Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky in the New York Post

Posted on September 29, 2014 by zjb

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I love the New York Post, and their front page editor’s a genius. I’m not sure if out-of-towners will see the affectionate ribbing with which the paper greets the birth of baby Clinton Mezvinsky. Another liberal cry baby!

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Wrath in the World (Evil According to the Zohar)

Posted on September 29, 2014 by zjb

sitra achra

At the very end of the commentary on Exodus, the Zohar turns its attention to the flow and force of evil in the world. The demonic point has no color, and it does not exist. It expands out, to the right and to the left, the force of shadow combining with Death, Samael and Lilith, radiating gold as it descends into the world as anger, killing, wounding blows upon blows, fierce wrath after wrath, one riding the other, and unabated rage. In the Zohar, evil is religious. It’s form  is force of relentless judgment let loose in the world, the chasing after human beings to judge them for the sins that they conceal, this running to inflict injury. The final word of the commentary to Exodus is to recommend that we keep away from all this. What matters most to the zoharic authors would be the opposite, the binding up of units of force together in order to convey blessing and mystical peace. (Zohar, 2:242b-44b)

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Dialogue in the 21st Century: A Martin Buber Memorial Conference

Posted on September 29, 2014 by zjb

Buber

Dialogue in the 21st Century: A Martin Buber Memorial Conference

Manhattan College

April 23, 2015

 

Call for Abstracts:

Submissions from all disciplinary backgrounds, including philosophy, religious studies, Judaic studies, media studies, political science, education and peace studies are welcome.

In order to promote interdisciplinary dialogue and provide maximal time for discussion participants will give 15-20 minute presentations as part of a panel. Suggested topics include:

  • What is dialogue? What are the preconditions for and limitations of dialogue? How does one educate for dialogue?
  • How may Buber’s life and work be fruitfully brought into dialogue with contemporary conceptual movements and problems, such as the exploration of the other, cosmopolitanism and the study of language?
  • How does Buber’s life and work illuminate recent cultural and political shifts, such as the rise of information technology, contemporary art and media, current interfaith debates and recent international conflicts?

The conference will be held during Manhattan College’s month-long annual celebration of its Lasallian mission. Presentations that engage one or more of the five Lasallian hallmarks — commitment to social justice, respect for human dignity, an emphasis on ethical conduct, reflection on faith and its relation to reason, and excellence in teaching — are therefore especially welcome.

Please send proposals in .doc, .docx, or .pdf format to Dr. Sarah Scott (sarah.scott at manhattan.edu) no later than December 15, 2014. Proposals should include 1) a developed abstract (approximately 1,000 words); 2) a short abstract for inclusion in the conference program (150 words maximum); 3) a short biography for inclusion in the conference program (150 words maximum); and 4) full contact details, including email address and phone number. Authors will be notified of acceptance by January 15, 2015.

Sponsored by the Manhattan College Center for Ethics, the Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Center, the Office of Mission, the Philosophy Department and the Religious Studies Department.

(PS: That’s Buber in a bow tie with HRH Princess Beatrix after winning the Erasmus Prize in 1963 –Zjb)

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BDS (Amira Hass at Birzeit)

Posted on September 28, 2014 by zjb

hass

This is why BDS is the damaging thing that it is, the damage being done not just to Israel, or actually less to Israel than to Palestinian civil society whose call its U.S. advocates of BDS intend to support. At Birzeit University, Amira Hass was booted off a conference because there’s a rule that no Israeli Jews are allowed on campus. The conference was organized by the German Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and The Center for Development Studies. Apparently, Katja Hermann, director of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s Regional Office in the Occupied Territories was shocked. Hass writes that Hermann told her that “had she known about the law at Birzeit, and the decision to exclude [Hass] from the conference’s audience, she wouldn’t have agreed to hold the event within the university walls.” The story’s here. It suggests to me that ultimately BDS is going to overreach, hurting the very people whose cause it is intended to champion.

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In Shul After Gaza — Green Rosh Hashana at Anschei Chesed

Posted on September 28, 2014 by zjb

schmitta

A report from the liberal pew: The Jewish year this year happens to be a Schmittah year, a sabbatical year. According to the Bible, the land is supposed to stay fallow every seventh year. The land needs to rest. It’s not our land. In the Land of Israel, we are supposed to rely on the leftover, wild crop. Green, the vision is utopian, utterly impracticable. This was what Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky talked about for Rosh Hashana at  Anschei Chesed. With its own radical implications but in its own quiet way, he took the opportunity to talk about economic inequality, land ownership, and environmental sustainability, i.e. all the things that make unbearable our entire modern way of life. The talk was global in its perspective even as the rockets and rubble this summer Gaza and Israel, indeed, the entire question of Israel and Palestine hung over every word. Maybe it was just me and I’m reading too much into the talk. But here’s what I heard. The land needs to rest. It’s not our land. It’s no man’s land. About Gaza and the poisoning of the discourse about Israel and Zionism, Rabbi Kalmanofsky stated very clearly that it would be what he called rabbinic malpractice not to talk about them. For that, the congregation will have to wait until Yom Kippur. The talk last Thursday was meant, I think, to lay the groundwork for that discussion on a broader basis of what’s fair and what’s right, on peace and economic justice.

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נהיה לראשׁ ולא לזנב (Rosh Hashana Fish Head Blessing)

Posted on September 27, 2014 by zjb

fish head rosh hashana

“May we be like the head and not the tail.” Like many customs and tradition, eating a fish head to mark the new year, is both delicious and disgusting. Before they are moral, these kinds of tradition are gustatory, or rather the morality has a gustatory intensity or flavor. Kudos to my brother Andrew for the photograph, and for sharing it at FB. He caught such a plaintive look and expression. I guess we should count our blessings. In the Shulchan Aruch, laws of Rosh Hashana, chapter 583, which you can read here, it’s supposed to be a lamb’s head, the point having been to remember the lamb of Isaac. According to the Rama, “Some are careful not to eat nuts since nuts have the numerical value of sin.  Also, they cause a lot of gas, interrupting prayer.” Tongue in cheek, that too is moral.

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Barberini Rosh Hashana

Posted on September 24, 2014 by zjb

barberini

The bee was the sign chosen by the Barberinis as their emblem. The Barberinis were an important family in 17th c. Rome. Patrons of the arts and religion, Bareberini bees swarm all over the city and in the Vatican too. Bees make honey. Shana tova u’metuka.

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Rav Kook = Avatar

Posted on September 23, 2014 by zjb

Rav Kook Avatar

Rav Kook is Avatar. Master of the 4 basic elements, he brings balance to a chaotic cosmos. Kudos to Sam Brody for this neat little mashup, and for allowing me to post it here at the blog. He merged this cartoon of the famous image of Kook, which you can see here, with this image created by a webcomic named ChaseCraft, which you can see here. Avatar is a lead character from the Legend of Korra series, about which there’s more here.

Sam then tagged the image with a passage from Yehuda Mirsky’s recently published biography of Kook:

“[P]recisely because the time to build had come, all the contradictions in his life and personality emerged in full force. he tried to stay above the political fray while taking an inescapably public and inevitably political role. he wanted to make everybody happy, and just could not.” – (Mirsky, Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution, p.160)

Two ideas from Lev Mannovich in The Language of New Media come to mind. One has to do with argument that new media art should not try to look like traditional, old media art. Medium specific, it needs to like itself, like a new media product. The second point has to do with the seamless integration of contents. In contrast to modernist collage, this kind of cut is not supposed to show the edge or suture lines.

Someone should commission ChaseCraft to illustrate the Zohar.

 

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Responding to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (Cary Nelson)

Posted on September 23, 2014 by zjb

PACBI

I’m tired of writing about BDS, but some of you might be interested in the following, which I’m posting without too much comment. Arguments in favor of BDS are often couched in solidarity with Palestinian civil society. What then does one sign on to when one signs onto calls to boycott Israeli universities? Here recently updated guidelines established by the  Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, which you can read here. I’m also posting a critical response by Cary Nelson, which you can read here. Nelson’s argument in a nutshell is that the updated guidelines are maximalist, going well beyond previous guidelines in the injury caused not just to Israeli academe as an institution, but to individual students, scholars and scholarship both in Israel and here in the United States. My own quick comment would be that, at some point, scholars with no definite stake in this political game are going to have to weigh in regarding the moral and professional stakes raised on them by the BDS community.

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Little White Church Vernacular Architecture (Manlius Center, New York)

Posted on September 23, 2014 by zjb

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Scouring the internet finds zero information about Manlius Point, New York. East of Syracuse and north of the towns of Fayetteville and Manlius, the diminutive Manlius Point was a way station on the Erie Canal. There’s not much left, except this charming white church, which is still in use. On the outside, the decorative elements have been, it seems, lovingly preserved. I like the ordinary character of this kind of country, vernacular architecture. There are a lot of neat little things like this in Central New York. If someone can tell me anything specific about the style or the decorative work, or about the history of this church, I’ll add it gladly to this post.

 

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