just don't. Aside from these compelling arguments (I, II, III), I just refuse to believe that the candidate has ulterior motives regarding Israel based solely on a whisper campaign regarding false claims about Obama being Muslim - as opposed to on his good record on Israel issues. I had a conversation with a very intelligent and well-read family member who completely believed the forwarded e-mail she received that claimed that Obama is Muslim (false), was sworn into office on a Koran (false), and she even went so far as to call me out as being "naive" for not believing those claims, and for not seeing as clearly as she does that Obama is nothing more than a Trojan horse for terrorists. It was truly painful.

But all things considered, not as painful as a religious leader making such claims from the pulpit in front of a captive shul-going audience. That's just plain wrong.

*UPDATE: Edited to concede a valued commenter's point that it was not a direct comparison between Obama and Hitler, but a reference (though clearly a reference inviting a comparison).

Another Ban

2008-02-28T16:37:00.003-05:00

It's about time:

Leading rabbis and the Jerusalem Municipality have joined forces in a battle against the widespread habit of smoking in the haredi public, in light of studies indicating that the sector has the highest rate of smokers in Israeli society.

The Health Ministry and local haredi authorities will also take part in the effort.

In a campaign that will be launched Thursday, rabbis will issue halachic rulings banning smoking. The rulings will be posted on bulletin boards and buses, and published in the community's pamphlets.

The decision to launch the campaign ahead of Purim was based on the fact that during the holiday it is usually considered legitimate for children to smoke cigarettes.

As opposed to last week's screed against Jewish music concerts, this is a ban I can wholeheartedly get behind.

I lived in Israel for a time, and I will never forget the sight on Purim day of Charedi adolescents smoking cigarettes all over Jerusalem. Smooth-faced young boys were dragging away on cigarettes at every street corner. In certain Israeli Charedi circles it's almost as if allowing adolescents to smoke is one of the positive commandments of the Purim holiday - almost as widespread as the widely kept Purim "mitzvah" of drinking enough to vomit all over the sidewalk.

We can only hope a Rabbinic ban on underage drinking on Purim is soon to follow.

Quick Thoughts on the Concert Ban

2008-02-27T09:28:00.001-05:00

Reading about the recent Jewish music concert ban and the resulting cancellation of a widely promoted upcoming Jewish music concert in Madison Square Garden made my head spin. How did this happen? I mean, I know that a similar ban had gained foothold in the Israel Charedi world - but for some reason I thought things were different here. There are also apparently members of the Israeli Charedi community who seem to find it appropriate to spray women dressed in clothing deemed inappropriate with bleach, or get violent with a woman sitting at the front of a public bus. I guess I should have paid closer attention to the warning bells going off in the back of my brain. After all, recent events have brought us a boycott over headshots of women displayed in a storefront on a main public thoroughfare, and calls for elementary school Rebbes to stop playing ball with their Talmidim - we've even graduated to rioting over in the ostensibly more mixed Charedi neighborhood of Boro Park (before you disagree, remember that in BP, as compared to the Israeli Charedi neighborhood of Bnei Brak, men and women still shop in the same stores and walk on the same side of the street, and restaraunts in BP still seat groups of men and women eating together).

But I can still admit to being shocked that views that I consider to be so extreme have started to affect my world. Do I expect a Jewish music concert ban to come to the more moderate Yeshivish/Charedi Lite segment of the Five Towns any time soon? Well, no... but I am starting to worry that the possibility might not be as implausible as it seemed just a few years ago. I know locals who had planned to take their kids to the now-canceled concert in question - their kids were (almost) as excited for the concert as the multitudes of shrieking tween girls I saw lined up in a news story about a Hannah Montana concert. I'm not suggesting that Orthodox Jews need our own version of Hannah Montana, but I am suggesting that kids need an outlet that allows them the opportunity to have some fun and let off some steam.

The Jewish Star actually reports that the text of the ban would seem to imply that all Jewish music concerts are affected - though a Rosh Yeshiva who signed the ban seems to dispute that, leaving the whole situation a bit confused:

...the text of the ban was identical to that of a ban enacted in Israel last year, which succeeded in shutting down a joint performance of Mordechai Ben David and Avrohom Fried. It included references to Israel and called for a complete end to Jewish music concerts. That made it unclear if the document was intended to apply only to the Madison Square Garden event, or if American Charedi rabbonim intended to follow the lead of Israeli colleagues and enact a sweeping prohibition against Jewish music.
In an interview with The Jewish Star, Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky, a rosh yeshiva in Philadelphia who signed the ban, said, “It is very general, you’re right, but I don’t think it will refer to all concerts. You have to have an outlet for kids.”

I can certainly get behind the sentiment that our kids need an outlet. It's one thing to live a lifestyle that encourages our barely pubescent kids to spend long hours in the Beit Midrash, 6 days a week. I can fully appreciate that sort of commitment to Torah study - but how can we realistically expect our kids to sign on for said lifestyle when the opportunities for getting some release via "kosher" fun get taken away, one by one? Are we entering an era where just about everything we teach our children includes the word "don't" or "can't"? Say it ain't so...

"Lean on Me" - circa 2008?

2008-02-09T19:03:00.000-05:00

This story likely warmed the hearts of NY Times readers:

Junior High School 22, in the South Bronx, had run through six principals in just over two years when Shimon Waronker was named the seventh.

On his first visit, in October 2004, he found a police officer arresting a student and calling for backup to handle the swelling crowd. Students roamed the hallways with abandon; in one class of 30, only 5 students had bothered to show up. “It was chaos,” Mr. Waronker recalled. “I was like, this can’t be real.”

Teachers, parents and students at the school, which is mostly Hispanic and black, were equally taken aback by the sight of their new leader: A member of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect of Hasidic Judaism with a beard, a black hat and a velvet yarmulke.

“The talk was, ‘You’re not going to believe who’s running the show,’ ” said Lisa DeBonis, now an assistant principal.

At a time when the Bloomberg administration has put principals at the center of its efforts to overhaul schools, making the search for great school leaders more pressing than ever, the tale of Mr. Waronker shows that sometimes, the most unlikely of candidates can produce surprising results.

Despite warnings from some in the school system that Mr. Waronker was a cultural mismatch for a predominantly minority school, he has outlasted his predecessors, and test scores have risen enough to earn J.H.S. 22 an A on its new school report card. The school, once on the city’s list of the 12 most dangerous, has since been removed.

So, apparently against all expectations, an identifiably Chassidic principal is able to turn around a failing school district - despite what appears to have been the skepticism of so many:

Mr. Waronker, 39, a former public school teacher, was in the first graduating class of the New York City Leadership Academy, which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg created in 2003 to groom promising principal candidates. Considered one of the stars, he was among the last to get a job, as school officials deemed him “not a fit” in a city where the tensions between blacks and Hasidic Jews that erupted in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in 1991 are not forgotten.

“They just said he may be terrific, but not the right person for that school,” Chancellor Klein said.

No matter how benignly expressed, I feel that the opinion that Mr. Waronker was not fit for a job due to his religious views is nothing short of veiled discrimination. The excuse that it was simply a realistic view of the situation is obviously belied by the success Waronker has seen at his post.

Even more heart-warming than the soft-peddled discrimination of school officials is the wonderful spirit of tolerance in which Mr. Waronker was accepted by some of the school's parent body:

Some parents at J.H.S. 22, also called Jordan L. Mott, were suspicious, viewing Mr. Waronker as too much an outsider. In fact, one parent, Angie Vazquez, 37, acknowledged that her upbringing had led her to wonder: “Wow, we’re going to have a Jewish person, what’s going to happen? Are the kids going to have to pay for lunch?”

Um, is this what passes as hard-hitting journalism these days? A quote that shows that there are people who feel perfectly comfortable being quoted, by name, as believing that old canard about Jews and money - while the paper asserts that such bigotry is nothing more than "suspicion" based on the woman's "upbringing"? Is there any way, shape or form that had this comment been made by an Orthodox Jew, spewing racist or discriminatory stereotypes about another minority group, that it would have been buried in the middle of the story as a perfectly reasonable "suspicion" instead of actually being the story? Perhaps some of that extreme political correctness that seems to be going around could be applied across the board? Maybe?

Either way, these two minor quibbles should not take away from the spirit of acceptance and harmony in which this story should be read. Regardless of the low expectations that appear to have been shared by so many regarding both Mr. Waronker and the students of JHS 22, they seem to have together defied the conventional wisdom in their district and achieved, in a scene out of some 2008 version of Lean on Me - starring Matisyahu instead of Morgan Freeman as the embattled but ultimately successful principal - real progress.

I wish both students and principal more of the same continued success in the future.

Freakonomics on Shemita and the Law of Unintended Consequences

2008-01-19T20:05:00.000-05:00

The always-interesting Freakonomics guys (Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner) had a fascinating column in this weekend's NYTimes Magazine. It covers the law of unintended consequences and links some seemingly unrelated topics:

What do a deaf woman in Los Angeles, a first-century Jewish sandal maker and a red-cockaded woodpecker have in common?

I recommend reading the column to find out - as well as to catch how the Shemita-year device of Heter Mechira figures into the discussion. Though their point - that every action can incur all manner of unexpected results - might seem obvious, it doesn't make reading about some specific unintended consequences any less interesting.

This is the relevant passage from the column as regards to Shemitta and Heter Mechira:

How long have such do-good laws been backfiring? Consider the ancient Jewish laws concerning the sabbatical, or seventh year. As commanded in the Bible, all Jewish-owned lands in Israel were to lie fallow every seventh year, with the needy allowed to gather whatever food continued to grow. Even more significant, all loans were to be forgiven in the sabbatical. The appeal of such unilateral debt relief cannot be overestimated, since the penalties for defaulting on a loan at the time were severe: a creditor could go so far as to take a debtor or his children into bondage.

So for a poor Jewish sandal maker having trouble with his loan payments, the sabbatical law was truly a godsend. If you were a creditor, however, you saw things differently. Why should you lend the sandal maker money if he could just tear up the loan in Year Seven? Creditors duly gamed the system, making loans in the years right after a sabbatical, when they were confident they would be repaid, but then pulling tight the purse strings in Years Five and Six. The resulting credit drought was so damaging to poor people that it fell to the great sage Hillel to fix things.

His solution, known as prosbul, allowed a lender to go to court and pre-emptively declare that a specific loan would not be subject to sabbatical debt relief, transferring the debt to the court itself and thereby empowering it to collect the loan. This left the law technically intact but allowed for lenders to once again make credit available to the poor without taking on unwarranted risk for themselves.

The fallow-land portion of the sabbatical law, meanwhile, was upheld for centuries, but it, too, finally gained a loophole, called heter mechira. This allowed for a Jew to temporarily “sell” his land to a non-Jew and to continue farming it during the sabbatical year and then “buy” it back immediately afterward — a solution that helped the modern state of Israel keep its agricultural economy humming.

The trouble is that many of the most observant Israeli Jews reject this maneuver as a sleight of hand that violates the spirit of the law. Many of these traditionalists are also extremely poor. And so this year, which happens to be a sabbatical year, the poorest Jews in Israel who wish to eat only food grown on non-Jewish land are left to buy imported goods at double or triple the regular price — all in order to uphold a law meant to help feed the poorest Jews in Israel.

They make an interesting point. When the Shemitta-year law of forgiving all debts created a situation in which those who needed loans were being refused in pre-Shemitta years, thus harming those (the poor) who most needed the reprieve ostensibly offered by Shemitta, Hillel instituted a system whereby that unintended consequence could be averted. However, while the law of Shemita that commanded that all fields must lie fallow may have allowed poor Jews living in Israel to help themselves to produce during that year, the similar though admittedly far more recently instituted Heter Mechira has not at all been accepted among Charedi Jews. This has created a situation where the Charedim, some of whom number among the poorest of Israeli citizens, instead spend their meager funds on imported produce to avoid buying fruits and vegetables grown on Jewish-owned land with a Heter Mechira - or worse, these families are forced to go without much in the way of fresh produce altogether.

Now, the fact that that individual Halachot might have unintended consequences is far from a Chiddush. I think it's fair to state that just about every law - whether religious or secular - will have some unintended or unplanned-for consequence. Nor should that fact necessarily be a criteria to attempt to change normative Halacha. That said, there is a halachic concept of considering the societal or financial fallout of a psak before rendering it. I have personally seen such a practice in action, when in a situation that forced me to ask a Shaila of a quite eminent Rav regarding the need to replace a certain kitchen appliance that had been rendered unkosher. When I posed the question to the Rav, his first ruling was that we were required to replace a certain component of the appliance only, as opposed to the entire appliance. When I mentioned that I had researched the pricing and found it almost as expensive to do so as to replace the appliance entirely, he paused, told me he was unaware as to how costly the component in question was, and told me to call him back later that evening after he did some research. When I called back later that evening he had decided on a more lenient ruling, and told me how to perform a technique to kasher the appliance instead of replacing the component or the appliance entirely. At first blush, that might seem to be a cop-out of sorts, a less than strict adherence to Halacha in the face of what might have amounted to a bit of financial discomfort. But clearly this very learned Rav felt comfortable amending his ruling based on the hardship a stricter ruling might cause. I should probably add, however, that the same Charedim who do not hold of Heter Mechira might very likely not hold of the ruling I received regarding my kitchen appliance. I will also add the the usual disclaimers regarding how one ruling has absolutely nothing to do with the other aside for the seeming differences in flexibility when it comes to the question of a strict adherence to halacha when it imposes financial hardship.

Some might also find it interesting that the very same Rav who gave me my kitchen appliance psak does not approve of eating produce grown with Heter Mechira. So in the interests of full disclosure, I must note that the OrthoFamily ourselves do not purchase Heter Mechira fruits and vegetables.

Go figure.

(A previous post on Heter Mechira.)

Disenfranchisement in Nevada

2008-01-18T09:16:00.000-05:00

Much is being made of the scheduling of Nevada's presidential caucuses on a Saturday, which affects observant Jews as well as Seventh Day Adventists. I can't begin to imagine a scheduling conflict like this ever occurring in a state with a sizable population of observant Jewish voters such as New York or Florida, in contrast to the state of Nevada, whose numbers of observant Jews is relatively tiny - and if it did happen in one of those states, I'm quite sure the Orthodox groups would have sued or initiated some action over being flat-out precluded from voting. The real problem here is that the caucus system of voting, in contrast to the primary system most states utilize, precludes any voting not done in person at the designated time. So whereas Sabbath-observant voters in states with Saturday primaries can either vote by absentee ballot or get to the polls after sundown, in Nevada Sabbath-observant voters are completely disenfranchised. Certainly an upsetting development for those who actually prefer to have their voice heard as citizens.

There seem to be some other complaints about the Saturday choice for the caucuses, from casino workers who quite obviously need to be at work during the entertainment industry's peak weekend shifts. This concern led to the establishment of special voting stations to accommodate casino workers and allow them to vote. This in turn drew calls from Clinton supporters that these special voting stations unfairly favored Obama as he had been endorsed by the influential culinary workers union, many of whose members work in casinos. A lawsuit to put an end to the voting stations was filed (and lost). Interestingly, the group who mounted the failed challenge to the special voting stations is comprised of members who are least disenfranchised by the Saturday caucus - a teachers' union who generally have weekends free and clear. Obama and some of his supporters, in turn, are criticizing the Clinton camp for attempting to effectively disenfranchise voters with this legal challenge - a challenge that would seem to have had far more potential to affect the vote than the Orthodox/Seventh Day Adventist issue will have.

Sounds like a lot if controversy over voters' rights in Nevada - not a pretty way to start off what looks like it promises to be a contentious election season.

Book Review

2007-12-30T23:08:00.000-05:00

A friend handed me Naomi Ragen's latest, The Saturday Wife, last week, and I figured it would be worth a read - as her other efforts have proven in the past. I was wrong. I am an avid reader, and I read quickly enough that I rarely find a book to be a complete and utter waste of time. This book, however, fits that bill. I finished reading it only because I was so fascinated by how unlikeable and caricatured the characters were and how ridiculously predictable and uncompelling the story line, that it was akin to rubbernecking at a train wreck. The weak ending didn't disappoint either. All in all, highly NOT recommended. Don't let anyone anyone convince you that this book is worth reading, if only because it's set in the Orthodox Jewish world. It isn't worth reading.

I'd have been better off keeping up with my delinquent blogging that reading this book, that much is certain.

NYT on Lakewood, NJ

2007-12-11T06:43:00.000-05:00

This article in yesterday's NYT raises some interesting issues regarding the changing demographics of Lakewood, NJ. The township has witnessed exponential growth in its Orthodox population, and with that growth, an increase in tensions between town residents. In some ways, the tensions described are similar to the resentment that seems to occur whenever a locale goes through a significant demographic change, in other ways the situation is unique to those areas that have seen themselves being increasingly populated by Orthodox Jews. Few other demographic groups move into communities en masse with the intent to create and patronize their own schools, places of worship, eateries and stores. Even if such de facto self-segregation is not the intention, but just the byproduct of practices that are intended to preserve traditional and religious standards, articles such as this one, that highlight the negative sentiment that can arise in such situations (much like the situation here in the Five Towns), should serve as a reminder that the Orthodox populations in such areas should make every attempt to assuage the negative sentiment that seems to arise wherever they create communities that give the impression of isolationism. Making inroads and exploring ways to get along with those who are different can certainly only help cool simmering tensions - whether here in the Five Towns, in Lakewood, or in any other community staring down the barrel of a sudden demographic shift.

One paragraph from the NYT article that particularly piqued my interest with it's relevance to the battles over the school board here in District 15:

There have been fights about the administration of the school system. Orthodox Jewish students attend private schools, but are eligible for millions of dollars of public money for busing, according to the town’s current mayor, Ray Coles. Black residents have complained that decisions about public schools attended largely by black and Hispanic students are made by a school board where 5 of the 9 members are Orthodox Jews.

Warren A. Sherard, the head of the local N.A.A.C.P. branch, said he had tried to get black residents more invested in the politics of the town.

“I went to churches and told people, ‘We need to vote in school board elections,’ ” he said. “I know people want to throw stones, but everyone’s got to vote.”

One point I feel I must make is that there is absolutely nothing wrong, or sinister, or untoward about the fact that, as the Times puts it, "Orthodox Jewish students attend private schools, but are eligible for millions of dollars of public money for busing". Busing is absolutely the right of every district resident, no matter where that child attend school. The implication on the part of the NYT that this complaint against the private school residents somehow actually holds water is irresponsible.

Another interesting point that is directly relevant to tensions in my district is the issue of the local school board holding a majority of non-public school parents. In Lakewood, as in the Five Towns, it may be difficult for some district residents to see a school board controlled by members who largely do not send their children to district public schools, but as Mr. Sherard noted in the quote above, the best way to fight that is to get out the vote for the candidate you support.

Enabling and Apologetics

2007-11-26T22:22:00.000-05:00

I urge everyone to read this great post by Gil, where he respectfully takes apart some statements made by by Agudah spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran on the subject of child molestation. I agree with Gil's overall point. In my opinion, Rabbi Shafran is spending too much time explaining and obsessing on how Orthodox Jews are the victims of the media, and how our culture is under siege by people hell-bent on proving that the molestation issue is as prevalent in the Orthodox community as it is in society at large - and in doing so, Rabbi Shafran is completely dodging the issue here, an issue which sorely needs addressing. The issue that child molestation does exist in our schools, in our camps, in our neighborhoods. The issue that every single allegation of child molestation needs to be fully and thoroughly investigated. The issue that there are too many instances coming to light of people in our community turning a blind eye - whether out of ignorance or out of willful denial - to the cases of abuse that have seemingly occurred.

Is Rabbi Shafran correct that every allegation cannot automatically be treated as fact, and that there needs to be a some sort of balance to the wholesale panic and hysteria that can ruin lives if left unchecked? Yes. Is that the point that needs to be driven home? Perhaps - but it is certainly not the most important point to be made on this subject, and certainly not the point that needs to be made every single time Rabbi Shafran addresses the topic. It's almost as if Rabbi Shafran would have us believe that the fear of the community losing face over these allegations is somehow anywhere near as disturbing as the allegations themselves. The allegations, some quite credible, of children being abused in the most heinous manner by those who we entrust to care for them, to educate them. If Rabbi Shafran were to put out just one statement that would lead me to to believe that he is chagrined, devastated, completely emotionally wrought by the allegations of abuse and cover-up that have rocked the Orthodox world, then maybe I would feel more comfortable with the apologetics and attempts to paint the community at large as the actual victims of unfair media attention here. But the bottom line is that the victimhood is getting old. The victim here is not the Orthodox community, at the hands of a sensationalist press - or at least they are not the most pitiable victims. The victims, that just once, Rabbi Shafran might consider showing at least as much compassion for as he does for the reputation of our entire community, are...well, the actual victims of these heinous crimes.

Is Rabbi Shafran trying to enable child molesters? Is he truly looking to be complicit in the culture of cover-up that permeates our community when it comes to this subject? I don't believe he is. But I think his apologetics and his tone-deaf approach to the topic are misfiring, again and again.

Update to Board Boycott

2007-11-26T14:29:00.000-05:00

Yeshiva World posts a welcome update to this post:

Last week, Yeshivaworld posted an article from the Times Herald Record regarding members of the Monticello School Board who decided to boycott a School Board Event which was scheduled for the first night of Chanukah.

Well now, the Record is reporting that the meeting has been cancelled after receiving “feedback” from other schools

One board member told the Record that “it was inappropriate to hold a meeting during the family-rich first night”.

BOCES Superintendent Martin Handler said that this was a scheduling mistake, and that it didn’t occur to anybody that the evening of December 4th was significant.

The meeting will be held sometime in January.

I'm pleased to see that the district took into account the sensitivities of the board members who felt they were being unduly inconvenienced by the scheduling conflict.

Go Directly to IVF - Do Not Pass Go?

2007-11-25T12:18:00.000-05:00

A new study seems to suggest that couples suffering from infertility should not waste their time or money on less invasive fertility treatments, but instead should con sider going straight to in-vitro fertilization:

So it makes sense that some researchers are pushing to skip the middle step and go straight to IVF when the first-round effort fails. In a study presented last month at the annual meeting of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, doctors from Dartmouth Medical School and Boston IVF concluded that women who were fast-tracked to IVF got pregnant three months faster on average, and spent $10,000 less than those who went through the usual preliminaries.

Considering how many couples I know who tried most or all of the less invasive treatments before finally being successful with IVF, this study would seem to be recommending the exact opposite approach. What's particularly interesting is that I had a conversation with a close friend regarding the halachic parameters of fertility treatments, and her halachic authority was definitely recommending that she and her husband try other treatments before approaching IVF, and seemed to treat IVF as pretty much a last resort (short of treatments such as surrogacy and sperm/egg donors, which can raise more complicated halachic questions). One of the reasons seemed to be a psychological - that the couple should not pull out all the stops treatment-wise, and then be dejected if the holy grail of fertility treatments doesn't show immediate results. While I can understand the motivations behind that, this study would seem to show that such waiting, considering the lower rate of success from the less involved treatments, might be more of a cruel and unusual psychological punishment in and of itself, as the article notes:

Shorter waits bring welcome psychological relief. One study claimed that women going through infertility treatment were as distressed as women diagnosed with cancer, heart disease, or HIV. Fast-tracking can mean fewer episodes of dashed hopes. That could lead to less depression, anxiety, and stress, which hurts marriages and, some claim, may lower one's chances of conceiving.

Another reason seemed to be because her Rav was concerned about the supposed higher rates of multiple births with IVF, and the fact that such multiple pregnancies entail a higher risk for both mother and children - however, that IVF does have a higher propensity for multiple births seems to be disproved from the study noted above.

The first is the potential to prevent higher-order multiple births—triplets, quadruplets, and beyond, which carry a greater risk to the mother's and babies' health. Women who get pregnant from injections with insemination face a 10 percent to 15 percent chance of carrying litters because the drugs can make them release six or more eggs. There's no way to control how many get fertilized. With IVF, by contrast, doctors create embryos in a lab and choose how many to transfer back to the womb, bringing the risk of triplets and beyond down to 2 percent to 4 percent. (The odds of conceiving triplets naturally are between 1 in 6,000 and 1 in 8,100.) That IVF figure is likely to decline further as doctors increasingly transfer fewer embryos.

So the question is, will the halachic recommendations change as a result of these findings, as the medical recommendation is hopefully going to - if they haven't already? Feel free to chime in with your experience as to whether halachic guidance given to infertile couples jibes with this medical recommendation to fast-track IVF. Though I know a few people who received halachic guidance to wait on IVF until other treatments have been tried, I know of at least one friend, living in Israel, who received a psak to go straight to IVF - but that obviously might have been complicated by her specific situation. So I'd love to hear some weighing in - anecdotal though it might be - on what seems to be the halachic consensus at this moment.

More on halacha and infertility here, from the indefatigable Chana's excellent notes from a medical ethics conference she attended at YU.

Heroine of the Day

2007-11-24T20:17:00.000-05:00

Here:

It has been 62 years since deaf and mute Irena Walulewicz risked her life to save a Jewish neighbor from the Nazis, but her heroism was never forgotten.

"I've thought about her so much," Golda Bushkanietz said tearfully as she hugged her savior for the first time since 1945 at Kennedy Airport Friday.

"I'm 94. I never thought I would see her again. I cannot fully express how grateful I am."

Desperate and terrified, Bushkanietz staggered into the Walulewicz household in Swieciany, Poland, after escaping a ghetto whose population the Nazis were preparing to kill.

"I knocked on a window and they let me in," said Bushkanietz.

"I thought there was an angel in the house."

For six months, the Catholic Walulewicz and her mother, Zofia, hid and fed Bushkanietz in their attic.

"I still remember lying under Irena's bed, trying to keep quiet because the family had friends in their house," said Bushkanietz.

"They opened their home and their hearts to me, risking their own lives in order to save me. Their altruism and bravery is what has allowed me to live and build a wonderful family of my own."

"I knew it was dangerous. I knew I could be killed at any time," Walulewicz, 82, said through a translator yesterday.

"I'm so happy to see her again. I didn't know she was still alive."

The reunion was planned by The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous.

After the war, Bushkanietz reunited with her husband, who had fled the ghetto with her and had been fighting with partisans.

The couple moved to Israel. They have two children, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

"It's difficult for me to travel to the U.S. at my age, but to see Irena was a special treat," she said.

Walulewicz, who still lives in Poland, kissed Bushkanietz's son and grandson, who were with her yesterday.

"None of us, the whole of our family, could be here without Irena's heroic acts," said Jonathan More, 26, Bushkanietz's grandson.

"It's hard to put into words."

Plea for Help

2007-11-24T19:20:00.000-05:00

I was asked to post about this urgent call for help:

Dear Friend:

My, neighbor, Zev Wolff, a 5-year-old boy, needs your help now.

This beautiful and bright child has been battling a rare form of pediatric cancer known as Neuroblastoma since he was 3. Following nine months of intensive treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital (MSKH), Zev was in remission. Fourteen months later, he relapsed. Zev has had to undergo major surgery, chemotherapy and radiation; nearly a year later, Zev's scans look good.

Unfortunately, Neuroblastoma has an extremely high rate of relapse.

Zev needs another drug to stay in complete remission. His little body is fighting the drug 3F8 with which he's currently being treated. Currently, a new is being developed. The improved drug could help cure Zev and 300 other children with this disease. But the new drug needs to be manufactured, at a cost of almost five million dollars.

Researchers have developed techniques that can be used to make antibodies like 3F8 more human-like which will be more effective and better tolerated by patients. A portion of the work will be carried out at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital Cancer Center, and part contracted to a small pharmaceutical company

Large pharmaceutical companies do not see the profit in healing only a few hundred children annually. We are appealing to you to leverage your influence, relationships and support to drive the humanization of 3F8 to benefit the several hundred children, like Zev, who fall victim to Neuroblastoma every year. When this antibody is better tolerated and more effective, and when it can be manufactured on a scale that is economical, the lives of more children will be saved from this deadly cancer.

Helen and Ranan Wolff, Zev’s parents are grateful to be a part of this community. Time and time again you have shown your generosity to the Wolff family. The meals, babysitting, blood donations, words of support.

Now I am asking for your generosity again.

Please, open your hearts to Zev Wolff. Zev has come so far, he's been so brave and so strong.

Please contact Dr. Asher Mansdorf at amansdorf@aol.com for more information on how you can help.

Please do anything you can to help.

Scientists to New Moms: Get Your Beauty Sleep (Yeah, right!)

2007-11-20T17:44:00.001-05:00

On the heels of a study that shows that kids who do not get enough sleep have higher obesity rates, comes this:

Researchers presented a conundrum to new mothers on Monday, saying that women who want to lose the extra weight gained in pregnancy should try to get more sleep.

They found that mothers who slept five hours or less a day when their babies were six months old were three times more likely than more rested mothers to have kept on the extra weight at one year.

"We've known for some time that sleep deprivation is associated with weight gain and obesity in the general population, but this study shows that getting enough sleep — even just two hours more — may be as important as a healthy diet and exercise for new mothers to return to their pre-pregnancy weight," said Erica Gunderson of Kaiser Permanente, which runs hospitals and clinics in California.

Gunderson and colleagues studied 940 women taking part in a study of prenatal and postnatal health at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

The women who slept five hours or less a night when their babies were six months old were more likely to have kept on 11 pounds of weight one year after giving birth, they found.

Women who slept seven hours a night or more lost more weight, they reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The researchers acknowledged this may pose a dilemma to new mothers, given that infants sleep so fitfully.

"With the results of this study, new mothers must be wondering, 'How can I get more sleep for both me and my baby?' Our team is working on new studies to answer this important question," said Dr. Matthew Gillman of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.

Uh. great. I am SO glad that now that we know being up ALL NIGHT with a screaming baby might be keeping new moms from losing that baby weight may finally have scientists "working on new studies" to get babies and their mothers to sleep more. I mean, it was no problem at all for me to spend the wee hours of countless nights walking back and forth trying to comfort an alternately whimpering and howling baby in my arms - that is, until I found out that this was what might be keeping those pesky pounds from coming off. Because until now, it was perfectly bearable - even enjoyable, right? Thanks for the handy tip, Harvard geniuses! I wonder why getting more sleep didn't occur to me when I was a new mom? Us mothers will be sure to mention it to our colicky babies so that they can take their moms' weight loss needs into account before they make their evening plans!

Board Boycott

2007-11-20T16:17:00.000-05:00

From Yeshiva World:

Given the option of spending the first night of Chanukah with family and friends, or going to a meeting, Monticello school board officials didn’t have to think twice - reports the Record Online.

They are reportedly boycotting a Sullivan County School Board Association dinner meeting that was curiously scheduled for the night of Dec. 4, which has been on the calender for a year as the first night of Chanukah.

Monticello Superintendent Pat Michel said he contacted the organizers, including BOCES Superintendent Martin Handler, asking them to reschedule.

“They mulled it over,” Michel told the Record.

“They said that is the night.”

“I don’t think they would schedule the event on Christmas Eve,” said Monticello school board member Jacob Billig, noting that the consensus of his board is to not attend. “To me it is very insensitive.”

Totally agreed. I think it is terribly insensitive to schedule a board meeting for the first night of Chanukah, and I completely support the Jewish board members in their plan to boycott the meeting. Christian members of the school board would never allow a meeting to be scheduled for Christmas or Easter, so it is unreasonable to expect board members of a different religious denomination to show up on a holiday that is as important to them. And for the record, I would feel exactly the same way if members of the Hindu religion were being asked to show up to a meeting scheduled for Diwali, or Muslims on Eid. This is America, and we all need to be respectful of each other's religious differences and boundaries, even if that happens to entail rescheduling a board meeting.

Shabbat Gadgets

2007-11-20T15:41:00.000-05:00

I thought this was interesting:

Observing Shabbat but have to call your grandmother? Have to have a cup of coffee when you come back from weekend services? The halachic institute for science and technology has just the thing for you.

A group of engineers at the halachic institute, which specializes in Halacha-friendly technological developments, has come up with several new technological breakthroughs designed to ease the religious public's life, while keeping with all Shabbat-related mitzvahs.

The gadgets include, among others, a Shabbat air-conditioner, a Shabbat phone and a kosher, Shabbat espresso machine.

Many of the institute's developments are already in production, both in Israel and abroad, and several have been introduced to the public at a special show arranged by the Manufacturers Association of Israel.

These devices, said the MAI, have a potential $10 million a year market."We have gadgets that are meant to make life easier, such as the coffee machine and on the other hand, we have things like the Shabbat phone, that could help people in medical need," said Dov Zioni of the halachic institute.

One of the show's biggest hits was the Shabbat pen, which uses self-dissolving ink that disappears 24 hours after writing. "We're not talking about life and death situations here, when one's need to desecrate Shabbat to save a life goes without saying," added Zioni, "but for all those little grey areas we all encounter in our day-to-day lives."

"The industry finally realized the financial potential of developing products specifically for the ultra-Orthodox public," Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai, who visited the show and was visibly pleased, told Ynet.

"We get to develop different technologies, create jobs and observe Shabbat. It's a win-win situation," he added.

I can't imagine that these products are going to gain much popularity in the ultra-orthodox community, as trade minister Yishai suggests in the article. I just don't see invisible ink pens or Shabbat phones making their way into Charedi homes for regular use on Shabbat and Yom Tov. That said, the gadgets would probably prove very useful in the army, or for hospital or Hatzalah use. Even though, as the article notes, using a phone or a pen isn't an issue in Pikuach Nefesh (life-saving) situations, it would be interesting to see these products in use for situations that are not clearly life-or-death. The products might also hold interest for those who are less observant, and would consider using a non-Shabbat phone or pen on Shabbat. In a case such as that, why not use one specially made to skirt the prohibitions of Shabbat?

Blogger Lawsuit Threat of the Day

2007-11-14T15:41:00.000-05:00

So apparently, XGH has joined the elite little club of bloggers being threatened with legal action. As the story goes, Webads placed an ad on his blog, among others, for a book written by Rabbi Eliyahu Safran on the topic of Tzniut (modesty). XGH, upon perusing the book's website, noticed that in his bio, Rabbi Safran mentioned his wife's profession as a purveyor of fine custom wigs . XGH, on further investigation, noticed that said wig company sells some wig styles that he apparently feels are not in keeping with the spirit of Tzniut, and expressed as much in a satirical post. Evidently Rabbi Safran did not appreciate the joke, and threatened both Webads and XGH with a lawsuit unless the offending post was removed. XGH refused, at which point he and Webads severed their business relationship. Should be end of the story, except that according to this comment, Rabbi Safran is apparently still threatening both Webads and GH with legal action unless the offending post is removed.

A few points:
A. What does Webads have to do with this anymore? It seems to me that Rabbi Safran should have no further beef with them now that their relationship with GH has been severed. And even when their relationship was intact, it isn't as if there is any understanding that Webads has any control whatsoever of the content that goes up on the blogs on which they sell ad space. They placed an ad on GH's site, he posted something Rabbi Safran did not like, Rabbi Safran informed Webads, they severed the business relationship. Sounds like the Webads chapter is closed, and that they did everything they could to deal with the issue properly. The Webads chapter of this saga should be closed. They seem to be an innocent victim in all this, and I would hate to see Rabbi Safran bully them over this when it is clear they have no further control over the situation.

B. This is the reality of the blogworld, for better or for worse. Blogs are a little bit like the Wild West of the Jewish community. Just about anything goes - certainly more than what goes in the mainstream Jewish media or press. When that goes well for an advertiser, they can get a tremendous boost from a viral marketing campaign on a popular blog, or from a positive review or plug from a revered blogger. But when an anonymous blogger chooses to criticize, such is life. It's a bit naive to expect take the good without accepting the possibility of getting criticized. When you put yourself out there in an ad, expect to get the attention you are seeking. The fact is, attention is not always positive. Such is life. Which brings me to...

C. Was GH's criticism fair game? Some might say it was over the line, as it isn't as if his criticism was based on the content of the book. That said, whether or not I would have chosen to poke fun at the situation as GH did does not mean that his post topic was not fair game. Rabbi Safran did choose to put the information about his wife in his bio, and it isn't as if he mentioned that she was a seminary teacher. She deals in headcoverings, and the book is about Tzniut. Sounds like a reasonable topic to discuss, regardless of whether one agrees with GH's tone. I myself admit to being curious whether the author of a highly touted book on Tzniut endorses the wearing of glamorous sheitels named after movie actresses. Does anyone know if Rabbi Safran takes a position in his book on the propriety of various types of head coverings? I'd be interested in knowing.

D. As often happens when people make a big deal of a little thing, things tend to get magnified. I highly doubt many people would have cared what Rabbi Safran's wife does for a living, and had this not become an issue, XGH's post would have been pushed down by his usual busy posting schedule, and probably quickly forgotten. Instead, this issue has been dredged up in numerous posts at XGH's, and I'm sure will be picked up by many other bloggers. Sometimes it's better to simply let well enough alone. Trust me. I know this from personal experience. I got more traffic as a result of the Greenbaum lawsuit than I had ever gotten, and all Ms. Greenbaum et al succeeded in gaining was a larger audience for my views - the very views they found so offensive and hurtful in the first place. Probably not what they were looking for.

Discuss.

Book Review

2007-11-13T16:39:00.000-05:00

I just finished a quick but well-written book over the weekend that I thought I would recommend to my readers. The title is Not Me by Michael Lavigne. The story is told from the vantage point of Michael, a middle-aged Jewish comedian, separated from his wife and son, and tending to his dying father. His father, who has always presented himself as a Holocaust survivor, hands Michael a box of journals which contain some writings with some pretty stunning clues as to the man's wartime activities, which leaves Michael struggling to connect the dots as to the truth about his father's past. The journals recount the story of a Nazi accountant who worked in a concentration camp, and then manages to escape the Allies at the end of the war by impersonating a Jewish Holocaust survivor and emigrating to what was then Palestine. The narrative is complicated by the question of whether the journals are works of fiction, or his father's actual memoirs of his experiences during the wartime years, and the story works through the confusion from the son's perspective nicely. What's interesting is how the author, in telling the story, seems to blur the line between victim and perpetrator until the reader's sympathies become a bit mixed up - and I am quite sure that that is not entirely a good thing when it comes to the subject matter at hand. Though one certainly feels some sympathies toward the father in the novel, and the author certainly works hard to make the point that there is a large gray area between what's "right" and what's "wrong", as well as how subjective the concept of identity can be, it was hard for me to see the father as having been an altruistic character, despite him being portrayed as being a devout Jew and having been involved in many Jewish causes in later life. That said, I would obviously never suggest that every literary work has to have some sort of moral message - so the book is still worth a read even if I can't empathize with some of the characters as the author seems to expect us to. The book also includes some interesting tensions between three generations' worth of father-son relationships.

The book actually reminded me of a different book I had recently read, Those Who Save Us, which tells a similar story of a grown child uncovering some long-buried secrets regarding a parent's wartime activities - in this case, a daughter about a mother. In terms of the actual secrets being uncovered, the author of this book does not have to work as hard to blur the line between victim and perpetrator - the mother of the main character is clearly a victim, despite her wartime activities in which she has an affair with a Nazi officer out of self-preservation - as well as a hero - in her own right, as compared to the father in Not Me, who I cannot characterize as showing any heroism throughout the book. Also, in Those Who Save Us, though the mother is portrayed as a sympathetic character, there is no attempt whatsoever to mitigate the evil in the portrayal of any Nazi sympathizers or Nazis proper, as there is in the pages of Not Me.

All in all, both books are worth picking up, though I wouldn't recommend reading them back-to-back, as the similarity in themes might get a bit repetitive.

If anyone has read either/both of these books and would like to treat this thread as an impromptu book-club meeting, feel free. I would be happy to join in.

Alternate-Side-of-the-Street Amusements

2007-11-08T22:32:00.000-05:00

Clyde Haberman amuses in tomorrow's NYT:

Today is Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, celebrating the triumph of good, represented by Lord Rama, over the forces of evil. It is a holiday that thrills some of my friends. Not that they are Hindus themselves.

The three-day Islamic feasts of Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha thrill them, too. They aren’t Muslims, either.

They are, in the main, Christians and Jews. Most of them are not the sort to be found in church or synagogue every Sunday or Saturday morning. But they derive enormous satisfaction from holy days like the Feast of the Assumption or from a days-long Jewish festival like Passover.

That is because they answer to a separate authority. Their true devotion is to the Church of Internal Combustion. You probably know these people better as car owners.

Nothing delights them more than a religious holiday, any religious holiday — Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, it really doesn’t matter — that liberates them from the city’s alternate-side parking rules.

In the New York diocese of the Church of Internal Combustion, the highest virtue is being able to leave one’s car parked on the street for days at a time. Church members reach this state of exaltation through a special dispensation granted by a nonecclesiastical synod, a body called the City Council. The Council is vested with the supreme authority to suspend alternate-side rules. This it does. Faithfully.

Diwali, celebrated by Sikhs and Jains as well as by Hindus, is the latest holiday to receive the sacrament of discarded parking regulations. By official count, there are 35 such holidays through the year, spread across 44 days. Council members love few things more than adding days to the list. They have done so with fair regularity.

Although some members of the Church of Internal Combustion may not believe it, alternate-side parking does not exist to torment them. The rules were created for the common weal: to make it possible for Sanitation Department sweepers to do their stuff.

Once upon a time, the main exceptions to the rules were legal holidays, when city employees are off, and certain days on which observant Jews are forbidden to drive: Yom Kippur, for example. There is no known Talmudic exception for alternate-side parking rules.

But any privilege for a particular ethnic or religious group is not allowed to exist in this city without others’ claiming it as well. And so, over the years, the Council has steadily expanded the exemption list to include all sorts of holidays with no inherent proscription against driving: Ash Wednesday, Purim, the Asian Lunar New Year and All Saints’ Day, to name a few.

I always think it's hilarious when I hear the radio announcer declaring that "alternate side of the street parking rules are suspended" due to some minor Jewish holiday or other - particularly because if I am listening to my radio, it follows that there is no religious reason I can't get into my car and move it. But hey, it's certainly nice to see NYC celebrate and give equal footing to the different religious groups that make the city the great place it is.

Guatemala Bans Drunken Voting

2007-11-08T22:11:00.000-05:00

This is interesting:

In the interest of democracy, Guatemala strives for a sober electorate.

Like many Latin American countries, Guatemala bans the sale or consumption of alcohol around election time., reports National Public Radio’s Morning Edition (listen here). So in preparation for last Sunday’s presidential vote, the country went dry from noon on Saturday until 6 a.m. on Monday. Officials say cutting off alcohol reduces political violence and results in clearer-headed voters.

So Latin American countries don't want their citizens' judgment impaired at all when they enter their votes. Because we all know that voters' always show good judgment, and never vote with anything but a clear head. Riiiight.

Nursing News

2007-11-08T21:48:00.000-05:00

Is there a mom on this earth who hasn't yet heard of the studies that suggest that those who were breastfed as infants show measurably higher IQ's than those who were not? I doubt it - and I'm sure there are guilt-ridden moms worldwide because of those studies. Well, now there actually seems to be some hard-to-refute proof that such a link exists. In the past, some have argued that the link between intelligence and breastfeeding was tenuous at best, as it's hard to exclude the importance of other intelligence-affecting factors that might go hand-in-hand with breastfeeding - higher economic status, for example. But this new study seems to have taken that into account, and the results do seem to point to a correlation between breastfeeding and higher IQ's - but the benefits only apply to those children with a certain genetic variant. Children who do not possess that genetic variant do not seem to get that intelligence boost from breastfeeding at all, according to the study.

In theory, this should make some non-breastfeeding mothers feel less guilty, as the 7-digit IQ boost is far from a slam dunk, and out of their hands - who knows if their kid is one of the lucky group with the gene variant? But I see it instead as yet one more aspect of parenting to feel guilty about - not only do we have to worry about whether we are adequately nursing our children to pass along the benefits, we have to worry about whether we have even passed on the genetic capability for our children to gain in intelligence from breastfeeding.

Argh.

Chicken or Egg?

2007-11-08T19:54:00.000-05:00

In an interesting follow-up to the study that showed that children who don't get enough sleep have higher obesity rates, comes this study:

Eating just a few meals loaded with fat -- think holiday food -- could be enough to throw off the body's internal clock, starting a vicious cycle that could lead to obesity and diabetes, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

They found mice fed high-fat foods showed marked changes in their diet and sleep patterns, sleeping longer and eating when they should be sleeping.

"The effect can be seen quite rapidly -- within a matter of days," said Dr. Joe Bass of Northwestern University and Evanston Northwestern Healthcare in Illinois, whose study was published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

He said the study suggests overeating alters a core mechanism of the body clock, disrupting the timing of internal signals like appetite control.

"What we saw is that the ticking of the clock slowed down," Bass said in a telephone interview.

Known as the circadian clock, this internal time keeper manages the body's daily rhythms, regulating when to sleep, wake, eat and many other functions of the body.

Prior studies led by Bass found that a faulty body clock can raise the risk of obesity and diabetes. Bass' latest study shows that overeating can trigger this process.

So a lack of sleep can cause obesity - whether from a messed up body clock, or from just not getting yourself to sleep early enough. But the trigger to the faulty body clock could be the overeating. And to further confuse the matter, mice who overate were found not only to sleep poorly - but eat more and at inappropriate times:

"If you give a mouse a high-fat diet, they will eat excessive amounts," Bass said. "It is the same thing as human eating at McDonald's or eating too much at a Thanksgiving dinner."

So the question is, where does this vicious cycle of high fat diet/weight gain/sleep disruption/high fat diet/weight gain/sleep disruption start?

Vote

2007-11-06T07:45:00.000-05:00

Today is election day, so as always, I hope everyone gets out there and votes in whichever elections your areas are having (despite what is shaping up here as some really lousy election-day weather.)

And while we're on the subject of elections, Mom in Israel has been chosen as a finalist in the 2007 Weblog awards, in the category Africa and the Middle East. Details are here. Please go over there and vote for her great blog.

Workplace Discrimination?

2007-11-05T21:51:00.000-05:00

This story irks me:

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Choosing her religion over her work cost a Rossville woman her job.

At least that's what Loretta Sands contends in an employment-discrimination lawsuit that appears headed to trial.

Ms. Sands maintains she was fired from her position as a medical service coordinator at the Travis-based Community Resources because she took off two days in October 2005 to observe the Jewish holy days of Rosh Hashanah.

Community Resources counters Ms. Sands, now 58, was fired for violating the company's attendance policy. Ms. Sands took off Oct. 4 and Oct. 5, 2005, despite receiving permission to be absent only one day.

Ms. Sands had been hired two weeks earlier and was on probation at the service provider for Staten Islanders with special needs, court papers said.

... According to court papers, Ms. Sands, who is Jewish, began working for Community Resources around Sept. 19, 2005. Shortly thereafter, she asked for two days off to observe Rosh Hashanah -- the beginning of the Jewish new year and one of the holiest times of the year.

After consulting her supervisor as well as Community Resources' director of human resources and chief operating officer, she received permission to take off one day. Because she was still on probation, Ms. Sands was technically not entitled to any time off, court papers said.

Despite those conversations, Ms. Sands took off both Oct. 4 and 5, 2005, and did not call in to work either day.

When she returned Oct. 6, 2005, she was fired, allegedly for violating Community Resources' attendance policy.

Ms. Sands subsequently filed a lawsuit, alleging she was discriminated against because of her creed.

I cannot see how the firing can be seen as anything but de facto discrimination - even if the company gives a legitimate, ostensibly non-discriminatory explanation for it. As I have said before, regarding similar situations, I am sure that Ms. Sands would have been willing to work out some sort of deal with her employers to work a different day that might not be as popular with her co-workers...like, say, Christmas? Bottom line? Until someone tells me that the company forces Christian employees who are on probation to come in on Christmas, this firing was just wrong.

The Jewish Star on the Greenbaum Ruling

2007-10-31T18:45:00.000-04:00

At left is the Jewish Star's article covering the Greenbaum lawsuit, which includes an interesting quote by Ms. Greenbaum herself: (click to enlarge):

I am disappointed with the decision,” she said, “to the extent that those who posted disingenuous comments about me will not be held accountable this time.
I hope that as this community moves forward, divisiveness, personal attacks and unthinking language will not be tolerated.

So where do I even begin. First of all, way to move the goalposts, Pam. You may have waited up until the judge emphatically ruled against you, but then it took you no time at all to go from calling the comments in question "defamatory" to calling them "disingenuous". Perhaps Ms. Greenbaum is looking to be a trailblazer in the emerging tort of "disingenuity lawsuits". And while she's at it, maybe she can innovate claims for unwarranted saracasm and poor hygiene. It's actually hard for me to believe that Ms. Greenbaum can justify wasting the court's time and the taxpayers' money over what she has just admitted to being nothing more than disingenuity. Regarding the second half of her comment: Hah. Ms. Greenbaum would have us believe that she is suddenly the poster child for a campaign to wipe out divisiveness in SD#15? That's amusing, considering Ms. Greenbaum's lawsuit seemed to have prodded this community into a fever pitch of divisiveness. The division between Pam supporters and Pam detractors in the wake of the lawsuit was as sharp a rift as I've ever seen in this district. And here we see Ms. Greenbaum preaching unity. Talk about disingenuity.

I also found this quote, from Paul Alan Levy, the attorney who so ably represented me in this case, to be quite interesting:

“Greenbaum's biggest problem is that she now has a judge's opinion that she perjured herself, so she's now in a worse place than when she started,” said Paul Alan Levy, an attorney for Public Citizen Litigation Group, who represented Orthomom pro bono. “The perjury argument was a cute idea — and it is defamatory to accuse someone of perjury, I suppose. The argument could be made that she was accusing her [Greenbaum] of false swearing. The problem is that it was false swearing.”

I guess Ms. Greenbaum should have considered being a little less sensitive to the criticisms of her policies as she saw them on these pages. It would seem to me that her attempts to muzzle me and my commenters from disagreeing with her actions as an elected official have potentially bought her a far bigger headache that any of the original comments in question may have brought on.

Also, I penned my own column for the paper in response to last week's ruling. Click here for an image of the piece.

Church Endorses Message of Hate?

2007-10-31T08:44:00.000-04:00

This is a bit disturbing:

Outraged Jewish groups are demanding Edward Cardinal Egan speak out against Nazi-glorifying rockers set to take the stage Friday night in a Catholic Church-owned concert hall.

Croatian singer Marko Perkovic and his band Thompson extol ethnic cleansing - and their fans often greet them with the Nazi salute.

Now they're taking that message to a stage in the community center adjoining the Croatian Church of St. Cyril & Methodius on 10th Ave. in midtown.

...Thompson frontman Perkovic is hugely popular in his native Croatia, where thousands turn out for his shows, many wearing the black caps of the country's vicious Nazi-era military regime, the Ustasha.

Critics say Perkovic's ultranationalist act glorifies those Nazi ties, and both the Netherlands and Canada have banned him.

That he's been permitted to appear at a Catholic church in the heart of New York City left several prominent Jewish leaders fuming Tuesday.

"They should know better," said Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League. "People should not go to a church to hear hatred or the glorification of Nazism. No place of worship should host it or welcome it."

Well, yeah. I don't expect or want the band to be banned outright in this country - as has occurred in Canada and the Netherlands. But the fact that a church can be so clueless as to host an act that glorifies Nazism is stunning. I am holding on to hope that the church booked the act not knowing anything about their sympathies, and that now that it has been brought to their attention, they will do the right thing. It's one thing for this country to allow this band a forum that allows this group to freely express themselves, no matter how offensive I might find their views. It's another thing entirely for that freedom of expression to take place in a house of worship, with what seems like tacit approval from at least some members of the Catholic Church. Here's hoping the church has the good sense to politely ask the group to find a new, non-religious venue.

Are Our Kids Getting Enough Sleep?

2007-10-30T18:49:00.000-04:00

Think your kids are getting enough sleep? I know I did. Think again.

NY Magazine writes about some groundbreaking studies being done that tie our children's performance in just about every arena to the amount of sleep they are getting at night. And the results are pretty eye-opening.

One study, done by a doctor at Tel Aviv University, showed just how detrimental missing that hour of sleep actually can actually be to our kids' cognitive abilities:

The effect was indeed measurable—and sizable. The performance gap caused by an hour’s difference in sleep was bigger than the normal gap between a fourth-grader and a sixth-grader. Which is another way of saying that a slightly sleepy sixth-grader will perform in class like a mere fourth-grader. “A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to [the loss of] two years of cognitive maturation and development,” Sadeh explains.

Sadeh’s findings are consistent with other researchers’ work, all of which points to the large academic consequences of small sleep differences. Dr. Monique LeBourgeois of Brown University studies how sleep affects pre-kindergartners. Virtually all young children are allowed to stay up late on Fridays and Saturdays. Yet she’s discovered that the sleep-shift factor alone is correlated with performance on a standardized school-readiness test. Every hour of weekend shift costs students seven points on the test. Dr. Paul Suratt of the University of Virginia studied the impact of sleep problems on vocabulary-test scores of elementary-school students. He also found a seven-point reduction in scores. Seven points, Suratt notes, is significant: “Sleep disorders can impair children’s I.Q.’s as much as lead exposure.”

Every study done shows a similar connection between sleep and school grades—from a study of second- and third-graders in Chappaqua to a study of eighth-graders in Chicago. The correlations really spike in high school, because that’s when there’s a steep drop-off in kids’ sleep. Dr. Kyla Wahlstrom of the University of Minnesota surveyed more than 7,000 high schoolers in Minnesota about their sleep habits and grades. Teens who received A’s averaged about fifteen more minutes sleep than the B students, who in turn averaged eleven more minutes than the C’s, and the C’s had ten more minutes than the D’s. Wahlstrom’s data was an almost perfect replication of results from an earlier study of more than 3,000 Rhode Island high schoolers by Brown’s Mary Carskadon. Certainly, these are averages, but the consistency of the two studies stands out. Every fifteen minutes counts.

Equally persuasive is this report from some school districts who chose to give their kids an extra hour of sleep based on the emerging data that points to importance of a good night's sleep:

Convinced by the mountain of studies, a handful of school districts around the nation are starting school later in the morning. The best known of these is in Edina, Minnesota, an affluent suburb of Minneapolis, where the high school start time was changed from 7:25 a.m. to 8:30. The results were startling. In the year preceding the time change, math and verbal SAT scores for the top 10 percent of Edina’s students averaged 1288. A year later, the top 10 percent averaged 1500, an increase that couldn’t be attributed to any other variable. “Truly flabbergasting,” said Brian O’Reilly, the College Board’s executive director for SAT Program Relations, on hearing the results.

Another trailblazing school district is Lexington, Kentucky’s, which also moved its start time an hour later. After the time change, teenage car accidents in Lexington were down 16 percent. The rest of the state showed a 9 percent rise.

Studies also show that another side effect of too little sleep would seem to be a slowed metabolism:

Five years ago, already aware of an association between sleep apnea and diabetes, Dr. Eve Van Cauter at the University of Chicago discovered a “neuroendocrine cascade” that links sleep to obesity.

Sleep loss increases the hormone ghrelin, which signals hunger, and decreases its metabolic opposite, leptin, which suppresses appetite. Sleep loss also elevates the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol is lipogenic, meaning it stimulates your body to make fat. Human growth hormone is also disrupted. Normally secreted as a big pulse at the beginning of sleep, growth hormone is essential for the breakdown of fat.

It’s drilled into us that we need to be more active to lose weight. So it spins the mind to hear that a key to staying thin is to spend more time doing the most sedentary inactivity humanly possible. Yet this is exactly what some scientists seem to be finding. In light of Van Cauter’s discoveries, sleep scientists have performed a flurry of analyses on children. All the studies point in the same direction: On average, children who sleep less are fatter than children who sleep more. This isn’t just in the U.S.; scholars around the world are considering it, as they watch sleep data fall and obesity rates rise in their own countries.

Three foreign studies showed strikingly similar results. One analyzed Japanese elementary students, one Canadian kindergarten boys, and one young boys in Australia. They all showed that kids who get less than eight hours of sleep have about a 300 percent higher rate of obesity than those who get a full ten hours of sleep. Within that two-hour window, it was a “dose-response” relationship, according to the Japanese scholars.

In Houston public schools, according to a University of Texas at Houston study, adolescents’ odds of obesity went up 80 percent for each hour of lost sleep.

Sooo. That extra cup of water, the extra few minutes watching the game, the late hour at which they actually settle down and get their homework done, the early rising to catch minyan at school (for those boys who are Bar Mitzvah) - all could potentially be setting our kids' cognitive functioning and physical health back in a very real, very measurable way. The reason that is such a bitter pill for me - and likely many fellow parents of of school-age or older children - to swallow, is the simple fact that it just does not seem possible for my kids to manage all that needs to be done on a school night, plus a bit of downtime before the deadline rears its ugly head for what this study seems to consider a reasonable bedtime. Consider the long school hours Yeshiva kids put in (pretty much dawn to dusk this time of year), add numerous subjects' worth of homework (at least an hour's worth nightly for some kids), throw some extra-curricular activities into the mix (I am not taking away their only shot at getting some decent exercise when winter comes around), and as it is you have a day with far too few hours in it. Add an earlier bedtime to the mix? I would venture to guess that for many households, it almost feels like it just can't be done.

Obviously, with studies as compelling as these, I'm not giving up just yet - but how in the world does one get teenagers to settle in at a reasonable hour? Or force a wired school-age child to actually fall asleep at bedtime - and not just lay in bed? Cut back on studying for tests so that kids can go to sleep earlier and potentially reap those cognitive gains?? Uh, but what if there simply isn't enough time to actually review all the material? Which is more important to better test performance - more hitting the pillow, or more hitting the books? And is anyone really willing to bet that it's indisputably healthier for our kids' - many of whose physiques are, let's face it, sorely in need of some physical activity - to cut back on any extracurricular sports that might push back their bedtime for fear of them...getting fat??

As I said, these studies all seem very persuasive, and I will admit that I already announced to the Ortho offspring that from here on in, everyone must be in bed at his or her appointed bedtime (can't blame a mom for trying). But who's to say that said bedtimes will even be early enough? And how many hours exactly make up the elusive gold standard that constitutes "enough sleep"? I don't see any guidelines in the article as to how much sleep is enough - only some hints as to how little is too little. Anyone?

Almost Funny...But Not Quite

2007-10-28T22:17:00.000-04:00

And people say our district's school board has problems. From Newsday:

Tensions among feuding factions of the Brentwood Board of Education intensified this week when a former district clerk filed a complaint to the state alleging a special board meeting was illegal. As a result, the former clerk said, all actions taken that night should be voided.

Kathleen Hoey, 46, district clerk until July, said a special board meeting Monday violated the state regulation that requires at least 24 hours notice to board members about a planned meeting.

Hoey argued that the board violated community members' voting and civil rights by not notifying three of the seven board members. They included Tomas Del Rio, Joseph Fritz and Gail Kirkham.

Hoey said the majority faction - board president George Talley, along with Stephen Coleman, Lorraine Pace and Suzanne Belanger - did not act in the interest of the district.

"They cannot pick and choose who they want to come to a meeting," Hoey said.

Talley said Del Rio, Fritz and Kirkham were not informed of Monday's special meeting because they had all responded to an e-mail message earlier asking for their availability in October by stating they were unavailable for special meetings during the month.

"Why would I notify them if they already notified me they were not available?" he said.

Del Rio said that although he had responded earlier that he would be unavailable for special meetings this month, the law requires that he be notified nonetheless. "They don't want us to participate," he said. Fritz agreed, saying, "you're expected to be notified."

The special meeting was called primarily to hire a lawyer to represent the board in response to an earlier complaint by Del Rio and Fritz to the state against the majority faction calling for their ouster. Talley and the majority have also filed a complaint calling for Del Rio's and Fritz's removal. All three complaints await a legally binding decision from the state education commissioner.

What a lousy example to set for district schoolchildren. Thank goodness our board's issues and internecine battling have not sunk to the lows of those in Brentwood. I do, however, think the Brentwood board's extreme outlandish behavior should make members of SD15 realize how such skirmishing benefits no one at all - least of all the children of this district.

Orthomom Lawsuit: VICTORY!

2007-10-25T13:54:00.000-04:00

Judge Marcy Friedman has handed down a decision in the Orthomom defamation lawsuit, and it has come back as a complete victory for myself as well as for the commenters on this site. More importantly, this is a huge victory for the First Amendment, and for the right of private citizens to express themselves freely.

I also view this as a personal victory, as the judge has flatly stated that none of the statements I or my commenters have made regarding Ms. Greenbaum were actionable - either due to the fact that they are statements of clear opinion, or due to their being true.

The judge upheld the assertions of my attorney, Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen, that the statements in which Ms. Greenbaum claimed I called her an "anti-semite" and a "bigot" were untrue - as only the statement of "bigot" was made in reference to Ms. Greenbaum, and was in actuality made by anonymous commenters to my blog. Further, Judge Friedman ruled that those statements, even as made by said anonymous commenters, are clearly statements of opinion, and thus not actionable as defamatory.

Significantly, also, Orthomom’s statements, as well as those of the anonymous
commentators, are protected opinion. Whether a statement expresses fact or opinion is a question of law for the court, to “be answered on the basis of what the average person hearing or reading the communication would take it to mean.”

...The statements of both Orthomom and the anonymous commentators are based on the single disclosed fact, the truth of which Greenbaum does not contest, that Greenbaum opposes the use of public school funds for programs for Yeshiva students and others who receive their full-time education at private schools. As such, the statements are readily identifiable as protected opinion.

Even more interesting is the fact that the judge dismissed Greenbaum's claims that I defamed her when I suggested that she perjured herself in signed court documents by falsely asserting that I had made certain statements. Though it seems that claims of perjury might not fall under the rubric of protected opinion, Judge Friedman failed to find for Greenbaum because my claim, that Greenbaum had made false claims under oath, are "incontrovertibly true". Which means, of course, that the judge found that Ms. Greenbaum actually did, as I assert in this post, make a false claim under oath:

A claim of defamation may be based on an accusation that a person has committed the crime of perjury. (See Immuno A.G., 77 NY2d at 244.) However, the statements in these postings about the allegations of the petition are incontrovertibly true, as Orthomom never defamed Greenbaum by stating or implying that she was a bigot or anti-semitic and, in fact, never used the words. This claim therefore is clearly not actionable.

The bottom line here is that this failed attempt to quell free speech has instead served to reaffirm the First Amendment right or each one of us to speak freely without fear of retribution or ramifications. The fact that a public official attempted to muzzle vocal critic of her policies by filing a meritless suit that included false claims and smears against my truthfulness is appalling - and the judge's decision clearly shows that the law is against such attempts. The fact that in the process, Ms. Greenbaum succeeded only in publicly smearing her own reputation and integrity is gravy.

I would like to thank my attorney, Paul Alan Levy, and his local counsel, Donald Rosenthal, for all their efforts on behalf of this cause. Their work has helped protect our constitutional rights as citizens of this country.

Public Citizen's press release can be found here. The PDF of the decision can be found here.

Background: (I, II, III, IV, V, VI)

Hate Crimes in the Five Towns

2007-10-23T00:19:00.000-04:00

With anti-Semitic hate crimes on the rise in NYC, apparently some of that has spilled over the Eastern border of the city - and right into my backyard:

Nassau police are investigating the appearance of swastikas on four stop signs at a Cedarhurst intersection, officials said.

According to police, a resident reported the small swastikas written onto the back and front of the stop signs at the intersection of Roselle and Fifth avenues around 2 p.m. Saturday.

Here are some pictures of the swastikas in question (click on images to enlarge). And though, as the article notes, they may be quite small, the swastika is still an image of hate. As has been covered in the news of late, instances of these types of hate crimes seem to be increasing, but we must not allow ourselves to become complacent to the truly offensive nature of the symbol - one that has been used to express hate, violence and anti-Semitism.

Bad Behavior

2007-10-22T16:50:00.000-04:00

Utterly appalling behavior over in Israel:

Five assailants believed to be Ultra-Orthodox Jews assaulted a woman and an Israel Defense Forces soldier Sunday for sitting next to each other on a bus bound for Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem.

The incident began when the five men asked the religious woman to move to the back of the bus to prevent males and females from sitting together in public. When she refused, they beat her and the male soldier who sat next to her.

Police forces that arrived at the scene to arrest the men were attacked by dozens of ultra-Orthodox men who punctured the tires of their vehicles, allowing the assailants to escape.

I posted about a similar story last year, and I was equally outraged then. That incident, quite correctly, was blogged about and buzzed about all over the internet, with most who weighed in siding with the victim. There did, however, seem to be a running commentary at that time by some who felt that somehow the incident was mitigated by the possibility that the victim had "staged" the event, or was "raring for a fight", or had somehow brought the abuse upon herself by virtue of being an activist for the cause of keeping women at the front of the bus. Well, any suggestion that last year's incident was an isolated one, or that it was not an indication of a slide into zealotry by at least a subset of the Charedi community can now be put to rest.

And though the usual caveats apply about these renegades being only a small minority of their religious group, the fact that five perpetrators who happened to be riding the bus all stepped up so willingly to the task of abusing a woman who did nothing more than remain in her seat, and the fact that these five men were aided and abetted by "dozens" of their neighbors, all seems to point to the reality that this mindset is shared by more than a fringe group in the Charedi world. I'm sure I am not the only one who finds that thought distressing.

Merit Pay for NYC Teachers

2007-10-19T00:11:00.000-04:00

This is a welcome development:

The nation's largest school system and its teachers union have agreed on a form of merit pay, which links teacher compensation to student achievement.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the United Federation of Teachers president, Randi Weingarten, agreed to a $20 million-a-year merit pay program at 200 of the city's highest-need schools.

The bonuses will be linked to school-wide gains measured by the city's new progress report system, not to individual student or classroom performance. The criteria for winning the extra funds are still being determined.

To me this is a no-brainer. It's all well and good to pay teachers solely based on seniority or degrees and not based on their hard work, but how is that in the best interests of our kids - or in the best interests of our hardest working teachers? It seems to me that giving teachers raises based only on how many years they have been doing the same exact job with no incentives whatsoever to increase their students' performance will only increase complacency, not productivity. It's good to see that Mayor Bloomberg has pushed this agenda, and that he has gotten the United Federation of Teachers - who have long been opposed to merit pay - to actually agree to it. I would hope to see some sort of similar incentive plan floated in our troubled school district.

Discriminatory Policy from the USPS?

2007-10-17T21:46:00.000-04:00

This seem like an odd ruling:

A Jewish postal worker made to work on Sabbath because of staff cutbacks lost an appeal claiming his work schedule violated his civil rights.

Mail carrier Martin Tepper joined the post office in Chagrin Falls, about 20 miles southeast of Cleveland, in 1980 and became a Messianic Jew a few years later.

For ten years he was excused from working Saturdays, but the letter carriers’ union voted to rescind that accommodation amid pressure from fellow postal workers upset at having to work more weekend shifts because of staff reductions.

Tepper sued the U.S. Postal Service in federal court in Cleveland. He lost and a subsequent appeal to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was denied, with the appeals court ruling Tepper could not prove he was discriminated against or that the post office failed to accommodate his beliefs.

“The removal of the accommodation did not result in a change of title, job status, pay or job responsibilities and conditions,” a three-judge panel ruled. “While Tepper now has to work on Saturdays, this is simply a requirement of the job for which he was hired; it is not an adverse change in employment.”

I'm not sure how forcing a Sabbath observer to work on Saturday isn't a failure to accommodate the man's religious beliefs. I find it surprising to see this from a government agency, no less.

Governor Spitzer Pledges to Support Private Schools

2007-10-16T12:55:00.000-04:00

In the news:

Gov. Eliot Spitzer revealed today his next budget will feature a return to his pitch to give $1,000-per-student income tax deductions for parents who send their children to religious and private schools.

The governor's commitment came in a speech to the New York State Coalition of Independent & Religious Schools. His plan drew applause from the 200 representatives at a conference here.

Spitzer said the budget he unveils in January will be "difficult" to plan because of a looming $4 billion deficit.

But he promised to propose the $1,000 income tax deduction, and said the state will come up with at least $40 million to help private schools pay for administration costs such as taking attendance when students are taking state tests.

In the blogs:

Governor Spitzer Reaffirms Support for Parochial School/Yeshiva Education

Speaking today in Albany Governor Spitzer reaffirmed publicly his support for Non-Public Schools and promised innovative help them in whatever way possible from a legal and public policy perspective. His address to the Conference of Administrators of independent and religious schools was warmly received by the hundreds of attendees from across the religious spectrum. The crowd was full of Yeshiva administrators and representatives there in Albany for a show of support to the Governor’s address and for the informative educational sessions that followed. Askonim pleaded for additional assistance to Yeshivos in the form of tuition tax credits, computers, security monies to protect mosdos and additional State aid for reimbursement of State mandated services.

Please call your elected officials to affirm your support for Governor Spitzer's pledge to assist New York State's private school parents.

NYT on SY's

2007-10-16T00:31:00.000-04:00

Caught up on some reading today and I finally read the NYT magazine article on Syrian Jews. The article goes into great detail regarding the edict that prohibits the community from recognizing any converts to Judaism, commonly known in the Syrian community as "the Takanah" (some background here). While I would have to say that the tone of the article was a bit nasty, my feelings on the Takanah have not changed at all. I simply don't see how the Syrian community can explain their policy on not recognizing any Gerim at all - even the most sincere of Gerim. So though I am sympathetic to the community for having had to endure a hatchet job at the hands of what seems to be a reporter with an intent to smear, I just can't get past my own feelings that the Takanah is just...indefensible.

You can tell me all you want that this has "saved" the community (check the comments of my previous post on the subject for a taste of that argument), but I still don't know how it justifies shunning someone who has already converted according to Halacha. It's one thing if the Syrian Rabbanim would refuse to actually perform conversions as a rule, but how can they ban all Gerim even after the fact - as well as all children of Gerim!? It just seems wrong.

So pardon me if I don't cry tears for the way the Syrian community was treated in this article. If a community stakes out a position like it has done with the Takanah, it should be prepared to defend its position convincingly. And I will note that when I say "convincingly", I don't mean by saying what this Syrian Rabbi said to the NYT reporter:

“Never accept a convert or a child born of a convert,” Kassin told me by phone, summarizing the message. “Push them away with strong hands from our community. Why? Because we don’t want gentile characteristics.”

Was Rabbi Kassin misquoted? Did he misspeak? Or did he actually just say, in the New York Times, that the Takanah is about keeping "gentile characteristics" out of his community? I really hope that wasn't what he meant to say. Even though he did say it. Someone, please. Tell me he was misquoted. Please?

Why Does Al Gore Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?

2007-10-16T00:15:00.000-04:00

I totally understand that he has done wonders for the cause of saving the earth and I am grateful to him for that. But I still don't understand why furthering the cause of environmentalism is a matter of world peace - even after reading this. Twice. This didn't help either. Can someone explain it to me?

Orthomom on Ann Coulter

2007-10-15T22:23:00.000-04:00

As many of my readers know, I have never particularly cared for the woman - or her views, political or otherwise. That said, her latest doesn't offend me as much as some of her past shrill declarations did. Maybe I just don't need to hear Ann Coulter voice her approval of my religion - being as I already have no respect for the woman. Or maybe I don't even really care what the average Christian feels about whether Jews need to be "perfected" before going to heaven. I can think she's dead, dead wrong - and still not think her views are anti-Semitic per se.

I mean, consider this: I can imagine there are quite a few Hindus who would be offended that I was told, a few years back, to stop wearing my Sheitel until it is ascertained that the hair was not used in Hindu ceremonies before being sewn into a wig. I presume that some Christians might take issue with the fact that some of my children have been taught in school to avert their eyes when passing a church so as not to inadvertently look at Christian symbols of worship. My son came home talking about how Avraham "broke all of his fathers Getchkas because his father worshiped idols instead of Hashem and Avraham didn't want him to [sic]". Are those views worthy of denunciation by the ADL, as Ann Coulter's views apparently were? I don't think so.

In addition, Rav Soloveitchik made it very clear in Confrontation, his 1964 essay on interfaith dialogue, that he felt we should not attempt to interfere with the tenets of other religions, as we are certainly not willing to revise any tenets of our own:

Third, we members of the community of the few should always act with tact and understanding and refrain from suggesting to the community of the many, which is both proud and prudent, changes in ritual or emendations of its texts. If the genuinely liberal dignitaries of the faith community of the many deem some changes advisable, they will act in accordance with their convictions without any prompting on our part. It is not within our purview to advise or solicit. For it would be both impertinent and unwise for an outsider to intrude upon the most private sector of the human existential experience, namely, the way in which a faith community expresses its relationship to God. Non-interference with and non-involvement in something which is totally alien to us is a conditio sine qua non for the furtherance of good will and mutual respect.

Fourth, we certainly have not been authorized by our history, sanctified by the martyrdom of millions, to even hint to another faith community that we are mentally ready to revise historical attitudes, to trade favors pertaining to fundamental matters of faith, and to reconcile "some" differences. Such a suggestion would be nothing but a betrayal of our great tradition and heritage and would, furthermore, produce no practical benefits. Let us not forget that the community of the many will not be satisfied with half measures and compromises which are only indicative of a feeling of insecurity and inner emptiness. We cannot command the respect of our confronters by displaying a servile attitude. Only a candid, frank and unequivocal policy reflecting unconditional commitment to our God, a sense of dignity, pride and inner joy in being what we are, believing with great passion in the ultimate truthfulness of our views, praying fervently for and expecting confidently the fulfillment of our eschatological vision when our faith will rise from particularity to universality, will impress the peers of the other faith community among whom we have both adversaries and friends. I hope and pray that our friends in the community of the many will sustain their liberal convictions and humanitarian ideals by articulating their position on the right of the community of the few to live, create, and worship God in its own way, in freedom and with dignity.

It seems he felt that there should be an across-the-board policy of non-interference with each religion's right to maintain its doctrines. By extension, I think it would follow that we should not be addressing the propriety of the details of Ann Coulter's religious beliefs, even if we find them personally offensive or just plain wrong.

Now, all that having been said, is Ann Coulter a complete idiot for running off at the mouth? Always was. Really, what's the dif?

Longer Living Through Bickering?

2007-10-07T09:45:00.000-04:00

I found this quite interesting to read:

Recent studies show that how often couples fight or what they fight about usually doesn’t matter. Instead, it’s the nuanced interactions between men and women, and how they react to and resolve conflict, that appear to make a meaningful difference in the health of the marriage and the health of the couple.

A study of nearly 4,000 men and women from Framingham, Mass., asked whether they typically vented their feelings or kept quiet in arguments with their spouse. Notably, 32 percent of the men and 23 percent of the women said they typically bottled up their feelings during a marital spat.

In men, keeping quiet during a fight didn’t have any measurable effect on health. But women who didn’t speak their minds in those fights were four times as likely to die during the 10-year study period as women who always told their husbands how they felt, according to the July report in Psychosomatic Medicine. Whether the woman reported being in a happy marriage or an unhappy marriage didn’t change her risk.

So a woman who holds back from speaking her mind while arguing with her husband seems to be courting death. What's even more interesting is the fact that it didn't seem to matter if the women who held their tongues considered themselves to be in a happy marriage. Which means, at least according to this study, that even a woman in what she herself considers to be a happy marriage is not served well by holding back - even for the sake of peace. What's strange is the fact that men do not seem to have their health affected by similarly bottling up their feelings. Why is that? Is the fact that women suffer more ill effects from the stress of holding back their feelings completely physiological? Are women's constitutions really so much more delicate that they suffer more than men do from bottling up their feelings? Or is it that a vestige of the old patriarchal system - regardless of how far women seem have come on the equality front - has many men feeling superior deep down and thus unthreatened even when holding back their true feelings? Whereas no matter how equal a woman feels in a relationship, when withholding her feelings, she somehow feels abused and taken advantage of? I'm not sure, but I would love to hear some readers' ideas.

One more note: this study doesn't address whether couples would be better off trying not to bicker at all - it seems to concern only those couples already in the throes of bickering. One would have to imagine that there might be some better advice for a couple dealing with problems than to simply tell the woman to give as good as she gets.

Help Wanted

2007-09-25T22:40:00.000-04:00

Thursday night's forecast calls for hours of rain. The usual low-tech method we use to keep our Sukkah dry (a tarp thrown over the schach) is really not great when there's anything more than a drizzle coming down, as the water pools and the tarp sags. So my question is, does anyone have any brilliant ideas for keeping a sukkah dry that can be done in a couple of hours tomorrow with readily available building supplies by some not-quite-so-handy people? Please leave any suggestions in comments. If I use your suggestion (and it works), I'll be your BFF.

The "Can't We All Just Get Along" Post

2007-09-23T08:35:00.000-04:00

You know, I am sick and tired of the rancor that has been ratcheted up between members of the District 15 community - on both sides. First and foremost, let me save my most withering criticism for those members of our "community" (sadly, a loose term these days) who have taken the situation as an opportunity of sorts to spew the most vile sorts of hatred. It's hard to believe that people really feel that ANY situation warrants allowing a forum for the worst kind of hate-filled diatribes. Imagine a site where people decry the fact that a community has been overrun by residents of a certain race, and bemoan the fact that this group of residents opens their own types of stores, or speak their own language among themselves, or lower property values. Sounds like that site would be a pretty icky place to visit. no? Not exactly the most tolerant, liberal-minded forum. Not quite espousing the values we like to think America stands for, right? Yet somehow, that sense of propriety toward our neighbor no matter how different from ourselves, has been thrown to the wayside when the discussion turns to Orthodox Jews. Do you expect me to believe that comments like this are simply an offshoot of the local school district drama and that otherwise everyone would have no problem at all with Orthodox Jews? Here's a small taste, and I think we can see that these ranting have nothing to do with our district's woes and everything to do with hate:

Well, I have found that people started fleeing this community like a sinking ship as soon as the (...hmmmmm how do I say this while being politically correct...) Staunchly Religious people began moving in (yea, that works). It's going to be like Crown Heights, the only people that will stay are the people that cant afford to leave and then the rest of the country can begin to hate you here also..

And more:

Regardless, the public school population certainly is decreasing because nobody wants to live next to the Orthodox. You seem to have 2 versions of a population, the people who have a great deal of money and have no problem showing it and the people who have their children wear the same clothes day after day after day regardless of the stains…ewwww. You people mass produce faster than rabbits, no wonder you have more children in the school district, non-orthodox average 2.7 children while the Orthodox population is 6.72.

Yet more:

Let me know which districts have the least "cut in" by the private school community so I can move out of this neighborhood, but not before I make sure that I sell it to a nice Palestinian family.

Sweet. The bottom line is that we should not allow ourselves to become tolerant of this type of expression. The First Amendment may allow it, but it certainly shouldn't stop us from stepping back and assessing our comments as to whether they are doing anything to help this conflict. Appealing to hate and bigotry has been tried, presumably as a last resort, by supporters of the "public school candidates" in the last election. It backfired in a big way. The majority of district residents made it clear that they don't want to see the hate card played. Playing up people's hatred or mistrust for another demographic group is simply not the way to achieve any sort of peace in this community. And I don't think anyone can argue that a detente is desperately needed. So to the community at large (on any and every side of the divide): you know who you are. Watch your mouths and your keyboards. You will get us nowhere with your hatred and your rude and bigoted rantings.

To that end, I call out to my fellow private school parents as well. Yes, the Pre-K ruling was a disappointment. Yes, we can still hold out hope for it's reversal. But that shouldn't stop us from feeling invested in the success of our district's public school students. We need to encourage the board - that we helped democratically elect - to find solutions to the district's poor performance, not just constantly use the selfsame poor performance as simply an election season talking point. Let's impress upon our partners in the school district that we are expressing unhappiness with district children's unhealthy scores not as a means to cut funding, but because we want to see them improve. You want free building usage? Have you seen the tracks and the fields at the public schools lately? Maybe if we insist that the board ensures they are in top-notch shape, as opposed to the shape they are currently in, then there will not be as much resistance on the part of public school parents to the peaceful and equitable sharing of facilities.

I think we can all agree that the pre-K busing fiasco was nothing but detrimental to our community as a whole. What may have been proposed with the best of intentions on the part of the board - throwing the private school community a bone so that they could feel more invested in the district's successes and thus more inclined to vote in more generous budget increases to benefit the public school system in the future - instead drove the wedge even deeper. The anger of the public school community against the board for daring to provide the already-resented private school community with a perk, was topped only by the resentment against the public school community for what was seen by most as a retaliatory appeal against the private school community in order to deprive them of a busing service that no one had raised any concerns about in the past.

But seriously, people. Let's pull ourselves together. It's outta control and no one's benefiting from the endless back-and-forth bickering. Certainly not our kids, who seem to be losing services in one retaliatory strike after another. If we don't do it for propriety's sake, at least we can do it for the sake of the innocent precious children we all brought into this world.

UPDATE: A commenter pointed out a inflammatory comment I had missed, as apparently made by a private school community member. In the interest of balance, I am noting that the comment, which is indeed hateful, shows us that there have been inappropriate comments emanating from both sides of the divide (which I did note in my original post as well).

Jewish Genetics

2007-09-19T08:17:00.000-04:00

I found this very interesting:

Thirty-five years after genetic screening was first used to identify babies at risk of being born with debilitating diseases, a new study of a potentially serious but treatable illness among Ashkenazi Jews questions whether such testing has gone too far.

One-quarter of fetuses found to have Gaucher disease were aborted over an eight-year period, even though half of all children with the metabolic disorder will never experience any symptoms, such as pain, organ enlargement and anemia. The rest can lead normal lives with treatment.

Importantly, the researchers found that among couples who met with a Gaucher expert and learned that the disease was treatable, only 8% chose to terminate their pregnancies. All of the couples who didn't have those meetings opted for abortion.

The disparity underscores what some experts say is a flaw in genetic testing: It provides a bounty of knowledge that is not necessarily accompanied by wisdom.

The study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., tracked nearly 29,000 Israelis who opted to be screened for mutations in their DNA that could lead to Gaucher disease in their children if they inherit faulty genes from both parents.

Similar screening tests are offered to other specific ethnic groups predisposed to disorders, such as albinism and congenital deafness.

Dr. William R. Wilcox, who treats Gaucher patients at the Medical Genetics Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and was not involved in the study, said that given the ambiguity inherent in some genetic tests, they should not be given for diseases that are imminently treatable.

"Personally, that horrifies me," he said. "Why is it there? Because we can do it. But just because we can doesn't mean we should."

This really is, as the article calls it, a conundrum. On the one hand, it seems to be a no-brainer that if genetic testing can prepare parents for the possibility of raising an ill child, they should go through with the testing so as to make the most informed decisions about treatment. It seems especially apparent for catastrophic diseases such as Tay-Sachs. But for diseases that are relatively mild, I understand the concern that putting the information into the hands of these parents might cause these parents to make bad choices. But I don't really see stopping the testing of fetuses for diseases such as Gaucher's - out of fear that the expectant parents will abort - to be any sort of solution.

Prenatal diagnostic tests like ultrasound and Nuchal Transluscency can detect a host of problems with a fetus, some of which might incline the expectant parents to abort - yet no one is suggesting that these parents forego these important tests and let nature take its course, simply because of the fear that a treatable child might be aborted. Abortion is perfectly legal in this country, and as long as it is, people will be terminating perfectly healthy pregnancies for reasons such as poor timing and the fetus's gender - and certainly over manageable issues such as blindness or a mild limb deformity. However sad that may be, that's their choice as afforded to them by living in this country. The decision to abort a fetus over the findings of genetic testing is a choice as well - whether the disease is as mild as Gaucher's can be, or much more severe. In addition, the discussion here about Gaucher's also doesn't really address the very real possibility that Gaucher's can present as the most serious form that causes fatality at a young age.

So should genetic testing facilities consider finding a way to better counsel parents who find out they are carrying an affected fetus? Yes. Should they fully address with these parents the possibility of having a child who has the mildest manifestation of the diseases and thus could live a perfectly normal life? Of course. But I do still think that is preferable to not testing for the disease as all.

Of course the halachic aspect of this question is a whole different discussion - the severity of an illness is certainly a factor, and restrictions on abortion are far stronger than they are in a legal discussion, though there are cases where it is halachically permissible. That said, this discussion is obviously not about those couples who are making these decision from a halachic perspective - where they should proceed under the guidance of a trusted Rav. It's about the inclusion of Gaucher's and other potentially mild diseases in the so-called "Jewish Cocktail" of genetic tests that are recommended for prospective parents who are Jews of Ashkenazi descent.

I recognize that some might feel that testing for mild diseases has us skating on the thin ice of eugenics, but I simply don't think it crosses that line. This isn't about testing for things like seasonal allergies or a lack of athleticism or even a preferred gender in a quest to produce a superbaby. It's about testing for diseases that are potentially fatal, and allowing parents to make informed decisions about their child's future care - whether their decisions are good ones or not. Their will always be people who make poor choices in life. That doesn't, in my opinion, justify taking away a test that can do a lot of good - to simply protect people from themselves.

Ritual Wrangling

2007-09-15T21:53:00.000-04:00

I don't really understand this:

Members of the North Shore Synagogue in Syosset made their annual trek to the waters of Cold Spring Harbor Friday afternoon to observe Tashlich, a religious ceremony observed during Rosh Hashanah that includes the symbolic casting away of sins.

But this year, the 15-minute prayer service -- which often involves throwing pieces of bread into the water for a more concrete expression of one's desire to be free of sins -- ended with Suffolk police ticketing several of the congregants' cars for illegal parking.

"We're here every year," said Beth Bucheister, who's been with the temple for 10 years. "I don't know why they had to give us a hard time this year. We felt discriminated against."

Suffolk police said members of the Cold Spring Harbor Fire Department told the congregants to move their parked vehicles because they were across from a fire truck street exit.

When the worshippers failed to do that, firefighters called Suffolk police.

Fire officials declined to comment, but Deputy Insp. Thomas Brandon of the Second Precinct in Huntington, said six $25 tickets were issued.

"They make no-stopping, no-standing zones in front of firehouses so they can get their equipment out," he said.

Bucheister, who attended the prayer service with her niece and nephew, said she told fire officials that it was a short ceremony and they would move the cars soon.

But, Bucheister said, they told her she was in the way of their fire truck getting out in an emergency.

When she and the others returned, their cars were being ticketed by a police officer.

"It's a Jewish holiday. They should have, out of respect, not done that," said participant Eileen Rosen.

Um, huh? While I'm sure it was upsetting for those people who got ticketing while performing a religious ritual, why in the world should they have been afforded the right to park illegally (in an emergency vehicle no standing zone - and apparently in the throes of an actual emergency, no less)? Sometimes it's hard to find a spot near my shul - but I wouldn't dream of parking illegally and then using religious observance as an excuse to get out of a 25-dollar parking ticket - whether it's a Jewish holiday or not.

But hey, that's just me.

Boys' Club

2007-09-15T21:34:00.000-04:00

Can someone try to help me sort this story out:

In a decision that somehow managed to bring together karaoke, laser tag, exotic dancers and rabbinical consultations, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that a lower court had erred in saying the College of Staten Island could not deny official recognition to a Jewish fraternity simply because all of its members were male.

...Beyond its limited legal effects, the ruling painted a rather unlikely portrait of Jewish fraternity brothers on Staten Island who both build sukkahs and frequent pool halls in their spare time.

...The panel went so far, in fact, as to use Chi Iota’s rush week of February 2003 as evidence against it. The judges wrote that although the fraternity claimed to find benefits in being exclusive, several events during rush week actually required interaction with what the court called “nonmembers.” Those nonmembers, it said, had been encountered at outings to, among other places, a strip club, a karaoke bar and a laser tag establishment.

At first glance, I thought that the reasoning behind the fraternity's preference of an all-male membership was religious (ostensibly to prevent fraternization between the sexes) - but the fact that the fraternity holds events in strip clubs would seem to be at odds with that assumption. So it seems that the all-male status of the fraternity has nothing whatsoever to do with its religious status. Which would make the fact that the fraternity is a Jewish one not particularly relevant to the story. Anyone have another interpretation?

Pre-K Busing Restored (For Now)

2007-09-06T18:29:00.000-04:00

Received via email:

Good news - The school board's attorneys petitioned the court and were granted a "stay" of the pre-k bussing decision today, so the District is now authorized to provide pre-k bussing to children in private school (probably until the District has an opportunity for a formal appeal).

Bussing will be provided (to all 4-year old children who were registered for pre-k bussing) beginning this Monday.

Pre-K Busing Suspended???

2007-09-04T18:36:00.000-04:00

I received the following email suggesting that pre-K busing in SD15 for private school children has been suspended ~~pending review by the government~~. The suspension appears to be in response to complaints arising from the voters' approval of a measure providing for busing for pre-K private school children this past spring. SD15 previously limited pre-K busing to public school children. Pre-K busing for public school children is not affected by the suspension:

It has come to my attention that our requests for the State Department of Education to review the Pre-K Busing issues in our district are being addressed. As of this evening, there will be NO Pre-K Busing for any school until further investigation by the State. I believe the timing of this is a bit unfortunate being the day before school starts, however, better late than never! Our voices are being heard!

~~More to come.~~UPDATED: And here is the scoop from the Jewish Star:

A day before school, Pre-K busing on hold
State education commish upholds appeal of referendum

By Mayer Fertig

Parents counting on Pre-K busing for their youngest school-age children in the Lawrence School District will have to scramble to make other arrangements.

The Jewish Star has confirmed that New York State Education Commissioner Richard Mills has put the Pre-K busing plan on hold, upholding an appeal of the referendum which approved extending busing services to all Pre-K students in the district who met guidelines established by the board. In a decision which was signed on Friday, Aug. 31, 2007, but not made public until Tuesday, Sept. 4, at a reporter’s request, Mills ordered the district to “refrain from using district resources to transport
pre-K children.”

A spokesman for the education department, Jonathan Berman, said the commissioner would not answer questions or comment further since it is the policy of the education department “to let the commissioner’s ruling speak for itself.”

Calls to Superintendent John Fitzsimons were not returned before The Jewish Star’s publication deadline on Tuesday afternoon. Former District 15 board president Asher Mansdorf, who championed the across-the-board busing service to both public and private schools said, “I find it intriguing that the state board of education can give you a grant to pay for part of Pre-K busing for Universal Pre-K, implying that other public money would pay for the rest, and then turn around and say public money
can’t pay for pre-K busing?”

The commissioner’s ruling specifically said that current Pre-K busing services are not affected by his decision.

Mansdorf expressed confidence that the commissioner’s ruling would be reversed on appeal. Other comment was not available before deadline.

UPDATE II: Newsday on the matter, informing us that the board voted at last night's meeting to appeal the decision.

More on Schwach

2007-08-26T08:15:00.000-04:00

This op-ed was submitted to Howard Shwach - at his request - to be printed as a rebuttal to his own noxious editorial of last week. Somehow, he neglected to run it, so I am running it here to give it as wide an audience as possible:

By Richard Altabe

Whether we like it or not, the Wave is “Rockaway’s Newspaper” for the entire Rockaway Peninsula. As such it needs to represent a diverse constituency with diverse lifestyles and views. In response to a 1999 charge leveled by members of the African-American community regarding the alleged bias of editor Howard Schwach in reporting crime incidents in the eastern end of the Rockaways, Mr. Schwach wrote:

It is the intentions of The Wave to work with the Far Rockaway community and make them aware that this is their paper too…Rockaway is one community. The Wave will not divide our community by "west end" and "east end." Politicians have done that and look where it has left us. The Wave wants to be in the forefront of making Rockaway one again. We all share the same concerns, and the only way we can bring prosperity to our community is if we stop being our own worst enemies. The Wave will be the voice of all Rockawayites. Put us to the test…together we’ll bring Rockaway to new places. (Wave, 10/09/99)

After reading the editorial page of the Wave last Friday, one wonders how the paper can claim to be the voice of “all Rockawayites” after its editor’s baseless attack on the Orthodox Jewish community of Far Rockaway. Describing any demographic or ethnic group as “taking over” a neighborhood is an outright racist and ethnicly biased statement designed to heighten tensions and divisions between groups rather than to bring diverse groups closer to unity. If you doubt my opinion, try re-reading the following and insert your own ethnic category to see how it sounds:

In Bayswater, the Satmar community is taking over, buying property and converting many of the large homes into synagogues… There are many people who believe that the influx of Orthodox to the Five Towns has ruined it for the rest of the population. A great number of the stores and restaurants have been taken over by Orthodox owners…. This question could easily overtake Rockaway as it has the Five Towns area.

Unfortunately for us in the Rockaways, Mr. Schwach does not limit his anti-religious sentiment to Orthodox Jews. In a July 2002 piece he attacked the use of the words “Under God” in the Pledge of allegiance, claiming that it had been the work of the Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Church. He painted a picture of poor Jewish kids in Far Rockaway High School in the 1950’s feeling that the “God” referred to in the pledge was not “their God”.

One angered Catholic reader at the time responded with the following statement:

Mr. Schwach, your anti-Catholic views have been documented in this newspaper for years. It is well known and has been discussed among the Rockaway Catholic community since I have been reading this paper. Many Catholics I know have stopped buying this paper because of your slant. Rockaway's population consists largely of Jewish and Catholic people, and your publication can be a great tool in improving relations between these communities. Instead, you seem to prefer to create hostilities between the two. It's a real shame. (Wave, July 13, 2002)

In 1999, Mr. Schwach asked the diverse communities of the Rockaway to put his paper to the test because he as editor was going to use his position to “bring us together”. Perhaps he believes that attacking organized religion is a great way of bringing people together. If only we would all put aside our diverse beliefs, enroll our children in public school and adhere to his secular humanistic definition of Americanism, we would certainly all come together.

The problem with this view is that it flies in the face of the very pluralism our great democracy stands for. As Americans, we have a constitutional right to Freedom of Religion. Decades ago, the Supreme Court recognized the right of individuals in this country to send their children to parochial schools and these same parochial schools have been part of the backbone of American society ever since, producing many of our nation’s leaders.

Our community is strong precisely because Catholic, Jewish and Floyd Flake’s Church of God schools are able to coexist and even cooperate when needed. Who can forget the sight of the boys from the Belle Harbor Yeshiva running a soup kitchen for our firefighters on beach 129th St the night after flight 587 almost came crashing down on their dormitory? Was their effort an expression of Orthodox Jewish communal isolation?

Mr. Schwach indicts an entire community because of three alleged and unsubstantiated stories of perceived religious coercion. Of course as editor, he does not need to verify his story as he is merely expressing his views. While he is free to do so, we wonder how he can claim that his paper aims to unite all diverse groups in the Rockaways.

He is correct on one thing however. We do need unity. However our unity must also respect our diversity. Unfortunately “Rockaway’s Newspaper” has failed in its stated goal to bring our communities together because it fails to respect our American pluralistic tradition.

Mr. Schwach has betrayed his own intolerance for his neighbors who are not exactly like him. Let's not use him as any sort of role model.

Catskills Baseball

2007-08-26T07:57:00.000-04:00

This was a funny piece to read in this morning's NYT:

MONTICELLO, N.Y., Aug. 25 — Who is the most formidable Jewish ballplayer who ever lived?

A) Sandy Koufax

B) Hank Greenberg

C) Chaim Silber

If you did not choose Mr. Silber, a ferocious former second baseman known in these parts as Lobo, you clearly have not spent a steamy Sunday cheering on members of the Orthodox Bungalow Baseball League, a devout collection of rabble-rousers who have spent three decades tearing up the moderately manicured softball diamonds that pock the Catskill Mountains.

...Since 1977, the Orthodox league has been providing a healthful escape for thousands of men who might otherwise spend Sundays inside cramped bungalows, their wives threatening them with the prospect of laundry-folding.

There are six divisions, and the winner in each is rewarded with a classy-looking trophy, and most important, bragging rights during the long off-season months, when the players return to their winter homes, most in Brooklyn, Staten Island or the Five Towns of Long Island.

Read the whole thing for a bit of the flavor of one of these games - saying they are taken seriously by some among the Bungalow Colony set would be an understatement.

Update on Bigotry by the Bay

2007-08-16T21:47:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's post certainly stirred up quite a lot of discussion (208 comments and counting!). Some commenters questioned whether I had the right to doubt Mr. Schwach's version of the events he described in his piece. To those who were so hesitant to question Mr. Schwach's credibility - even after seeing all of the inconsistencies I pointed out - check this out. Mayer Fertig of The Jewish Star has done a bit of reporting on the matter, and has come up with some interesting findings:

Schwach began his commentary with the by-now-trite observation that “more people have died in the name of religion than anything else in history.”

He then recounted several episodes to which he was an eyewitness, and which he used to bolster his underlying point — that the desire of Orthodox Jews to live largely separate from the greater community is “bad for Democracy,” as he put it in a telephone conversation with The Jewish Star on Monday afternoon.

On an early morning visit to the Borders book store on Central Ave “several months ago,” the retired public school teacher wrote, he encountered several Nassau County police vehicles parked in front. Inside, a former student of his, a clerk in the store, “told me that they found a note on the door that warned them that the store would be destroyed by fire if they continued to open on Saturdays.”

We take him at his word that this is what he was told. For the record though, Brad Ruter, the manager of Borders on Central Ave for the last 30 years, told The Jewish Star on Monday that he had no knowledge of such a threat, or any like it. A Merrick resident, Ruter said he’s watched the neighborhood change, but that business has remained steady throughout.

Ah. So the manager of the store for the past 30 years knows nothing of the supposed arson threat. Fascinating. He also has seen no discernible difference in business since the demographic shift in the Five Towns took place. To spell it out, even though Orthodox residents now make up a larger percentage of the community (Orthodox shoppers ostensibly being the ones Mr. Schwach claims are unhappy that the book store is open on Saturdays), business has nevertheless remained steady at the store. Doesn't seem to me like a community that is hell-bent on forcing a store to close because it does not conform to said community's religious beliefs.

There's more:

A few days later, Schwach wrote, he and his wife went into Carvel a few doors down where he witnessed, “an Orthodox man arguing with the Asian owner of the store, telling him that he needed a certificate from the local Orthodox Rabbi if he wanted to stay in business. The owner pointed to a framed document on the wall and told the man he already had a Kosher Certificate. The man told him that it wasn’t good enough and that if he didn’t pay for one from the local rabbi, nobody from the community would ever again come into his store.”

Three weeks later, Schwach wrote, “the store was closed. In my mind, that was worthy of the Mafia and the shakedown antics of the Chinatown gangs.”
By phone Schwach first insisted that he saw what he saw and it was patently obvious to him that the conversation he witnessed directly led to the store’s closing.

A few points: First, Schwach’s timeline is way off, which he conceded. Since the Carvel has been closed for at least a year, the incident he described couldn’t have happened a few days after the Borders threat, which he said took place “a few months ago.” He said both incidents could have occurred as long as two years ago.
Rabbi Yosef Eisen, Rabbinic Administrator of the Vaad Hakashrus of the Five Towns and Far Rockaway, told The Jewish Star the Vaad doesn’t employ sales people. “We have a firm policy,” he said. “We do not solicit hashgachas. People call the office and ask to make an appointment.” He called the Vaad’s marketing effort, such as it is, “a one-way street. Proprietors contact us and we service people interested in the Vaad hashgacha.”

Did Schwach witness someone discussing with the Carvel store owner the relative value of the local Vaad hashgacha versus the Kof-K, which provides a blanket hechsher to Carvel stores? We have no reason to call him a liar. He probably did see someone urging Carvel to “upgrade.” Nor would we have trouble believing that this person was coming on a too strongly. But to suggest that this isolated incident is somehow connected to the shutdown of the store is ludicrous. Schwach later conceded that he was interpreting the episode in the worst possible light, rather than offering the benefit of the doubt.

A frequent Central Ave shopper we spoke to yesterday offered a credible alternative explanation for Carvel’s demise on Central Ave. “In Carvel the service was slow, it was very crowded,” she said, adding, “it was very dirty, there was no natural daylight, the cakes were often stale and it was just a very unpleasant place to shop.”
In contrast, in her opinion, at Haagen Daaz nearby, “the service is quick, everything is always fresh, it’s a much bigger store with many tables, tons of sunlight, outdoor seating and always spotless.”

One person’s opinion, sure, but clearly the only explanation for Carvel’s closing was threats from the Kosher Mafia, right?

So not only was Mr. Schwach patently - and by his own admission - wrong about the timeline of events (Carvel closed around two years ago, while Mr. Schwach claims in his original story that the alleged shakedown occurred just months ago), he also admits that he could have misinterpreted the alleged incident completely. That fact, coupled with the improbability of Carvel being "forced" to close by the local "kosher mafia" while other, superior ice cream stores with similar hashgochas stay open (the kosher mafia types enjoy Haagen Dasz ice cream better than Carvel, perhaps?) takes him claim into the realm of the absurd.

So now we see for ourselves, thanks to Mr. Fertig's work, that Mr. Schwach used wild and untrue accusations as a device to malign and slander an entire community in one fell swoop. Or, as Mr. Fertig succinctly puts it,

Seeking to bolster a rather un-neighborly, anti-Orthodox agenda, he is taking aim at the issues that concern him by, figuratively, shooting arrows at a tree before drawing the circles around them.

I think Mr. Schwach's credibility is what's shot here.

Bigotry by the Bay

2007-08-13T09:18:00.000-04:00

A friend of the blog e-mails this appalling article, as published in the local Far Rockaway paper, The Wave (link here, subscription required). It's such a piece of garbage journalism that I think I have to attack it on a point-by-point basis. Here we go, with my commentary interspersed:

From the Editor's Desk
(More People Have Died In The Name Of Religion Issue)
Commentary By Howard Schwach
More people have died in the name of religion than anything else throughout history. You don't believe that is true? Take a look at the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Holocaust, the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East, the long-standing Irish "problems," Kosovo, the ongoing war between Sunni and Shia over who has the right to rule Muslims, and any number of little wars in Africa. Now, tell me that religion is a benign factor in human life.

Ok. People have died in the name of religion. I wont engage in a debate about whether a godless person like Hitler murdered people in name of a religion. And I'll try not to focus my attention on the latent racism in the phrase "little wars in Africa," as if the millions killed on that continent is an afterthought. Either way, it's clear that this piece must be about a very serious brand of religious fanaticism that affects the safety of people on a daily basis. Right? Wrong. Keep reading.

A few months ago, I was in Cedarhurst early in the morning to shop at the bookstore (how I wish there was a bookstore in Rockaway). When I got there, the Nassau cops had a few cars in front of the store. I went in. One of the young clerks was from Far Rockaway and knew me from previous visits. She told me that they found a note on the door that warned them that the store would be destroyed by fire if they continued to open on Saturdays. The note was unsigned, but the store manager at the time told me that they had lots of problems with the Orthodox Jewish community that has all but taken over the shopping areas in Lawrence and Cedarhurst.

Um, a threat of arson? If the store continued to remain open on Saturdays? That certainly sounds pretty serious. If, of course, the threat was deemed at all credible. And considering that it did not show up in any local publications, I have to assume it was not. As a matter of fact, I think the most damning indictment of the author's claim is the fact that the author himself did not report on this alleged story in his very own newspaper! Any explanation for that serious journalistic lapse? I doubt. Let us continue...

A few days later, my wife and I were in the Carvel a few doors away from the bookstore (this was prior to my diet, when I could enjoy a Brown Bonnet). There was an Orthodox man arguing with the Asian owner of the store, telling him that he needed a certificate from the local Orthodox Rabbi if he wanted to stay in business. The owner pointed to a framed document on the wall and told the man he already had a Kosher Certificate. The man told him that it wasn't good enough and that if he didn't pay for one from the local rabbi, nobody from the community would ever again come into his store.
Three weeks later, the store was closed. In my mind, that was worthy of the Mafia and the shakedown antics of the Chinatown gangs.

Riiiiight. The Mafia. The kind of Mafia that somehow allows stores with large and visible Orthodox customer bases like Hewlees and Haagen Dazs to stay open without a Vaad Certification, but threatens stores like Carvel - in the presence of the store's customers, no less. Sounds a little improbable to me.

What brings this to mind is a recent long piece in the New York Times Magazine called, "The Orthodox Paradox," by a "Modern Orthodox" man named Noah Feldman.
Feldman, who is a law professor at Harvard University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, tells of the Yeshiva Day School he attended for 12 years and its tenth reunion.
Feldman says that he was photographed with his fellow alumni and their wives, but when the picture was published, he and his girlfriend had been cropped out of the photo. Why? Because his girlfriend (now his wife) was Asian and the mantra of the modern Orthodox school he attended (and, of the religion as a whole) was "no marriage outside the religion."

Ahh. The legacy of our friend Mr. Feldman. The guy who the New York Times claims never said that he was purposely cropped out, therefore obviating his - or the Times' - need to issue a correction. Except that reader after reader, like Mr. Schwach here, seems to have understood Mr. Feldman's claim precisely as that he was purposely cropped out of the photo by the school's administration. Which, as we all now know, he was not.

Feldman says that the goal of modern Orthodoxy is to "normalize the observance of traditional Jewish law - to make it possible to follow all 613 biblical commandments assiduously while still participating in the reality of the modern world."
In a modern society, however, people understand that others have differing viewpoints, and that religion should not drive secular affairs such as how an ice cream shop does its business and whether or not a bookstore is open on Saturday in contravention of Orthodox Jewish teachings.

True. Except that the two examples of the local Orthodox community supposedly making a stink about a bookstore and ice cream store staying open on Saturday are simply not credible - so Mr. Schwach doesn't really have a leg to stand on.

There are many people who believe that the influx of Orthodox to the Five Towns has ruined it for the rest of the population. A great number of the stores and restaurants have been taken over by Orthodox owners. They are closed from early Friday night to Sunday.

I am quite sure that there are many people that feel that "the influx of Orthodox to the Five Towns have ruined it for the rest of the population." (But thanks for spelling those feelings out for us so clearly, Mr. Schwach!) I don't doubt at all that there are many non-Orthodox local who resent that their beloved Manhattan Steak House has been taken over by a Kosher burger joint. Or that Judaica stores proliferate instead of, say, electronics stores. Or so on and so forth. But guess what? Tough. That's how the free market works. If a store cannot draw customers from the demographic of the community it inhabits, it cannot succeed in its present incarnation. That happens on any given day, in communities all over the earth. Demographics change. People need to either change with the demographics - or risk going belly-up. That's always been the reality of owning a business that relies on customers to succeed. Small office supply stores can moan and groan all they want about the big-box office suppliers that undercut their prices and drive customers away, but unless they find some method of their own to continue to draw customers, all the complaining in the world won't keep the small store solvent.

For a great example of someone who rolls with the punches of changing demographics, take Jay Todtman, the hilarious (and sometimes quite rude) owner of the excellent local bagel store Toddy's. Jay, who himself is not Orthodox, realized that the community was changing. He made a choice to hold on to the local clientele by changing in kind, and his the quality of his delicious lox and cream cheese has not changed a bit since becoming certified by the Vaad. Mr. Schwach, perhaps you should head into Toddy's to try a vat of iced cappucino fudge with Cholov Yisrael milk. I guarantee you that it tastes no different than a coffee made with non-CY milk. Of course, that is if you can abide standing in line in the store, so close to all of the Orthodox clients who can't seem to get enough of Mr. Todtman's product. It seems that might be a problem for you - though not for them.

That community has tried, as with the bookstore, to force those not owned by them to close as well.

As I mentioned above - I don't buy that claim. It's based only on Mr. Schwach's hearsay - and never even reported in his own paper. It's also not borne out by any evidence whatsoever. Borders bookstore is absolutely packed with Orthodox of every stripe on a Friday afternoon. Go see for yourself. That doesn't exactly speak of any type of Orthodox boycott attempt. Mr. Schwach's readers' intelligence is insulted by any claims to that order.

To my mind, that is not being a good neighbor. In Bayswater, the Satmar community is taking over, buying property and converting many of the large homes into synagogues. Granted, the Satmar are Hasidic and not considered modern Orthodox, but they are simply a more extreme brand of orthodoxy.

Horrors! People who don't look exactly like you are legally buying homes, and (gasp!) living in them! Call the troops in the white sheets! Wait...is that mentality of not allowing people who are different from you to live in your community a throwback to a different era, perhaps? Like, pre-civil rights?

Since the Orthodox have their own schools, their own stores, their own courts, their own community groups, their own newspapers, their proliferation leads to a separation that is untenable in a modern world.

Who says it's untenable? Orthodox Jews do not have their own schools at the expense of paying school taxes. Seen my tax bill lately? Nor do they have their own courts at the expense of participating in secular courts. Any idea how many attorneys, who participate daily in the court system, live in the Five Towns Orthodox community you denigrate? A whole bunch. And regarding having "our own newspapers" - what do you expect us to do? Read your newspaper where you write anti-Orthodox diatribes, riddled with falsehoods, like this one? Or subscribe to the other local papers, who allow political advertisements that play on bigotry?

To get a glimpse of what I'm talking about, read the Times piece.
Since no work is allowed on the Sabbath, even the carrying of money or turning on an electric light, the word "work" had to be defined over generations of thinking and writing.
Saving a life is allowed on the Sabbath, because life trumps the Torah. Turns out, however, that saving only a Jewish life is allowed, not saving a non-Jewish life unless saving that life somehow led to better relations between Jews and non-Jews.
That is what we are talking about.

Except that this is just not the case. Find me one Orthodox doctor, anywhere, who will ever inquire as to the religion of a patient before treating him/her on Sabbath. One. Find me one contemporary Rabbi who will say that Jewish emergency workers, EMT's, doctors or nurses should deny a patient care based on his religion. Good luck.

Now, you can call me an atheist (although I do believe in a God, although not in organized religion) or a Secular Humanist (the worst thing in the world in the view of religious zealots), but I think that I am levelheaded, worried about the impact of religion on my life and the health of my community. I simply cannot understand why any religion would be so egotistic that it would demand that people of other faiths (or not faith at all) should live by its tenets.
I read recently that the Pope said that we cannot be saved, cannot go to heaven if we don't accept Jesus as our savior. Orthodox Jews tell us that we can't shop on Saturday because they don't believe in it. Then, they make up rules, such as the use of an Eruv, to get around their own rules when it suits their fancy. An Eruv, by the way, is a wire set up high around a particular area that allows for the fiction that people within that wire are at home and can do some things they might otherwise not be able to do.

You have got to be kidding me. First of all, no one is demanding that you practice our religion. Proselytizing has never been the Jewish approach. And the notion that Orthodox "get around their own rules when it suits their fancy" is demonstrably false on it's face. If that's the case, and it's simply about what is more convenient for us as opposed to being rooted in our laws - which, with your limited understanding, you clearly might not be able to grasp - then why wouldn't we "make up rules" for eating pork or lobster? Or driving on Shabbat? God knows the past few Saturdays have been sweltering. It would have been real sweet to drive my air-conditioned minivan to shul, instead of pushing a heavy double stroller. But I guess we haven't "made up" those rules yet. Too bad.

I understand that there is a demand that the Orthodox be given their own time slots at the pool being built as part of Arverne By The Sea, under the theory that men and women from that community cannot mix and that Orthodox youth may not mix with non- Orthodox youth at any time.
Is that what we want our community facility to become?

I once taught part-time at an Orthodox girl's school in Brooklyn.
The Rabbi told me that I could not teach about the Crusades because they were not a "matter for Jews." I couldn't teach about meiosis (the determination that is made when sperm meets egg) because that is "a dirty lesson." The textbook we used had a photo of a priest holding up a cross over the Niagara Falls. That page was ripped from the textbooks. The math teacher was warned not to use a cross as a plus sign, to make sure that the lines crossed right in the middle.
I could go on and on.
I fail to understand how the religious fundamentalism of the Orthodox community discussed above is much different from the fundamentalism of the Christian community that wants us to teach creationism in the schools and fights the use of stem cells when it is clear that their use can save untold lives down the line.
Or, the Muslim fundamentalists that beat people because they go into a bar, wear "seductive" clothing or watch an American movie.

Interesting. So, you "fail to understand" the difference between the violent fundamentalism you describe and the fact that a Yeshiva chooses to cross their plus signs in the middle. You "fail to understand" the difference between choosing not to teach young children about certain aspects of reproduction - and Muslim fundamentalists who beat people because they go into a bar. You "fail to understand" the difference between peaceful requests for a few gender-separate swimming hours in a community pool - and bloody violence. You have a limited understanding for these types of things, it seems.

Feldman's New York Times piece drew so many letters that an entire page of those letters ran in last week's paper, an unusual occurrence for a paper that gets hundreds of letters on each of its major stories. Very seldom does one story get an entire page of letters.
One rabbi, the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, wrote, "It was Feldman's choice to send as clear a signal as he could, through his marriage, that he was rejecting fundamental principles of the community. His expression of surprise at the reaction of the community's institutions, including his alma mater, where he was taught these principles, strains credulity... Feldman's own life seems to be a testament as to what can happen, in the worst case, when one loses this balanced view of Jewish life, losing the balance between engaging with modern culture and a core commitment to Orthodox traditions, which so many others continue to maintain with dignity and much fulfillment."
This question is not one that is simply academic or global in scope. This question could easily overtake Rockaway as it has the Five Towns area.

I don't really understand this whole paragraph - it must have lost some meaning to overzealous editing. But I will attempt to refute it anyhow. First of all, what exactly is the significance of there being a whole page of letters? Especially as most of the letters were expressing displeasure with Mr. Feldman's take on things? Also, there were many non-Orthodox critics of Mr. Feldman's piece.

I know that it was an aberration, but I once rode through West Lawrence (once called Far Rockaway) during the Sabbath on a story and had a group of young Orthodox students at a Yeshiva on Reads Lane throw rocks at my car and curse me for riding on Saturday.

Wow. That sounds serious. Youths throwing stones? I hope you called the police. I'm sure they would have taken a threat like this seriously - especially as you know which Yeshiva the boys came from, which should make it easy to identify them. I expect that you brought these students up on charges, as any responsible citizen should do. It's truly shocking that Mr. Schwach has had so many violent encounters with Orthodox residents of this area - he's like the Forrest Gump of the Orthodox zealot set. I would love to see some of these police reports so that I can post on these terrible occurrences. Or I would love to have seen the story on this dangerous crime in Mr. Schwach's paper. Alas, it was never reported. I'm sure a local paper like The Wave has few more pressing stories that concern local public safety to report on than youth throwing stones.

That community is one that has isolated itself from the rest of the residents.
That, my friends, is never a good sign for any community's health.

Speaking of isolation, let me ask you a question, Mr Schwach. Have you ever attempted to engage any of your Orthodox neighbors in discussion on these matters? I find it difficult to believe that you have, given your one-sided examples of your experiences with Orthodox members of your community.

And let me leave you with a even more pressing question. Is publishing a hate-filled, dishonest piece such as this one simply a result of Mr. Shwach's own misinformation, or something much more troubling? Because to me, it seems that despite Mr. Schwach's attempts to prove otherwise, all he has proven here is how intolerant he himself is. It is clear that he is unhappy with the culture of others encroaching on his former stomping grounds. I'm sorry for him that such a demographic shift occured, changing his beloved Five Towns and Far Rockaway that was once populated by an Orthodox minority that he evidently deemed appropriately small enough to make him feel comfortable. But people move, and populations change. That said, I think it's clear to everyone that bigotry is bigotry, no matter how one may try to back it up with one's own dubiously sourced experiences. And I think Mr. Schwach has proved himself a bigot, plain and simple.

Sounds Familiar

2007-07-31T15:01:00.000-04:00

This rings a bell:

A church has won its battle against a bidet company's racy billboard - and a sanitized version of the cheeky "happy bottoms" ad was put up on the Times Square building that houses the church over the weekend.

The original ad was to have featured an array of bare bottoms with smiley faces painted over them - the idea being that the bottoms were happy from having used the Washlet, a bidet/toilet seat that uses water and warm air to clean its customers.

The Times Square Church, located at 51st Street and Broadway, sued to keep the billboard from being installed.

"You walk into a church building [and] you have naked bodies before your eyes - how are you going to close your eyes and seek God?" the church's pastor, Neil Rhodes, had argued.

A judge signed an order temporarily blocking the ad earlier this month, and the suit ended in a settlement announced yesterday after Washlet-maker Toto apparently saw the light and agreed to have the rear ends covered up.

The new version has a white bar going across the bottoms, "in effect 'clothing' them by removing any hint of their anatomical features," the company said in a statement. The ad now reads: "This is our bottom line," and, "Clean is happy. No ifs, ands, or . . ."

The story rings a bell because I seem to remember an uproar quite a few years ago when a local Rabbi led a protest against the very racy, lifesize ads that were prominently displayed in the window of the local (now closed) branch of the Victoria's Secret lingerie chain.

Honestly, I thought those who protested were 100% justified in that case, and I think the church is just as justified in this one. I myself have had real reservations about heading into Manhattan via certain routes when I have my kids in the car due to what we can call the "billboard situation". I have seen billboards with three-story high photographic reproductions of literally naked models - both male and female - located alongside certain Manhattan approaches. These billboards appear to be advertising items that seem to be depicted nowhere in the frame of the billboard itself (perhaps the models have just taken the advertisers' clothing off - touting to potential buyers their own chances of finding themselves in similar circumstances if they only buy whatever the company's selling? Or perhaps the models are wearing only the perfumes being advertised - and need nothing else?). Either way, I hardly need to introduce my children to the specifics of human anatomy while on a family trip to see dinosaur bones (yeah, yeah, I know - but let's not discuss the dinosaur issue in this thread).

Anyone ever walk through SoHo? The intersection of Broadway, Lafayette and Houston may have some of the absolute most not-safe-for-children's-eyes images plastered across the sides of buildings. Two-story-high cleavage, anyone? I know that advertising is all about the catching the customer's eye. I understand that the more outrageous an ad is, the more memorable to the potential customers it's trying to snare. But in my opinion, billboards have gotten way out of hand. The art of subtlety has clearly been lost - or at the very least, has fallen way out of favor.

It's one thing for these ads to be in the middle of a magazine, where a customer can exercise free will in his or her choice to peruse it. But the days of racy magazine ads causing anyone to bat an eyelash are long gone. Does anyone remember the uproar, way back when, over Calvin Klein's "racy" magazine ads? I think we can all agree that those ads, which were buried in the pages of fashion magazines, were small potatoes compared to the recent billboard I saw for the clothing retailer Abercrombie and Fitch. Let's just say that the model's pants were so low rise that there were probably 2 production assistants on hand hired expressly to hold the pants up for the photo shoot.

Bottom line? I applaud anyone who protests the use of bare behinds to advertise on a billboard - or bare anything. I'm not a prude. As I noted, I don't object to the use of these images in magazines or other such places, which allow individuals to choose not to look. But shouldn't I be allowed to decide whether I want my preadolescent children to be introduced to images that likely would have been considered soft-core pornography not too many decades ago? And shouldn't that choice not to have to entail taking a different route into Manhattan or steering clear of certain intersections? I wish it would.

Discuss.

Funny NYT Piece

2007-07-29T00:23:00.000-04:00

There's a funny item in tomorrow's NYT about a soap opera that is filmed in a studio in the heart of Orthodox Midwood, Brooklyn - otherwise known as the neighborhood of Flatbush:

The show has been filmed in New York for its entire 51-year history, and it’s safe to say that its souped-up world of sex and chicanery rarely resembles life on the sidewalks outside. But seven years ago the producers moved their studio from Midtown to Midwood, and with a healthy dose of real estate irony, the relocation coincided with a sharp growth in the local Orthodox Jewish community. As Midwood’s Orthodox population soared to perhaps three-quarters of the neighborhood, the gap between sidewalk and soap opera became a gulf.

Now, when Oakdale’s powerful, scheming blondes and sensitive, square-jawed men step out of the warehouse at Avenue M and East 14th Street, they encounter women wearing very long skirts and men with very long beards.

In Oakdale, your daily life might include falling into a coma, learning that you have an evil twin, or developing amnesia. Your romantic relationships would be more fleeting and unstable than the average high schooler’s. Above all, you would be in constant danger of getting kidnapped — Lily Snyder, for instance, has been kidnapped no fewer than eight times.

Outside the studio, by contrast, all premarital contact between the sexes, even handshakes, is forbidden, and many residents do not allow television into their homes.

Inside the studio, a woman might be hanging from a bell tower by her fingernails, while in the streets outside, the most dramatic scene is the group of elderly people holding court in the kosher Dunkin’ Donuts.

“We’re strangers in a strange land,” said Christopher Goutman, the show’s executive producer. “There aren’t even any bars around here.”

...This is such stuff as housewives’ dreams are made on. But not the housewives pushing prams past the studios on their way to the Chap-A-Nosh restaurant. Nor the girls from the Zionist yeshiva across the street, who swish past hundreds of pounds of oatmeal sitting on the studio’s loading dock, completely unaware that it will be transformed into quicksand from which a desperate heroine will soon be struggling to free herself in a most alluring manner.

Of course, anyone familiar with the area - and the "Zionist Yeshiva" they describe (Shulamith School for Girls) - will remember that the soap opera Another World filmed in the studio for decades. There were even rumors when I was a teenager of a male star from the soap opera who tried (unsuccessfully, the story goes) to pick up Shulamith girls he thought were cute.

I guess this article goes to prove that despite indications to the contrary in many mixed communities, disparate elements can still coexist in the same neighborhood without all hell breaking loose.

SIW on Noah Feldman

2007-07-25T01:50:00.000-04:00

The thread on my Eruv post seems to have gotten hopelessly tangled with a seemingly off-topic discussion over Noah Feldman's (somewhat whiny and disingenuous) piece in the NY Times last weekend - in which Feldman doesn't address the Eruv question at all.

Steven I. Weiss, writing for the Wall Street Journal (in 2005), helps make it a bit less tangential for us in his opinion piece of a couple of a years ago, where he staked out Feldman's position on the Tenafly Eruv. Weiss did not seem moved by Feldman's arguments.

(via)

Freedom of Speech Alert

2007-07-25T01:13:00.000-04:00

Go show some support for J-blogger Yisrael Medad who was absurdly threatened by the folks over at the irreverent and often obnoxious political blog Wonkette. Apparently, they claimed to have lawyered up over their outrage that Medad dared to speak his mind over Wonkette's own speaking of their mind. So, let me get this straight. The writers at Wonkette can call the New York Times the Jew York Times, and that's LOL funny. But Medad questions whether that debatable slur crosses the lines of good taste - and suddenly he's the one using speech that shouldn't be protected by the First Amendment. Is the double standard only evident to me? Wonkette's people lost their right to play the "dude, just chill out" card when they sent a threatening e-mail that mentioned a lawyer.

You all know how I feel about law suits that threaten our right to free speech.

Eruv Enmity

2007-07-23T11:15:00.000-04:00

Reading this article in the Forward this week, about the new Eruv installed in Palo Alto, CA, was...well, eye-opening. The fact that any opposition exists to the idea of an Eruv isn't exactly shocking, considering the news coverage in recent years of a similar brouhaha over a proposed Eruv in Tenafly, NJ (supporters of the Eruv eventually won the right to erect one - in heated battles against the town of Tenafly). What shocks me here is some of the rhetoric that a battle over a request to install some invisible fishing wire has spawned. To wit:

“We look upon the eruv as a violation of our right to live in a spiritual environment of our own choice,” city resident Walton McMillan commented July 6 on the Palo Alto Weekly’s Web site, where debates have raged. “The eruv forces upon us the necessity to live in a community devoted to the worship of a god foreign to our understanding and devotion. We should not be required to live in a spiritual community which has habitually turned its back on the sacred and sublime for thousands of years.”

Um..how's that again? It can't possibly be that simply knowing the almost invisible Eruv is there will "force" its opponents to do much of anything. Or this choice comment:

Joe Webb from the nearby affluent enclave of Woodside vocally opposed the eruv last time, and he minces no words now. “We live in a modern, secular, democratic world, and these wackos are trying to catapult us back into a 2,000-years-ago kind of deal,” he said in an interview with the Forward, citing “the sneaky way that these folks do things.”

“The big thing at the time was declaring this area Jewish space — absurd! It’s not Christian space, it’s not communist space, it’s not Republican space, it’s not Nazi space. If they want to have religious space, go to synagogue,” he said, adding that he has “washed my hands of it…. If people want to allow Jews to run all over them, that’s their prerogative.”

Riiight. The "sneaky way these folks do things". "Jews running all over them".

Some of these comments are outright scary and clearly show how a dispute such as this can play right into the festering anti-Semitic or anti-Orthodox feelings some might already be harboring. But other comments show how misunderstood the concept of an Eruv really is. A "Jewish space"? I have never heard any halachic discussion of how an Eruv proclaims the area it surrounds "Jewish" - it's usually just a matter of "enclosing" a public space, often by suspending invisible wires from already existing utility poles, thus creating a technical designation that allows Observant Jews to carry items outside on Shabbat.

Perhaps, in cases like this, a bit more clarification is in order as to what purpose an Eruv actually serves. Then again, there is no amount of clarification (or tolerance-teaching, for that matter) that might help those who are complaining about "wacko" Jews and their "sneaky way of doing things", and how to not "allow Jews to run all over them".

More Camp Complaints

2007-07-15T20:12:00.000-04:00

My daughter's camp requires that all girls over a certain age - and that age is not Bat Mitzvah - wear socks that cover their entire leg. She went up to camp with numerous pairs of washable, easy-care knee socks that I figured would be comfortable and practical. Evidently not. Apparently, the tween set likes to wear sheer nude pantyhose. Which my daughter didn't bring enough of. Which I now have to send up to camp - so she can get one wearing out of each pair. And I thought campers with cell phones was the only way camp had changed since I was a kid.

Argh.

Help Me Out With This One

2007-07-12T14:44:00.000-04:00

This is the story. Yesterday's date was July 11 - 7/11. So in honor of that date, participating 7/11 stores apparently give out free 7.11 ounce Slurpees all day long. How did I hear about this? One of my kids came home from camp yesterday to tell me that the entire camp piled into buses to head over to the local 7-11 store, at which point every single camper in the camp lined up to receive their free Slurpee.

I was initially appalled at the thought of hundreds of identifiably Orthodox kids being lined up by their counselors to take advantage of this promotion. Taking so many kids who are clearly not in the market to be purchasing anything else from the store seems somehow to be thwarting the spirit in which this deal was offered. But I'm not so sure that my initial reaction was the correct one. I mean, 7-11 did choose to offer the promotion, seemingly with no strings or caveats attached. Was the spectacle of hundreds of Frum kids lining up to enjoy the 7-11 freebies a huge Chillul Hashem - or completely okay?

Readers? Care to weigh in?

Tehillim Request and Open Tehillim Thread

2007-07-09T14:07:00.000-04:00

Please daven for Chana Malka Bat Rachel, a baby who is ill and needs our Tefillot. Also, please treat this as an open comment thread to submit names of any other Cholim who may be in need of our Tefillot and Tehillim.

I Interrupt this Radio Silence for a Few Brief Rants

2007-07-04T12:04:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry for the light posting schedule - things have been a bit hectic. I did want to make time, though, to get these mini-rants out of my system.

1. Does anyone else remember the good old days of summer sleepaway camping? The days when if there were any phone privileges for campers at all, they were extremely limited - usually about once a week or so? Or the pre-cell phone days, as opposed to 2007, where just about every staff member on camp grounds has the ability to send and receive calls and text messages from their personal cell-phones?

My kids attend different camps. One camp has restricted phone usage rules for their campers, another has a very liberal policy that basically allows campers to pick up a phone and dial home at any time they have a few free minutes. Let's just say that while I am always happy to hear my children's voices, the latter camp's policy can present a huge challenge for children who are having a hard time adjusting as campers. The constant phone calls, checking in with Mom and Dad, reporting/complaining about the little ins and outs that make up a day at sleepaway camp - sometimes (according to some of my friends with particularly homesick children) with the child crying into the phone - can be detrimental to both parent and child. I can tell you that in my own (admittedly anecdotal) experience, the kids who call home regularly are the kids who have a harder time acclimating to camp.

Chalk it up to times changing, I guess. I give it a few years before kids start coming up to camp with phones that have full e-mail/instant messaging capabilities. It would be pretty interesting to see campers walking to their next activity alone - talking into their bluetooth headsets or thumb-typing "Mom: send more nosh!" into their blackberries.

2. Speaking of my conversations with kids at camp (and of times changing, for that matter), in one such conversation with a sleepaway camper I was informed that said child needed some extra stuff. So off I went to the local big-box store to buy up dozens more socks that will just end up in the bermuda triangle that they call "camp laundry".

While perusing that section, I happened upon an item that suprised me (photo at right). Can someone tell me why a toddler who wears a size 4 underwear would need "low rise briefs", or bikinis that advertise themselves to be "now - with lower rise!"??? I am well aware that the low-rise trend has been encroaching even the orthodox world (the ultra-Orthodox girls' camp that felt it necessary to send out a letter explaining that "waistbands of skirts must be fully covered by shirts with no skin visible" is testament to that), but to toddlers? Does anyone else out there find the advertising of the low-rise qualities of toddler underwear to be a bit...well, off-putting? What happened to the days when toddlers wore underwear emblazoned with cartoon characters like Dora the Explorer - as opposed to underwear that would be better suited to be worn by a character like My Bling-Bling Barbie (a "toy" also marketed to young girls, of course - complete with advertising copy that reads: "Comes with a hot outfit" - and a "hot outfit" it most certainly is...).

I know I sound prudish and behind the times. Really, I do. But seriously, in an era where a major national clothing retailer has marketed thong underwear emblazoned with salacious sayings to pre-teen girls, does anyone else worry?

WalMart Woes

2007-06-25T20:08:00.000-04:00

I've always found that it isn't very hard to find people willing to express anti-WalMart sentiment these days. I've heard complaints about their hiring practices, complaints about their putting Mom-and-Pop stores out of business, complaints about how unpleasant the chaotic store organization methods make it to shop there. This time, the NY Times relates a different set of complaints, from residents of the Ultra-Orthodox enclave of Monsey, against the plans to open a new location:

When residents talk about traffic, they are fearful for the safety of families walking to synagogue on Saturdays. When they fret about merchandise, they wonder if frowned-upon items like bikinis and lingerie will be on display for everyone to see. And when they imagine the outsiders who would shop at the store, they worry that their presence could transform the town’s pious, sheltered atmosphere.

“The reason a lot of us came to live in Monsey is because we wanted to raise our families in a safe place, away from the influences of the outside world,” said Yossi Weinberger, 30, a father of four who works at a local travel agency. “I’m not sure it will be easy to do it if we have such a gigantic piece of the outside world move to our town.”

It seems that WalMart is doing everything they can to appease the community:

Elsewhere, Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, has often acquiesced to public pressure and made adjustments. It has hired local architects to meld stores into particular landscapes, painting a store in desert sandstone in Arizona and building an outlet in Long Beach, Calif., with an Art Deco look. In Middlefield, Ohio, home to one of the nation’s largest Amish communities, Wal-Mart placed hitching posts for horse-drawn buggies in a store’s parking lot and stocked shelves with barley soup and non-electric refrigerators.

Here, Wal-Mart has already agreed to conceal magazine covers that may be deemed offensive, such as the ones picturing celebrities in provocative outfits, “something that’s new for us,” Mr. Serghini said.

But I have to wonder whether this opposition really makes sense. I understand that the members of this community chose to live here because they can live a more insular existence, but they do live in America. The march or consumerism has been going on and on, everywhere you look. And as hard fought as it has been in certain locales, it shows no indication of slowing down. It certainly can be sad to see so-called Big Box stores taking over and putting smaller stores out of business (to wit: Seen a small, owner-operated bookstore lately? If so, take a picture - it's one of an endangered species). That said, there are certainly pros that come with the cons of these large chain stores, such as longer hours, broader product range and far more liberal return policies. In addition, regarding the arguments that a WalMart will somehow expose members of this community to a facet of life they are trying to avoid, I find that hard to fathom. The store is taking over an abandoned lot, and people - as always - have a choice as to whether they will patronize WalMart or not. It certainly doesn't seem to be an issue for the hundreds of Chasidim one can see in the Monticello WalMart on a given summer night.

I've Been Tagged - "You Rule"

2007-06-19T08:28:00.000-04:00

Krum tagged me with this meme in response to a ridiculous series of ads put out by Virgin Cellular. Basically, the Virgin ad campaign attempts to pitch their cellular service to various New York neighborhoods by pointing out what makes said neighborhoods "rule" - except that the ads seem to try a bit too hard to be irreverent and ironic, and some residents of the neighborhoods in question don't seem quite as amused as Virgin hoped they'd be. Details are here at Krum's, and Jameel, SW and Ezzie already put out their entries, and there are also some here in the comments to DB's post. So here's mine, and before you jump all over me, as Krum pointed out, it's "intentionally obnoxious".

Cedarhurst, you rule! You're not Lawrence - and you don't want to be (Okay, at least some of you don't want to be). So maybe your SUVs are a little smaller, your lawns a bit rattier and your street names less, well...waspy sounding. And maybe your shuls' womens sections aren't well appointed enough - requiring congregants to mill about in front. And so what if you don't have your very own private Country Club? Because you, Cedarhurst, are open to all - whether you’re a shopper desiring a 200-dollar tankini for your two-year-olds to be seen in among the Atlantic Beach Beach Club set, or just a hungry soul hoping for a few insults with your bagels, lox and shmear. Your ritzier neighbor to the southeast may be fairer, but does not put a candle to your will-power, O skinny-latte-sipping, Hewly-tasting, yoga pants under skirts, power walking with your bugaboos down Central Avenue to the gym...so you can power walk some more. And how else can you be upwardly mobile without a mobile phone plan with no annual contracts?

Feel free to leave your own attempts with neighborhoods you know well, here in comments or on your own blogs.

The Jewish Week Does It Again - AGAIN

2007-06-14T21:56:00.000-04:00

I feel like this has become a bit of a refrain, but the Jewish Week has another awful attempt at journalism in this week's issue. One would think that with them coming as late as they do to the Lawrence Jew vs. Jew saga, they would have ample time to actually get the story right. Alas, one would be wrong in thinking that. Their take on the story is so totally one-sided, poorly sourced and reported, and just plain wrong, that the mind boggles how this piece can actually be considered an example of reporting. Let's fisk:

The Lawrence school district in the Five Towns has become an increasingly favorable place for Orthodox families to raise children: private school students, including those who attend the yeshivas where the majority of Lawrence families send their children, have long been the beneficiaries of public services like transportation and special education above and beyond what New York State mandates.

Um, yes. The district has become an increasingly favorable place for Orthodox families to raise children - but not because my children are "the beneficiaries of public services like transportation and special education above and beyond what New York State mandates". The reasons are more along the lines of affordable homes (as compared to homes in NYC), great Kosher shopping, and numerous shuls and Yeshivas. But I can pretty much guarantee you that no Orthodox homebuyer chooses Lawrence for the busing. I will also add that perhaps the district offers special education and transportation at levels above the state mandate, but this district also provides far above the state mandate for every public school child. And we're talking FAR above the state mandate. So there's nothing unusual about those few services entitled to private school children being provided in a somewhat equitable fashion.

But the thriving Orthodox population in this Long Island enclave is also the catalyst of a major, growing rift in the community, pitting Orthodox yeshiva families who want to make use of public services against liberal Jews and non-Jewish families whose children attend public schools they fear lack the necessary money and care to ensure their survival.

They may fear they "lack the necessary money and care to ensure their survival", but the article fails to point out that the per/student spending in this district remains among the highest in the state. Hard to make the case that the public schools are being bled dry - with the Orthodox as the "catalyst" for the rift, no less.

Tensions have intensified over the last few weeks after a school board election in May landed five Orthodox trustees on the board of seven total members, increasing the majority the Orthodox had previously enjoyed and alarming community members who fear for the future of the public school system.

Really. Tensions have intensified in recent weeks? I don't know about that. As a matter of fact, most people I have spoken with - on either side of the divide - would like to put this sorry episode behind the community and move on. I certainly do not sense intensified tensions over that which was palpable in the period leading up to the elections.

“It’s been extremely divisive having a school board whose primary interests are their children in private schools,” said Penny Schuster, the parent of an eighth-grader at Lawrence Middle School and former president of the Parent Teacher Association there. She added that public school families are fleeing the district, which she anticipates having trouble retaining qualified teachers. “Their interests are not our interests, and that’s a very grave concern.”

It shouldn't need to be said that Ms. Schuster's (mis)characterization of the board's "primary interests" are her own opinion, and far from a statement of fact. In addition, I'll believe that teachers are "fleeing" the district when I see it. As of right now, the teachers in this district still enjoy among the highest salaries in Nassau County.

Nahum Marcus, one of the newly elected Orthodox board members who will start serving July 1, disagreed.

“The bottom line is the district is there to serve all children,” he said. “There has to be an excellent public school system, the best we can offer those children. ... At the same time the district has the responsibility to serve children who go to private school.”

How any thinking, fair person can disagree with Marcus's statement above that all district children should be served equitably is beyond my comprehension. Yet apparently some do.

Schuster, who is Jewish, countered Marcus’ assessment. “I absolutely think [the board’s] primary interest is not the public school district. It’s not their charge.”

Again, solely Ms. Schuster's opinion.

In the last several years, the demographics in District 15 — which includes the towns of Atlantic Beach, Cedarhurst, Inwood, Lawrence and Woodmere — have tipped, with the number of private school students outnumbering those in public schools; thus a board composed of mainly private school parents is not an anomaly here. There are currently around 3,900 private school students in the district, mainly attending yeshivas, and 3,400 public school students, according to the Lawrence School District Transportation Department, which monitors how many students it transports.

Along with the influx of Orthodox families come questions about the direction of this community that citizens say have led to ugly encounters between neighbors.

“It’s horrible walking the streets in this community,” said one observer, who asked not to be named, of the rivalry public and private school families face. The observer recounted chaotic school board meetings and children insulting each other after hearing slurs from their parents. “The tension can be cut with a knife.”

Uh, any evidence? Any specific allegations of such behavior? I will admit to having been present at board meetings when names were called - but I will tell you, they weren't from any of the Orthodox who were present. I will also say that I don't know where in the district the anonymous "observer" who spoke off the record lives precisely, but thank God I don't see walking the same streets as my non-Orthodox or non-Jewish neighbors as being in any way "horrible". I guess for some the prospect of coexistence and the compromises that come with it are "horrible". Sad situation for our Mr. Anonymous and his ilk.

Marcus, the new board member, agreed.

“What’s amazing to me is [it’s fine] when you talk to your neighbor, but when it comes to district issues, it’s like World War III has erupted.”

That I can agree with. I am careful to discuss everything and anything with my friends and neighbors who send their children to public school - but the situation with the school board. I'd like to keep our relationship friendly, and I have a feeling that broaching that topic remains a bad idea to that goal.

In the run-up to the recent elections, the conflict between the two sides played out in the local newspaper, when the group Advocates for the Lawrence Public Schools took out an ad in the local Nassau Herald asking, “Should the Lawrence Public School District Be Run By An Orthodox Majority?” The ad supported candidates Pamela Greenbaum, Maribel Cancelliere and Andrew Levey and opposed the ticket of David Sussman, Nahum Marcus and Solomon Blisko who ultimately won the election; Blisko and Marcus are Orthodox and send their children to yeshivas, while Sussman has children in public school.

Is the Jewish Week referring to the ads that every local political figure condemned as discriminatory and divisive? The ads that the newspaper who run them basically agreed were a mistake, and issued a long apology for running them? Perhaps that would have been somewhat relevant to the issue.

The same observer said that counter ads were placed in area Orthodox newspapers, and that even people who had made aliyah were enlisted to vote, calling into question whether the new board had indeed been elected by a transparent democratic process.

Yay, it's Mr. Anonymous Observer again. Did Mr. Anonymous Observer give the Jewish Week any examples of the "counter ads"? Anything that would indicate their obviously inflammatory nature? Did the Jewish Week make any attempt to back up the claim? Obviously not, because the ads didn't exist. Every ad that I saw for the candidates in question was clearly about the issues that affect this district's children. And is their any evidence that people who had made aliyah were enlisted to vote? I am aware that much was made over an ad that attempted to recruit voters who were living in Israel - but it clearly only mentioned students and other temporary visitors, who are certainly entitled to vote under election law. Nothing untransparent, shady, or thwarting of the democratic process about that.

Community members worry that the problems already plaguing the public schools are bound to increase with the new board. They mention out-of-date technology, classrooms with falling tiles and cuts to middle school lunch periods. A $92.6 million budget that passed easily in a community vote has also been widely criticized as too low, with a less than 1 percent increase that many felt should have been closer to 4 or 5 percent.

Again, it might be widely criticized among public school parents, but this budget still puts this district among the highest per/student spending in the state. Hard to make the case that the district public schools are being robbed.

One issue sparking particular ire is the $600,000 allotted for pre-kindergarten busing — being offered for the first time next year — which will largely serve yeshiva students. While critics on the side of the public schools feel the allocation is too low and doesn’t allow for supervision, board members feel the money will more than cover the expense.

Let's count the mistakes here. First this is hardly the first time pre-K busing is being offered in this district. Not only was it offered to all district children years ago before being cut in the face of the contingency budgets, it has been provided this year, by the district, to all pre-K public school students. So the only students who benefit from the referendum may well be private school students - but that is because they were, in a show of inequitable allotment of services, not provided with the pre-K busing that public school students were given.

John Fitzsimmons, superintendent of the Lawrence school district, reiterated that the school board’s primary responsibility is to the public school children, but said he could not yet predict whether the new board would indeed have those students foremost in mind when making decisions.

“It does create some potential challenges for the community,” said Fitzsimmons of the school board composition. “But the only time it becomes a problem is if the community begins to feel the interests of public school children aren’t being met. [Then] they’ll voice that concern.”

I disagree. The public school community did voice their concerns, in a divisive and ugly manner, with the prospect of an "Orthodox board" - and they did so well in advance of their fears being realized. That's the problem with unfounded fears. The hysteria they cause is often far worse that the actual subject of the fears themselves.

People on both sides of the debate agreed that it is particularly upsetting to see observant Jews fighting secular Jews.

“I respect everybody’s right to worship the way they want to, but that’s very different from ‘let’s now rule your school board,” said Schuster.

Um, what? I agree that it is sad to see neighbors fighting - whatever their observance levels, but my own observance levels have nothing to do with my interests in seeing this district run in a fiscally responsible manner, with equitable services distributed to all district children. It's depressing to see people resisting such fair treatment.

Marcus insists that is not his intention.

“God forbid, I would want to hurt the public school system,” he said. “We get along as neighbors, in the stores, in the streets. Why can’t we get along in the schools?”

Isn't it about time we got along? (With no help from the Jewish Week, of course).

The Jewish Week Does it Again

2007-06-08T07:18:00.000-04:00

When I started reading this story in the Jewish Week, I thought it was a simple feel-good story about the beautiful new Mikvah built on Manhattan's Upper West Side neighborhood:

The reception area is clad in palm wood, with gold-leafed ceilings and mosaics in rose and gold hues based on those from ancient Israel. Preparation rooms feature Frette robes and a new kit with shampoo, soap and nail clipper for every visit. The women’s immersion pools are lined with glass tile and surrounded by white marble.

It’s all part of the trend to make new mikvehs a luxurious and sensual pleasure.

“Many women don’t come with a tradition of mikveh, so you need to do everything you can to make it appealing,” says Sharon Liberman Mintz, an Upper West Sider who has been involved with the new mikveh’s construction and design.

“Making it physically beautiful is the first step. When people come into a spa-like atmosphere, they feel relaxed. That’s the way it should be,” she said.

I agree completely. When a woman - especially a newly observant woman - takes the time out of her busy schedule to perform the Mitzvah of Taharat Hamishpacha, making it a pleasant experience should certainly be a priority.

I have had the dubious pleasure of, due to scheduling issues, having seen Mikvaot in cities all over the US. Let's just say that some are more, er...spalike than others. A local Mikvah here in the Five Towns has also gone through a recent renovation, and I can assert that the experience of visiting it has definitely become a more positive one. And I can't dispute that just like any other Mitzvah, beautiful accouterments make the Mitzvah more of a positive experience - which is always desirable.

All well and good.

But then the Jewish Week article takes a turn for the worse, becoming rife with unverifiaed anonymous allegations about the new Mikvah:

The new mikveh also has a new attendant, who replaces the storied Mrs. Lobel. Lobel, a tiny woman with a thick Hungarian accent, was the mikveh lady for decades at the old location. She lived above the mikveh and is regarded with affection by many of the women who used it.

The mikveh’s board forced her to retire in February, say some Upper West Siders, and gave her a severance package that she wasn’t happy with. Lobel, who reportedly moved in with one of her grown children in Brooklyn, could not be located for comment.

Sources critical of the change asked not to be named because of Gibber’s influence within the New York Orthodox community, as president of the nearby Manhattan Day School among other volunteer leadership roles.

The old mikveh was “perfectly fine, not glamorous or glitzy. If the price of having a deluxe mikveh is treating people this way, that feels very disturbing,” said one woman. “We’re building castles but treating people as if they’re expendable.”

Another concern some have had is that the new mikveh attendant will be less tolerant than her predecessor was of unconventional uses, as when Conservative rabbinical students have immersed on the morning of their ordination, or when women who are unmarried but are sexually active have visited the mikveh.

There was also concern that non-Orthodox rabbis, who along with their Orthodox colleagues have long used the West Side mikveh for conversions, would now be barred.

That has not been the case, said Conservative rabbis who have used it since Lobel left.

Anonymous allegations that the former Mikvah lady is unhappy, without any interview of her to back up those allegations? Check. Anonymous suggestions that certain users will be barred from utilizing the Mikvah - while there is evidence presented in the article that no such banning has occurred? Check. Anonymous jibes at a community leader, with the reason stated for the anonymity because he has "influence"? Check.

Classic Jewish Week. Nothing like a few unverifiable, anonymous allegations to spice up what could have been a very positive story. Just the facts, guys. Please. Just try to stick to the verifiable facts.

UPDATE

2007-06-04T09:30:00.001-04:00

An update on the family I posted about here, as received by e-mail:

1. The community has sent an overwhelming amount of clothing and linen. All needs in that area are covered. To quote Rebbetzin Ilanit reuven, " Mi k'amcha Yisrael, people have been bringing baskets of supplies like the bikkurim that were brought in the Beit Hamikdash!"

2. The JCC of the Rockaways announced that the Met Council on Jewish Poverty will be able to cover the replacement of all furniture lost in the fire through an emergency grant they have for such instances.

3. The family still needs funds to cover the expenses of the family while the father recovers from his burns and injuries. He is in sales and can only go back to work on a limited basis for the next couple of months. We are looking for another $25-$30,000 right now to tide them over until the father fully returns to work. Once we have collected what is needed, we will inform the public.

All I can say is Tizku L'Mitzvot! The response has been unbelievable and the family has been given much needed chizuk through this difficult ordeal.

Again checks can be sent to:

Bayswater Neighbors Fund (tax deductible 501c.3)

c/o Richard Altabe

637 Meehan Ave

Far Rockaway, NY 11691

Thanks again,

Richard Altabe

Please give as generously as you can.

Out of Control

2007-06-04T09:19:00.000-04:00

It's finally happened. Orthomom has read something that left her speechless. Read and weep:

The city's youngest high-fliers are pampered campers whose parents are paying big bucks to jet them off in style to their summer vacations.

In some cases, parents are spending thousands to save kids a bus ride of less than an hour.

The charter company Revolution Air has assigned more than 20 private jets to fly children to summer camp at the end of June, at a cost of about $8,000 a flight.

To cater to their young clients, the company has developed a special menu, including peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, chicken fingers and ice-cream sundaes.

Property developer and mother of three Robin O'Hara is sending her 8-year-old, Danielle, on a 30-minute flight to Lake Bryn Mawr Camp in Honesdale, Pa.

"The bus takes 31/2 hours. It is crowded, and it's always a very dramatic scene," said O'Hara, of Great Neck, L.I.

"This year, she is not going with her [older] sisters, so we want to make it a special, unique experience for her.

"It's a trend. A lot of my friends do it," O'Hara said. "They play videos, they serve kids' food, sometimes, we'll have a manicurist on board."

'Nuff said.

I Get Mail

2007-06-03T07:08:00.000-04:00

Last year I posted about an ad I saw for the Shemirah Bedarchim Insurance Policy. This year the company seems to have switched over to a direct mailing campaign. From a letter received by mail:

Dear Traveler:
Imagine being able to purchase insurance that could actually preent accidents; saving you and your family from potential tragedy.

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, over 40,000 people die in motor vehicle crashes every year. Many more suffer injuries and financial loss. Among those cold statistics are hundreds of people from our community - friends, neighbors, and relatives (r"l).

During the coming travel season, more people than ever will be traveling by car, plane and other means to fun-filled destinations across the globe. How can you possibly ensure the safety of your family?

The Shemirah Bidrachim (Traveler's Protection) Insurance Program

For just pennies a day, you will receive the ultimate protection from harm while driving, flying sailing, or even just walking. Ordinary insurance provides financial reimbursement in case of an accident, but Shemirah Bidrachim can prevent the accident from happening in the first place. Thousands of people have already done just that.

How does the Shemirah Bidrachim Insurance Program work?

Individuals who wish to have added protection from danger while traveling simply sign up for the insurance policy using the enclosed Activation Card. Close to two thousand children in our yeshiva will recite Tehillim (psalms) and additional special tefilos (prayers) of protection for you. The purity and innocence of their Yiddishe neshamos (Jewish souls) infuse their piercing tefilos with the power to protect.

This remarkable protection has been credited with directly saving Jewish lives. In fact, Shemirah Bidrachim was first offered in Israel over 15 years ago in response to the surging rate of auto fatalities.

Coverage is provided by the Ashdod Mercaz Chinuch Project with the support of leading Gedolei Yisroel, including:
Hagaon Harav Shmuel Halevi Wosner (SHLITA)
Hagaon Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv (SHLITA)
Hagaon Harav Ovadya Yosef (SHLITA)
And it is now available to you with this special offer.

Special Summer Savings with Instant Activation

The summer travel season is just days away! Because of the urgency, I've arranged for your policy to be set up immediately. For just $30 (about 50 cents a day) you are covered 24 hours a day for the entire summer. Isn't your peace of mind worth that?

In exchange, your fee will be used to cover the costs of maintaining the Ashdod Mercaz Chinuch Project in Israel. Your policy will help provide a Jewish child with a license to succeed in life by getting the best possible Jewish education,

Please do this now: complete and mail back your Instant Activation Card (enclosed) or call 1-877-SHEMIRAH now. This immediately activates your policy. You'll then be fully covered. You will also receive by mail an official Certificate of Protection, signed and dated by the director of the yeshiva and the Chief Rabbi of Ashdod.

When you join our thousands of Shemirah Bidrachim members, you become a partner in the Torah and tefilos of our children. In that merit, may Hashem make you reach the destination you desire in peace and return you to your home in peace.

Sadly, I see nothing in the letter about a free month of National Geographic with subscription, or the throwing in of a limited time offer of the Shemirah Bidrachim commemorative coins for the first 100 to call the hotline.

Of course, this offer does have some of the other hallmarks of your standard direct mailing campaign - there's the disclaimer, in the expected fine print:

Policy Terms:
The Shemirah Bidrachim Insurance Policy will provide protection from harm to the policy holder when he/she is driving a vehicle, flying an airplane or traveling on foot. The policy holder should never be harmed by, nor harm, anybody. The protection is based on trust in the merit of tinokos shel beis raban, whose study and prayers keep the world in existence. Their learning and praying protect and save all the supporters of their holy Torah study. The insured will continue to fulfill the command v'nishmartem maod l'nafshoisechem by reciting tefilas haderech and observing safe and legal driving practices. In exchange for a contribution made to the Ashdod Mercaz Chinuch Project, the pupils will study and recite pirkei tehillim daily, and entreat G-d to protect and save the insured from any trouble and distress and lead him toward peace, emplace his footsteps toward peace, and have him reach his desired destination for life, gladness and peace, and send blessing and success in all his endeavors, wherever he may turn. This agreement is a mere spiritual agreement! It does not constitute any grounds for the Insured to claim money from Ashdod Mercaz Chinuch Project.

And don't forget about the money-back guarantee:

100% money-back guarantee
If, during the first month, you decide Shemirah Bidrachim is not what you want, just cancel. We'll refund 100% of your money, even if you've benefited from our policy.

One has to wonder what would have to happen, God forbid, to force someone to decide that the policy is "not what they want".

Help Needed

2007-05-31T07:10:00.000-04:00

A reader e-mails:

A family in Bayswater had a terrible fire erev Yom Tov and their house that they were renting completely burned down. B”H they all got out okay, but the father who saved the entire family plus all the tenants in the house, has some 3rd degree burns and cuts. This happened at 4am on Sunday. The family of 7 (5 kids ranging from 6 months to 13 years), have lost everything they own. There was no insurance. The people to contact are Ilanit at the Sephardic Beit Medrash of Bayswater @ 917-796-7865 or Batia @ 917-257-1078. Checks can be made out to:

Bayswater Neighbors Fund
c/o Richard Altabe
637 Meehan Avenue
Far Rockaway, NY 11691

Tizku L’Mitzvot!

Long Skirt Safety

2007-05-31T06:51:00.000-04:00

This is interesting, for obvious reasons:

A bus driver is seeking redress from the MTA after getting fired for refusing to wear pants.

On her second week on the job, Tahita Jenkins, 33, explained to her new bosses that as a Pentecostalist, the standard issue NYC Transit bus-driver uniform is against her religion.

She even provided a note from the pastor of her Far Rockaway church, Holy Ghost Headquarters Prayer Band Mission of New Beginning Deliverance Church, requesting she be permitted to wear a skirt. But transit officials insisted that for safety reasons she had to wear either pants or culottes.

"I told them culottes are just wide pants," Jenkins said. "I said 'I'm not going to change my religious beliefs just to be a bus driver.' I've been driving a school bus for years and my skirt never got caught on anything." Transit officials said they had no choice but to fire her Tuesday.

I understand that if a bus driver in a skirt presents legitimate safety concerns, then the MTA has to protect the safety of its passengers - but is a skirt really a safety risk? I have seen Orthodox women ski in long skirts, hike in long skirts, and ride bicycles in long skirts. I can't imagine that an activity such as riding a bus in a skirt poses any sort of special safety concern. Anyone have any explanation as to why it might be?

Oh, well. I guess strike "MTA Bus Driver" of the list of employment possibilities for Charedi women.

Sleep Deprivation and Parent's Health

2007-05-27T17:52:00.001-04:00

Slate tells us what moms of small sleepless children have known for a long time - parents of children who don't sleep well at night can suffer consequences to their physical and mental health. Everyone knows that a frazzled, run-down parent who is having sleep interrupted on a nightly basis can start to lag in the immunity department. The fact that people who are not sleeping well have trouble being bright and cheery in personal relationships isn't much of a shock either.

The article does discuss some strategies to getting small kids to sleep more soundly at night. Unfortunately, it still seems easier right now to just let the kid sleep on the floor of my room at 2 AM instead of getting a whole reward system going for keeping him in his bed. The middle of the night just never seems to be the best time for diplomatic negotiations with a strong-willed toddler who has a penchant for tantrums. So even though the system outlined in the article I linked might just work in the long term, so does another little trick - waiting until the kid is no longer a toddler and starts to sleep a little better. How long-term one is willing to wait is another question entirely.

So check out the article. Maybe you are feeling miserable enough to give some of the suggestions a shot. Let me know how it goes for you - or leave any other tips for getting toddlers to stay in their beds here in comments.

With any luck, maybe a particularly savvy commenter can get me some sleep and spare me picking up another cold or stomach bug.

Heter Mechira and Shemitta

2007-05-27T16:48:00.000-04:00

This is an interesting tidbit:

The Chief Rabbinate has called on all the bodies that issue kashrut certificates in Israel to refrain from purchasing fruits and vegetables from Palestinian farmers during the next year, which is set to be Sabbatical year (shnat shmita), for fear the proceeds will be used for funding terror.

According to the Torah, during the shmita year farm-land in the Land of Israel has to remain uncultivated

During a sabbatical year, many haredi kashrut organizations prefer to buy produce from non-Jews, in order to make sure that Jewish law has not been violated.

The Shmita Committee at the Chief Rabbinate also stated that due to the security situation, kashrut supervision in the territories has become almost impossible, especially because of the great danger faced by kashrut supervisors in the PA.

Interesting, because in Shemitta years past, the Charedi population in Israel has generally sought out only those fruits and vegetables grown on land owned outright by non-Jews - as the Charedi world has decidedly not relied on the heter mechira that allows fruit grown on land owned by Jews to be eaten during a Shemitta year. The loophole is a way to skirt the commandment against eating or benefiting from produce grown on land owned by Jews by temporarily selling the land for the Shemitta year, in much the same way that Jews sell their Chametz and Chametz utensils to non-Jews over Pesach and then regain ownership at the close of the Chag. However, the heter mechira regarding Chametz on Pesach is far more widely accepted in the Charedi world than the heter mechira for Shemitta produce.

I doubt that this ruling by Israel's chief Rabbis is going to change much in the way of Charedi practice. I actually know many Israel natives who are so averse to utilizing the heter during a Shemitta year that even thought they trust a Rabanut certification on a non-Shemitta year, they switch to purchasing produce with a "Mehadrin" or "Badatz" certification that ensures that the vegetables are not grown on Israeli land - with or without a heter mechira in place.

UPDATE: Jameel has more on this subject.

Comment of the Week

2007-05-21T11:13:00.000-04:00

Observer, a valued OM commenter, leaves a comment that stands out among the recent post-election spate of nasty, sniping comments we've been seeing of late:

For better or worse, the people have spoken. It is time to move on already. This past shabbat, Rabbi Billet, in the largest orthodox shul in the Five Towns (and the largest Young Israel congregation in the nation) spoke about the election and I think everyone commenting on this site could learn from what he had to say. He spoke of the Board's responsibility: first and foremost to the public school children, but secondarily, to the rest of the children of the District. He spoke VERY strongly of the newly elected Board's obligation to keep the needs of the public school children at the forefront and to make them, the board's primary responsibility. He also spoke of what brought us to this point, which was the history of (at least a perception) of prior BOEs not keeping in mind their secondary responsibilities to the remaining children of the District. He also pointed out that there is nothing for anyone to gloat about, that it is simply time to move on and do what is best for the children. Hopefully, moving forward, this Board, and future BOEs will keep both responsibilities in mind and make this District better for all of the children in this community. Both sides in this community claim to want to do what is best for all children in this community, so lets do so. It is less than a week since the election, why doesn't everybody calm down, give this board an opportunity to meet its obligations to all the children of the community (with the primary obligation being to the public school children), and move on. Should this Board not meet its obligation, there will be another election (and another, and another). Just give it some time and cut out the nasty comments (from both sides) for at least a little while.

It's nice to see Rabbi Billet express a sentiment that I agree with completely - that the duty of the new BOE is to serve the education needs of the district's public school children, while ensuring that the needs of private school community are met in an equitable manner to the extent the law allows.

Now I'd like to see this community move on and try to heal a little.

And people? Take down the darn lawn signs already. There's just no excuse for dragging this sad chapter out.

Worst Nightmare

2007-05-17T18:33:00.002-04:00

Does anyone else who happens to frequent Manhattan sidewalks avoid walking over subway grates because of a fear that they will give way, causing the unlucky pedestrian to plummet untold stories? I always avoid them, and my husband always smirks at me for being, in his opinion, a bit of a baby. Well, he should know now, for once and for all, what most of my readers already know - Orthomom is always right.

Details of a woman's terrifying fall through a subway grate here. I can only make light of this subject because she, thank God, escaped with minor injuries. But this just strengthens my resolve to stay off the grates. Agreed?

Sweep?

2007-05-16T00:13:00.000-04:00

Based on an email from a well-placed source, preliminary results indicate that the winners are Marcus, Blisko and Sussman, and all three propositions passed. Details to follow.

UPDATE: From Newsday:

Results were made available to Newsday at 1:35 a.m., Wednesday morning. Marcus defeated Cancelliere (5,057 to 4,715), Blisko defeated Levey (5,046 to 4,725) and Sussman defeated Greenbaum (5,309 to 4,566). The proposed budgets passed as well.

Lawrence District Clerk Alice Laino said some challenges were filed, but none would have any bearing on the outcome of the results.

Congratulations to all the winners. Now comes the hard part - making good on your campaign promises to provide every district child with the best education they can - while trying to heal the rift in this fractured community. I believe it can be done if we all try to get along and be kind and thoughtful to each other's needs in every arena. We are neighbors. Let's all act neighborly to each other. Good luck.

UPDATE: Full results here (PDF).

VOTE

2007-05-14T23:07:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow marks school board elections in my community, which will be the culmination of weeks of sniping back and forth between the two "sides" represented in this battle.

Sadly, one side has taken normal election-season back and forth to a completely different level.

I posted below about the anti-Orthodox ads published in local papers. Said newspaper was, to their credit, quick to publish an apology and explanation for their decision to accept the ads for publication. Our local elected officials rushed to condemn the hateful, dishonest and divisive tone of the ads in no uncertain terms. Yet have we heard anything in apology or condemnation from the candidates who put out the ads? Does anyone else hear crickets (ok, crickets - and Pamela Greenbaum trying to make the idiotic case that it's those who are most offended by the ads who are somehow the ones playing the religion card - as opposed to the bigots who put the ads out in the first place)?

I had not originally planned to endorse specific candidates in advance of tomorrow's election, but the manner in which some of the candidates have behaved in recent weeks leaves me no choice.

I do not believe that candidates who endorse bigotry and dishonesty in their election materials deserve to be making decisions about our children's education.

I do not believe that electing candidates to office who make every attempt throughout an election to further drive a wedge between the already warring factions in this community is the answer to bringing this community together.

I do not believe a candidate who sues over criticism of her policies instead of defending those policies deserves to be in public office.

I do not think a candidate who angrily screams and yells at others and cannot control his emotions and outbursts at public meetings is an appropriate candidate to be elected as a public official.

I do not think a first-time candidate who is unable to answer simple questions on candidate's night about how, if elected, she plans to run this troubled, underperforming district, is qualified to be a candidate.

I do not think that candidates who are so tied up to a teacher's union that their campaign literature is sent out under the teacher's union cover are considering the needs of the district children first and foremost.

I do not think that candidates who, simply to be contrary, endorse voting "NO" to the budget that has a chance of getting this district out of the dreaded cycle of austerity deserve to be in charge of our children's education.

I will not vote for bigotry and divisiveness tomorrow. I will not vote for fiscal irresponsibility tomorrow. I will not vote for obnoxious campaign rhetoric tomorrow. I will not vote for dishonesty tomorrow.

I will vote for candidates who have pledged throughout their campaign to work for the benefit of ALL district children. I will vote for candidates whose campaign literature was inclusive instead of exclusive. I will vote for candidates who did not spend their campaign taking cheap and petty shots at the opposition's community and religious group.

Tomorrow I will be voting for:

Nahum Marcus
Sol Blisko
David Sussman

I will be voting YES on the budget in hopes that we can get this district out of this cycle of austerity.

I will be voting YES on pre-K busing to ensure that this service is provided to ALL district children equitably.

I urge everyone who cares about the state of our community and who yearns for amity instead of the enmity we have seen in recent years to vote the same.

Each and every resident of SD15 MUST vote. In elections such as these, every vote DOES count. In past years, elections have been decided by a margin of very few votes - that vote could be yours.

(Stepping off my soapbox - at least until my next post...)

Baruch Dayan HaEmet

2007-05-13T21:46:00.000-04:00

There was a devastating fire in our community this Shabbat, resulting in the tragic deaths of an elderly couple. A local Rav in the community, who leads the Shul across the street from the couple's home, spoke about the terrible happening on Shabbat morning, as his congregants tried to absorb the loss and the jarring sight of the ruined, smoking, home. He spoke very nicely about the couple, reminded the community that the couple was supportive of the Shul, even though they themselves were not Orthodox, or members of the Shul. He also reminded the community that there was no way to know why God would allow a tragedy such as this one to happen. He was very respectful to the couple, and I think it was an appropriate reaction to their loss.

Feel free to leave any thoughts on the subject or recollections of the couple in comments.

News coverage here.

JIBS Finals

2007-05-11T08:26:00.000-04:00

The JIB awards are in the final voting round. I'm in the following categories: Best Overall Blog, Best Culture Blog, and Best Anti-Establishment Blog. Feel free to vote for me or whoever you think deserves to win.

The Herald's Apology

2007-05-10T20:36:00.000-04:00

The Nassau Herald ran a very reasonable, well-written and conciliatory Publisher's Note this week, in response to the hateful anti-Orthodox ads run by the ALPS campaign. I ask you to please read the whole piece here, but this is the part I feel I must repost:

We knew some of you might be offended by the ads, but in the end, we thought you should read what the candidates had written and decide for yourself what message they meant to convey. Better to be offended now than surprised later that you've voted for a bigot.

In hindsight, the breadth and depth of outrage that so many of you have expressed make us question the wisdom of our decision. We spoke to dozens of loyal readers who were deeply offended by these ads and our decision to run them. They made their points eloquently, forcefully and, for the most part, civilly. We clearly underestimated the depth of emotion the use of the word Orthodox would stir up. If the Herald is to continue to be the primary public forum in the Five Towns, we must distinguish between words that provoke people to think and respond and those that are so offensive that people simply tune out and stop reading. Based on the responses we received, we made the wrong call here.

I agree completely. I am glad to know the true feelings of the ALPS candidates, and I would rather know the way they feel now, than elect a bigot. I prefer to have seen these ads to having not seen them, but I do think the right way to have done this was to run them with an editor's note disavowing the pointedly divisive tone of the ads.

In any event, kudos to the Herald for owning up to what they feel was a bad call, explaining how that decision came about, and apologizing for any offense caused.

Too bad the candidates who had the bad judgment to create and submit these ads in the first place couldn't squelch their stubbornness and try to muster up the same humility, conciliatory feeling, and goodwill to District 15 residents they so offended as the Herald.

Battling in Baltimore Over Shabbat Elevator

2007-05-10T20:06:00.000-04:00

There's an interesting article in the Baltimore Sun regarding a vote against installing a Shabbat elevator in a Baltimore area building:

The vote from the Strathmore Tower condominium board was simple: Down with the Sabbath elevator.

But what some thought was a straightforward vote has erupted into a religious and racially tinged controversy to others in this majority senior citizen-occupied condominium complex in Upper Park Heights.

The supporters - most of whom are Jewish - say the option for a Sabbath elevator wouldn't have cost extra money and would have aided Orthodox Jewish and disabled residents while helping resale prices. Foes say such an elevator is inconvenient and could cost more.

Residents of the building allege that this was a discriminatory move on the part of the board majority who voted against the installation of a Shabbat elevator, as the elevators would have cost around the same price and would have helped many of the building's elderly, Shabbat-observant residents. They feel that considering the comparable cost, choosing the elevator with the Shabbat option would make sense from a convenience and resale value perspective.

There are other buildings in the area that have chosen to install elevators with the Shabbat option, even if the lack of a sizable Orthodox population in some of those building keeps them from activating it.

It isn't even only the building's Orthodox residents who support a Shabbat elevator:

But even residents who aren't Orthodox, or have no need for a Sabbath elevator, say the decision makes no sense.

Doris Lippens, who practices Reform Judaism, says the elevator will raise property values and accommodate Sabbath visitors who are Orthodox. "I would look forward to the fact that on a resale, having the Sabbath elevator to take people up to the seventh, eighth, ninth floor would be a good selling point," Lippens said.

She, like many other residents, says religious and racial tension is not always evident. "It's under the surface, basically," she says. "But every now and then the ugliness peaks out."

Obviously, the board majority gets to make the final decision here - and it looks like they have. But it's really a pity to see them being so shortsighted as far as installing an elevator that at least provides the option to be used as a Shabbat elevator in the future as demographics in the bulding change. Because as we all know, sometimes demographics change faster than people expect.

(related)

ALPS' Hateful Anti-Orthodox Campaign Condemned by Political Leadership

2007-05-09T13:11:00.000-04:00

This week's Jewish Star is a must read. It includes statements from three prominent (and popular) political leaders -- State Senator Dean Skelos, County Executive Thomas Suozzi and Town Supervisor Kate Murray -- condemning the hateful campaign being waged by ALPS (Advocates for Lawrence Public Schools) in support of Greenbaum, Cancelliere and Levey.

Skelos:

The ads referring to the religious beliefs of candidates Nahum Marcus and Solomon Blisko were “inappropriate,” said state Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) in an interview. In his opinion, they crossed a line. When asked, he said, “No, I would not vote for somebody that did that.” Marcus and Blisko are running on a ticket with David Sussman, who is not Orthodox and currently has children attending Lawrence public schools. “My feeling is that when you run for office, whether it’s the president of the United States, state Senate or school board, it should be about issues — certainly, there’s no place in elections to bring up religion,” Skelos said. He continued, “It should always be about kids and how are we going to best educate our kids? How are we going to control property taxes, which are just choking people? That’s what it should be about — kids’ education and their future — and not a person’s religious beliefs.”

Suozzi:

I am disturbed that the public debate regarding the school board elections in the Lawrence School District has included broad, inflammatory references to “Orthodox Jews.” I am proud of Nassau County’s ethnic diversity and spirit of tolerance. I recognize the differing views of our citizens and I encourage them to participate in community affairs for the betterment of all. In the political arena one would expect the candidates to present a candid presentation of their views and to defend those positions. A campaign is a marketplace of ideas. It is not, however a forum to be used to denigrate an individual or group based upon race, religion, gender, or ethnicity.

There are important issues to grapple with in the school board election taking place in Lawrence. Containment of school tax costs, improvement of student performance and capital repairs to buildings are the issues that should be the focus of the debate. Every resident of the district has a fair and equal right to participate in the process at all levels. No one is disqualified from participation in the American dream because of their level of religious observance.

I would encourage all those seeking office to set an appropriate example as the campaign reaches its conclusion and speak only to the issues.

Kate Murray:

It is my belief that divisiveness is never in the best interests of education. The introduction of dialogue that divides communities does not serve the students of any school system.

Pam Greenbaum's reaction to the furor surrounding the ads: "They’re playing the religion card." In a world where you can bully your critics with frivolous lawsuits yet manage to portray them as bullies, accusing the Orthodox of "playing the religion card" is a piece of cake.

Next week: Pam Greenbaum explains how Mel Gibson is a victim of religious hatred and intolerance.

Religious Preschools and the NYC Safety Code

2007-05-06T09:02:00.000-04:00

The NYTimes reports that a new proposal might require NYC religious preschools, long exempted from the health regulations that apply to other city preschools, to come into compliance with the strict code. No one quoted in the article seems very pleased with the prospect, from those who run preschools in Chassidic Williamsburg to the Modern Orthodox Yeshiva of Flatbush.

I can understand these schools' worries about the difficulty of potentially having to come into compliance suddenly, but it strikes me as a good idea to have some sort of safety code for these programs. Anyone know if there is any sort of set of regulations at all for these religious preschools?

ENOUGH!

2007-05-03T20:30:00.000-04:00

Ok. You know what? I've had enough. I am willing to overlook the air of divisiveness tacitly encouraged by so many who live in this fractured community - up to a point. But frankly, I have finally, completely, totally, had it. I am too absolutely disgusted by what is going on in this community to try to act calmly and reasonably on this matter. It's high time for a change. To explain, I was appalled to open up the Nassau Herald and see the two ads pictured above (click each one to enlarge in all their offensive glory).

There is so much that is just wrong with these ads that I don't even know if I can do their offensiveness quotient justice. But I guess I'll just have to try.

1. The use of the phrase "Orthodox Board".
Um, hello? Do you think this phrase would be acceptable if any other racial or ethnic group was highlighted? Try replacing the phrase "Orthodox" with the term "Black", "Hispanic", or even just "Jewish". Offended yet? I know I sure am.

2. The Flat Out Lies and Misrepresentations.
a. The ad that says "Stop the Current Orthodox Controlled Board from Dismantling our Public Schools" (who doesn't get the clearly intended visual of the Orthodox community turning out en masse, literally dismantling the schools, brick by brick), goes on to say: "they cut...Reading Recovery, Super/Sunday Saturday", among other programs. Now perhaps the creators of these ads think that every single one of us greenhorn Orthodox types have moved to this neighborhood in the past several years, and therefore do not remember the fact that Super Saturday/Sunday and Reading Recovery were cut years ago, well before this community had an "Orthodox Controlled Board". But I guess when the truth is simply not that sensational, why not look to lies to get the revenge juices flowing?

b. The ad that claims the Orthodox board members do not have the best interests of the public school candidates at heart, and to prove that, supplies a quote that purports to be the views of the Orthodox candidates by putting the words "the two Orthodox school board candidates also do not recognize this ethical obligation owed to the public school children", followed by the quote: "Dr. Blisko and Mr. Marcus will attempt to maintain a majority on the school board who will fight for non-public school interests". This statement regarding Blisko/Marcus was solely the Nassau Herald's characterization of the candidates' intentions. It is obviously unfair and dishonest to ascribe a view to them based on a characterization the paper made.

3. The suggestion that there is some "ethical" problem in having a board with an Orthodox majority. The implication seems to ostensibly be that parents who do not have children in the public schools are not concerned with the educational standards of the public schools, so their having a majority on the board is not "ethical". But clearly that is not the real point here, as the statement refers only to "Orthodox board members" and not board members who are not public school parents. Is the point that Orthodox board members present an extra-special ethics concern? I truly hope not.

Is the point that parents who want equity in the services allowed by the law for their private school children represent a conflict of interest? If they are talking about the code of Ethical Standards that they quote from in the ad, they are advised to read the "no conflict of interest" provision. With that in mind, how to address the point that there are past board members and present school board candidates who are related to teachers who work in the district? If they have something to potentially gain from approving generous teachers' benefits, is it "ethical" for them to be on the board? If the answer is "no" to one, it's "no" to the other. There is no law that bars childless people or empty nesters or private school parents from representing the children of our community, or calls their election to a public school board "unethical". We all know taxation = representation. Don't like the way those the voters elected to represent the district kids are doing so? No problem. It's a democracy. Vote 'em out. But please don't imply that a certain religious group represents a greater ethics concern if elected than another. Last I checked, the financial scandals that concerned other area school boards did not include Orthodox board members as perpetrators (Roslyn, anyone?).

If those ads aren't bad enough, I got a copy of this flyer, which is just as chock-full of offensive references and misrepresentations as the Nassau Herald ads were:

Let me number my objections to this piece of offensive propaganda:

1. More use of the term "Orthodox school board". Is there any good reason the term "majority Orthodox school board" was used instead of just referring to the incumbents as the being members of the present board - any good reason aside from fostering anti-Orthodox hysteria, of course? As I noted above, name me one other racial or ethnic group that would ever be deemed appropriate to use in the manner "Orthodox" was used above. Can you imagine the hue and cry had there been ads that used the phrase "majority Hispanic school board", or "majority Jewish school board"?

2. More lies and misrepresentations.
a. The allegation that the sitting board "funneled $135,000 of Public School funds to send 6 Private School students to an unaccredited Yeshiva" is misleading. First of all, as I note here, this was a settlement that ultimately saved the district money by preventing costly lawsuits, which could have caused the cost to skyrocket. The flyer somehow also neglects to mention that the at the same meeting, a similar settlement was reached to pay to send a public school student to an out-of-state school. With regards to the claim that the school is an "unaccredited Yeshiva", I note in the same post that the school is chartered by the NYS Board of Regents. The flyer implies that this settlement decision was fiscally irresponsible on the part of the board. Considering that this settlement potentially saved the district hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, and coupled with the emphasis on the private school students who benefited from the deal - with, in a particularly dishonest and misleading move, no mention whatsoever of the public school student who benefited - lead me to believe that the thrust of the point was to prove that the board is attempting to (gasp) provide help to special needs private school kids. The fact that that the threat of helping private school students get appropriate special ed - with the added benefit of saving the district money - is actually considered an appropriate and effective scare tactic for these candidates to use, sums up what makes this ad campaign so reprehensible.

b. This one is truly unbelievable. The claim that the sitting board "deliberately breached the teachers' contract costing the district unnecessary and extensive legal fees" is laugh-out-loud funny - if this were even remotely a laughing matter. May I remind my readership that the last sitting board (which did not have the dread "Orthodox majority") were the ones who rammed this fiscally irresponsible teachers' contract in the eleventh hour of their term, when they so clearly had lost the voters' mandate?

All in all, this campaign material is just disgusting. It is designed to foster and encourage xenophobia, intolerance and division. They add fuel to the fire, deepening the fracture that already pits neighbor against neighbor in this otherwise lovely community. The fact that some in this community are so obviously and egregiously playing the hate card by attacking the religious affiliation of candidates shows me just how low people have sunk in this sad saga.

I would love to hear the candidates who are touted in these ads getting up and having their Sister Souljah moment, decrying the willful divisiveness apparent in these ads, and make good on their claims at candidate night - now ringing hollow - that they wish to heal the divide.

Funny...Sort Of

2007-05-03T14:36:00.000-04:00

Gotta love this letter, sent out to the parent body of a Staten Island middle school by the school's dean (click to enlarge), regarding punishment for students involved in a food fight:
Obviously, some of the misspellings were common typos ("an" in place of "and" or "on"), but the misspelling of the word "unacceptable" as "unexcecpable" is...well, unacceptable, from a dean of a middle school. Also, I would be willing to let "activates" in the place of "activities" pass as a typo once...but it appears twice in the letter. As amusing as the numerous egregious spelling errors all are, the part that troubles me far more is the fact that this dean chose to level a collective punishment on the entire grade that seems so far out of proportion to the crime:

After discussing with our Principal Mrs. DellaRocca we are now holding the entire health academy out of all senior activates (including prom and senior trip). It makes no difference if your child was directly involved or not, this is an action which affects the entire Academy.

If one of my children came home with a letter such as this, I would be hard pressed to support the school's administration. A parent in the school puts it succinctly:

Rajiv Gowda, the father of an eighth-grader and the president of the local Community Education Council, called for Levy's firing.

"This sends a bad message and sets a bad example," Gowda said. "We are for zero tolerance when kids make a mistake. What is good for the goose is good for the gander."

Luckily, the principal mentioned in the letter agrees, and is not happy with Levy's actions:

In addition to at least 16 spelling or grammatical mistakes, the letter - first reported in the Staten Island Advance - was never approved by Principal Emma Della Rocca.

"I would never have anticipated that ... Mr. Levy would actually write something that would have not been readable," Della Rocca said.

She's investigating both the letter and the food fight that started it all. Though the letter told parents that all eighth-graders in the health academy - one of three theme-based academies in the school - would be punished for Monday's food fight, Della Rocca said only kids found responsible will be disciplined.

At least sanity still prevails - if only some of the time.

Your Retail Dollars Could Help Elect Our Next President

2007-04-30T22:57:00.000-04:00

Consumerist has an interesting little item on where a percentage of your retail dollars might be going:

When you buy a light bulb at Home Depot or a pair of pants at Walmart, you probably don't give much thought to the political leanings of said light bulb or said pants. Nevertheless, retail outlets, airlines, electronics manufactures, and record company executives do make campaign contributions, and when they do, we can look it up.

For example, Consumerist reports that the Home Depot seems to give a portion of your paint or sheetrock purchase to Republicans, while Steve Jobs gives to Dems.

I guess the point is that people who hold particularly strong political views might want to consider where some of their money is headed. Of course, that detail just might be one too many layers to be concerned with - except for those types who quiz their plumbers, accountants, and/or appliance repairmen on their political affinities before hiring them.

A Quick Word

2007-04-30T21:52:00.000-04:00

So at tonight's SD 15 "meet the candidates" night, candidate Pamela Greenbaum called me a "cyberbully". Ha. The only bully here is Ms. Greenbaum, who is seeking to strip my First Amendment right to anonymous political speech in the face of my very valid criticisms of her stance on important district issues. She's a bully because when she couldn't stand the heat, she dragged me into court, with the clear intention of attempting to shut me up by stanching my criticism. Did it ever occur to Ms. Greenbaum that it might have been more appropriate and befitting a public figure to actually try to disprove a critic's claims, instead of just attempting to muzzle said critic? To recap this whole sad affair, I have never attacked Ms. Greenbaum on anything but the issues.

But somehow, I'm the bully.

Junk Food Rant

2007-04-26T08:27:00.000-04:00

I completely support this:

April 26, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - Sugary drinks, fatty chips and gooey snack cakes should be banned from schools in the face of rising childhood obesity fueled by these "junk foods," an expert panel said yesterday in a report requested by Congress.

The Institute of Medicine panel proposed nutritional standards more restrictive than current government rules for foods and drinks sold outside regular meal programs in cafeterias, vending machines and school stores in elementary, middle and high schools.

The proposals would banish most potato chips, candies, snack cakes such as Twinkies, "sports drinks" such as Gatorade, sugary sodas and iced teas and punches made with minimal fruit juice.

I for the life of me could never understand why my kids' schools find it necessary to stock vending machines with the most gargantuan bottles of iced tea and powerade. I do recall having a soda machine in the lunchroom of my own elementary school in my childhood, but those days, apparently a small can of soda would suffice. Now we're talking 24-ounce bottles of liquid candy being marketed to grade-schoolers. And does anyone really think that a bag of cheese puffs is a wholesome school-day choice?

I would love to see the school switch over to small bottles of juice and water in their beverage vending machines, and low-fat pretzels and the like in their snack machines. I mean, it's 2007 - shouldn't we all know better?

JIB Voting

2007-04-23T08:37:00.000-04:00

Voting has begun for the JIBs. Feel free to peruse the offerings and vote for your favorites. I'm nominated in two categories:
Best Overall - vote here
Best Jewish Culture Blog - vote here

Notes Indicate Nasty Political Ad Campaign Planned

2007-04-19T23:31:00.000-04:00

Larry Gordon has the tale of a nasty campaign ad planned for the upcoming election that should shock you. The proposed ad shows a clear intent to deceive voters. Apparently, some people seem to think that it's appropriate to use any tactics whatsoever to get out the vote - and evidently, promoting hysteria is the tactic du jour.

Bagel Boycott Narrowly Averted? - UPDATED

2007-04-19T22:38:00.000-04:00

Dag points us to an article in the Jewish Star regarding kashrut violations found at a local bagel store:

The sign in the window apologized for the inconvenience and said the Bagel Island store on Rockaway Turnpike in Cedarhurst was closed on the Thursday after Pesach due to “a plumbing problem.”

In actuality, the Vaad Hakashrus of the Five Towns and the Rockaways ordered the store to shut down for one dayas a penalty after one of the owners of the store, David Perez, was discovered substitutingcream cheese with an OU-Dfor the Cholov Yisroel cheese the store is required to use. The Vaad’s rabbinic administrator,
Rabbi Yosef Eisen, confirmed that he personally made the discovery.

A spokesman for the Vaad,Rabbi Dovid Weinberger, said there was no cause for concern about the store’s kashrus. “Whatever needed to be corrected was corrected and the hashgacha continues with out any concern,” he said. Rabbi Weinberger, the rav of Shaaray Tefila in Lawrence, also heads the Rabbinic Liaison Committee of the Vaad Hakashrus of the Five Towns and the Rockaways.

Rabbi Eisen “was spot checking, and saw something that made him suspicious,”
according to Rabbi Weinberger. “He saw a knife” on the seat of Perez’s car “and he found the cartons in the dumpster” outside the store. The cartons had contained
three-pound containers of Kosher, but not Cholov Yisroel, cream cheese. “When you take them out of the box they look identical to anything else and you would never know the difference.”

Questioned by Rabbi Eisen, Perez first claimed the cheese came from Ahava Dairy, a Cholov Yisroel producer. “What are you doing with a knife in the car and these cartons in the trash?” Rabbi Eisen asked, according to Rabbi Weinberger. “When he confronted him, he caught him red-handed.”

Another partner in the store, Joe Elbaz, confirmed that Rabbi Eisen immediately ordered the store closed for one day. Elbaz said that he felt that the incident had been handled in a “fair” manner. “It was a situation where we were without cream cheese,” he explained, and the delivery from Mehadrin, the usual supplier, wasn’t scheduled to take place until the afternoon.

“In a second of thought - the wrong thought — it was a stupid mistake.” He added that no customers were served the non-Cholov Yisroel cream cheese. “I presume that no one was served it,” said Rabbi Weinberger, but “I cannot ascertain that for sure.” Elbaz confirmed that Perez purchased two cases of cream cheese with an OU-D which were not Cholov Yisroel, despite signage in the store which tells customers that Cholov Yisroel is what they should expect. “It was not an attempt to defraud,” he said, and admitted that he was “upset” with Perez.

The Vaad has seen receipts which, Elbaz said, confirm thatthe store receives regular deliveries of Cholov Yisroel products from Olam and Mehadrin, two major dairy suppliers. Elbaz brought receipts with him to an afternoon meeting at Shaaray Tefila, Rabbi Weinberger said.

Perez, who is not observant, “is no longer permitted to be inside the store,” effective immediately, said Rabbi Weinberger.

Can customers trust Bagel Island in the future? “Honestly, yes,” said Elbaz. “Olam and Mehadrin are my suppliers. Period. What else can I say?”

Rabbi Weinberger confirmed that the Vaad considers Elbaz to be trustworthy. “We are not looking to hurt a man who owns the store and whose partner took him for a ride, who is himself ethical and honest, because of somebody’s stupid mistake and idiocy.” That’s why, Rabbi Weinberger said, the sign in the window referred to a plumbing problem and did not detail the true reason behind the closure.

“I can attest to it that any time something like this happens customers are lost and it takes a very long time to win them back. That’s why we prefer to say that it is closed for some other reason. It absolutely justifies it.

At least one community rabbi chose to discuss this incident with his congregants, and call for stricter standards than the Vaad presently requires. At the Agudas Yisroel of Long Island this past Shabbat, people who were present confirmed that Rabbi Yaakov Reisman reiterated his oft-repeated preference that his own congregants confine their patronage to kosher establishments with Sabbath- observant owners. For use by members of his shul, Rabbi Reisman updates a list which he prepared long ago of stores which he deems acceptable.

Rabbi Weinberger, the spokesman for the Vaad Hakashrus, was asked to respond. “So close down 70 percent of the kosher stores in the country,” he said. The result, he predicted, would be more Jewish people eating “traif rather than kosher food.” “Most stores are owned by non-Shomer Shabbos proprietors,” he said. “You get a mashgiach temidi and the Shulchan Oruch is fine with it. If the Shulchan Oruch is fine with it, you can’t negate it. “

I can't say that that this makes me 100% comfortable with Bagel Island - though I will say that the fact that the offender is no longer allowed on the premises does mitigate my discomfort. It is nice to see that the Vaad is on the ball with regards to their supervision. In the past, I've heard criticism of the Vaad's policy of only spot-checking of the stores that are under their supervision. However, this incident would seem to indicate that not only does it work when it comes to finding violations, it presumably works as a deterrent for other store owners who might consider trying to pull this type of shtick.

Dag takes issue with the Vaad's coverup of the incident, saying that he doesn't like being lied to - whether by the store owners or by the Vaad. I can completely relate to the visceral dislike of any type of dishonesty, but I actually understand the Vaad's reasoning on this issue. If the other owner of the store agreed completely to barring the violator from the premises indefinitely, then one has to assume that the problem has been dealt with appropriately. Dag also says that the Vaad's handling of this episode is surprising, especially since "they came down so hard on Glatt Emporium." However, to me, this sounds exactly similar to the way the Vaad handled the GG situation. I recall the same type of attempt by the Vaad during the initial stages of the Gourmet Glatt saga to keep the story quiet. Unfortunately, the story began to come out, and the Vaad had no choice but to confirm the details of the Kashrut violations in that incident, as they eventually did in this case as well.

One would have to assume that had the owner who committed the Kashrut violation had refused to follow the Vaad's directives to be banned from the premises, we would have been looking at a bagel boycott.

Also, in regards to mention made in the article of a certain local Rav who tells his congregants not to eat at restaurants owned by non-Sabbath observers? I have just one word in response to that "failsafe": Monsey.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: The Jewish Star has issued a correction on some details regarding the story above:

Correction

Sometimes even the most determined effort at fact checking goes awry and mistakes slip into the newspaper. That hurts. But when the names of two people become reversed — one of whom did something and the other of whom suffered the consequences — an editor's worst case scenario is born.
We reported last week that the Bagel Island store on Rockaway Turnpike was shut down for a day by the Vaad Hakashrus. It had been discovered that OU-D cream cheese was substituted for Cholov Yisroel cream cheese, which is required by the Vaad. Accurate, so far.
However, despite multiple conversations with rabbonim and with an owner of the store, the names of the two partners still came to be reversed in the published story.
Joe Elbaz and David Perez — the partners — each confirm that it was Elbaz who brought in the OU-D cream cheese, not Perez. At the time Elbaz told us, "In a second of thought — the wrong thought — it was a stupid mistake." He now clarifies that he was admitting to his own action, and NOT referring to something done by his partner. He further explained that it was Perez, his Sabbath-observant partner, who was upset at HIM, Elbaz. The story clearly said that the reverse was the case.
We deeply regret the error and apologize to both men.

OM in Court

2007-04-19T15:38:00.000-04:00

Couldn't get a disguise together that was good enough to dare to venture into court myself, but SIW made his way over there for today's arguments. His report can be found here.

JIBS

2007-04-18T22:34:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone, the Jewish Israeli Blog Awards are back. Nominations in a number of categories end tomorrow, so check out the categories and enjoy being introduced to some new blogs.

SD 15 Bad Behavior

2007-04-18T22:16:00.000-04:00

There's an infuriating article in this week's Jewish Star, but I can't link the article, so I'm going to have to recap much of it.

As I first posted about here, there was a request made to the Board of Education of School District 15 by district parents who wished to have their special needs children placed in Kulanu Torah Academy, as they felt their children's special education needs were not being adequately met by district public schools. The Board of Education came to a confidential settlement with the parents to reimburse them at the tuition cost of $22,500 per child. This amicable settlement would seem to have been a win-win situation, as quotes in the article would indicate:

In fact, the amity with which the settlement was reached represents a departure from past practice when virtually every dispute over private special ed placement resulted in a court battle.

“Last year the special ed litigation costs were in excess of $750,000,” said school board President Asher Mansdorf, who ordered the district’s legal team to seek settlements, in conformity, he said, with recent directives from Albany. “I can tell you that the estimate is that every time we have to go to litigate a [special ed] case, the starting cost is in the area of $18,000 dollars,” he said. “Whether you win, lose or draw you’ve spent at least 18-thousand dollars.

Aside from saved legal fees, Mark Honigsfeld, the chairman of the board of Kulanu, said the settlement represented a significant savings to the district in tuition, alone. “It’s public knowledge that it costs the district over $50,000 per year to educate a special needs child,” he said. “Some of these students,” he continued, “were being sent outside the district, which required a matron on a bus, and hours a day on a bus, and those situations cost the board over $70,000 a year.”

“My general approach to life is mediation and conciliation,” Mansdorf said. “Just think about any civil lawsuit that takes place anywhere in the country. What’s the first thing anyone does? The lawyers sit down and try to resolve it without going to court. Isn’t that what everyone tries to do. Am I the only one?”

In any event, Honigsfeld said, “Governor Spitzer has mandated that districts settle
these cases and parents should have major input. Only this district is going against the tide, because of this election.”

Despite the fact that the settlement seemed to have been in everyone's best interests, board members Pamela Greenbaum and Stanley Kopilow chose to oppose the settlement, and unfortunately, they chose to publicly air their disagreement with this confidential settlement, which had initially been discussed only in a private session completely closed to the public - violating the policy of confidentiality with which these matters are expected to be treated:

Both men also objected to the way in which confidential matters concerning special ed students have now become topics of public discussion. A person familiar with the district’s legal affairs, whose request for anonymity was granted, said “anything involving a special ed child is so confidential that the board never sees the names of the kids — they only see a number — and the number is known only to the office of pupil personnel and services.”

“Certain board members who have voiced their objection to this out-of-court settlement, in my opinion, are totally uninformed as to the sensitivity required when publicly discussing issues related to families and children who have disabilities,” Honigsfeld said. “So, bringing this to a public forum was inappropriate and, as I understand it, the full board was made aware of all the circumstances in executive sessions.” The upcoming election has played a role, he said. “It is only these individuals who are contrary to the private school sector looking to use this settlement as a platform for their campaign.”

Accusing the board members who oppose this settlement of doing it only to curry favor with voters in advance of an election campaign might seem a bit harsh, but it's hard to see what else the motivation here could be. It's clear that this settlement saved the district money. It's also noted in the article that the move had support of the district superintendent, school attorney, and special ed supervisor. In addition, it is pointed out in this earlier article on the subject that at the same meeting, a similar settlement was made for a public school student to attend an outside special ed program - yet somehow was not mentioned by Kopilow and Greenbaum when they chose to bring these previously confidential cases under public scrutiny. It's also hard to make the case that publicly raising an issue that is so clearly meant to remain confidential is in the best interests of the concerned district children. How are we to believe that Greenbaum and Kopilow are looking out for the best interests of every district child when they display a willingness to break confidentiality for special needs district children simply to make a political point? Doing what's best for one group of district children should not entail harming a different group of district children - shouldn't that be very clear to all, especially those who are elected to provide for the needs of all district children?

In any event, now this hue and cry as raised by Greenbaum/Kopilow has turned litigious. (Not shocking, as Greenbaum is involved). A former special education teacher from Long Beach, Ruth Radow, has filed a petition in objection to the settlement agreement. It seems that she is claiming it's unlawful:

In early April, the state education department received a petition, known as a ‘310 appeal’ asking that the education commissioner to vacate the board’s decision on the grounds that Kulanu is not an “approved” school and that proper procedures were not followed in allowing the case to be settled without the customarily lengthy appeals process.

The fact that a "customarily lengthy appeals process" is being presented as a positive, desirable goal for either the district or more importantly, for district children, is simply shocking - and Dr. Mansdorf's explanations above for settling and saving both the parents involved as well as the district time and money seem right on target. The fact that the school is claimed to be not "approved" is also debunked here:

Honigsfeld also pointed out that “there is no such thing as a quote-unquote ‘approved’ school,” he said. Kulanu is chartered by the NYS Board of Regents.

Dr. Mansdorf also takes issue with the suggestion that the settlement was unlawful:

"You have to realize that they’re also implying that our attorney, our special ed supervisor and our superintendent all broke the law,” Mansdorf pointed out. “That we said, fellows, lets go ahead and break the law, and they said, ‘OK, let’s go ahead
and do it.’ It’s just ludicrous.”

It is ludicrous, and quite sickening. It's as if a certain segment of the community who have an agenda to protect the public schools at any cost seem to think that such an agenda should come at the expense of fair, just, and equitable treatment of all district children.

It's a damn shame.

A Post to Read

2007-04-17T21:50:00.000-04:00

Krum has a great post on gender selection technology and halacha. My previous posts on the topic: I, II

Muslim Taxi Drivers Cannot Refuse to Take Passengers Carrying Alcohol

2007-04-17T20:24:00.000-04:00

Here's the news:

Muslim cab drivers at Minnesota's biggest airport will face new penalties including a two-year revocation of their taxi permits if they refuse to give rides to travelers carrying liquor or accompanied by dogs, the board overseeing operations ruled Monday.

The Metropolitan Airports Commission, responding to complaints about the liquor issue, voted unanimously to impose the new penalties beginning in May.

A large number of taxi drivers in the area of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport are Muslim Somali immigrants. Many say they feel the faith's ban on alcohol consumption includes transporting anyone carrying it.

Some also have refused to transport dogs, both pets and guide dogs, saying they are unclean.

The new rules cover any driver who refuses a ride for unwarranted reasons, including those who refuse to take short-haul passengers in favor of more lucrative longer trips. They can still refuse fares for certain reasons, including threats to their safety.

This issue is hard to sort out. There's obviously the question of freedom of religion, and that these drivers have every right to forbid taking alcohol and dogs into their private cars - when driving as private citizens. However, even if the cab belongs to them, once they become licensed by a municipal agency, one has to assume that the heavy regulation involved includes having to follow a stricter set of guidelines than those a driver might be allowed to follow if he was part of a private car service. The new rules prevent cab drivers from refusing passengers for any reason - not just religious ones. Of course, there's the fact that no one is forcing anyone to drive a taxi, of course. And who can ignore the old slippery-slope question of, to what end? If we allow taxi drivers to refuse customers because they are traveling with alcohol or dogs, what's next? Refusing to transport women who are dressed inappropriately? Refusing to transport passengers who are openly homosexual?

This issue is probably most comparable to that of the right of pharmacists to refuse to sell Plan B contraceptives on religious/moral grounds. A pharmacist is permitted by law in most states to refuse to dispense the contraceptive, but must have a sign on the storefront proclaiming that they do not carry it. Why should pharmacists have the choice to limit their services based on their religious beliefs without losing their licenses - but not Minnesota cabbies? It would seem to follow that cabbies should either be allowed to refuse passengers as long as they put a visible decals on the sides of their cabs proclaiming that they will not transport alcohol or dogs - or that pharmacists should lose their licenses if they refuse to dispense Plan B. I mean, who's to say that one person's religious beliefs are more compelling a reason to refuse service than another's?

This issue is so hopelessly convoluted that it gives me a headache. Feel free to chime in while I go take two advil.

OM Lawsuit Update

2007-04-17T20:18:00.000-04:00

Sorry, I've been a bit swamped with work, but SIW has some updates.

Here, Steven starts to take apart the brief filed by Feder/Greenbaum.

And here, Steven links the response to Greenbaum's brief by my attorney, Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen. Let's just say that it's a delicious read, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I particularly loved the part where Levy rips apart Greenbaum's initial (and completely false) claim that I "called her an anti-Semite" and that I "wrote that my concern revealed an anti-Semitic agenda". He then proceeds to demolish her post hoc claim that my response to her original complaint - where I said that it was false and completely unsupported by the evidence she filed - was defamatory. It's particularly hilarious to consider the (il)logic of Greenbaum making a false claim in her initial complaint, and then claiming defamation when I point out the falsity of her claim.

He also makes it quite clear that though Greenbaum asserts again and again that my claims were "false", nowhere does she even begin to show evidence of the falsity of my claims or attempt to indicate what the truth actually is. Her claim was false, I said so, and I was right. Nothing false, defamatory or actionable in that.

All in all, I think the response is quite devastating to Greenbaum's position.

Read. And enjoy.

Update: Ezzie likes the response too.

Free Speech At Work

2007-04-15T22:22:00.000-04:00

Here's a story that had a little different resolution than the one that occurred in the Imus case:

Mein Gott! Sharon Hewitt, office assistant to Jane Pearl, the supervising judge at Kings County Family Court, has been removed from her position, after the court became aware of Hewitt’s long history as a neo-Nazi. Up until a few months ago, Hewitt regularly posted online on neo-Nazi sites under her neo-Nazi screen name. She’s been photographed attending multiple hate-group rallies and helped organize demonstrations in 2005 on behalf of veteran hatemonger Ernst Zündel, who was wanted in Germany for denying the Holocaust. Court spokesman David Bookstaver says Hewitt has been moved out of Judge Pearl’s office and into a general administrative pool where she will not have access to confidential information, and that the court can’t fire her for her Nazi sympathies. “As repugnant as one might find her beliefs, we live in a country where she is entitled to them, as long as they do not impact on her duties,” says Bookstaver, who points out that it was the New York civil service that employed Hewitt, not Judge Pearl. “She sat for an exam, she got it,” he says.

In contrast to the Imus firing, Hewitt got to keep her job. Now that is free speech at work, where an employee cannot be fired for views she holds or expresses outside of her place of work, in a manner that does not affect her duties. As upsetting and repugnant as I find Hewitt's views, I agree completely with the resolution of her case.