MK David Rotem

New regulations from the Chief Rabbinate have non-Orthodox Israelis in a tizzy. According to the rules, anyone can have their Jewishness called into question at any time. But legislators in the Knesset aren’t taken the changes lying down with MK David Rotem vowing to fight.

The new rules appear to be part of an ever-tightening noose around the conversion status of Russian immigrants to Israel who the rabbinic establishment fears may not be Jewish according to a strict interpretation of Jewish Law. But they also apply to immigrants from any country – including the two hundred thousand or so Anglos in Israel.

The issue was brought to the forefront a few years back when a rabbinic judge retroactively annulled an immigrant’s conversion status because she told the court, while seeking a divorce, that she did not observe Shabbat or family purity laws.

The controversial ruling was then applied to thousands of other conversions that were considered to have been conducted improperly, in part because the converts were not living ultra-Orthodox lifestyles.

The new regulations announced in the last month require city rabbis and marriage registrars to send every convert and (this is new) every person whose parents were married abroad to the court for a determination of whether or not she or he’s a Jew.

While the main targets of the ruling are converts, the implications for Anglo immigrants are nevertheless astounding. Even though my wife Jody and I were both born Jewish, we were married in the U.S. And not by a rabbi who is on the official list of Diaspora rabbis recognized by the Chief Rabbinate. Accordingly, our children – if they decide to get married in Israel – will have to prove their own Jewishness in a court of law. And, astonishingly, they will have to pay for their own hearing.

Rivkah Lubitch, a rabbinic “pleader” who works for the Center for Women’s Justice in Jerusalem, wrote in Ynet that even if you present a marriage certificate of a “first degree relative on their mother’s side” (for example, your sister) “who had in the past received a judgment of the rabbinic court that she is a Jew,” the Marriage Registrar can still send you back to court, and if it determines “that you’re not a Jew, your sister’s Jewishness can be retroactively revoked.

Lubitch claims that a rabbinic court can summon anyone, at any time, even if that person didn’t register for marriage, and conduct a hearing about their Jewishness “and revoke it if they so will.

This is born out in a letter accompanying the directive that states that marriage registrars are “permitted” to refer even those who meet the noted conditions to such an inquiry.

I had always thought that Israel was compelled to register any marriage conducted abroad, regardless of who performed it. Does this new ruling provide a loophole to get around what has been the status quo since the establishment of the state?

My kids have plenty to be worried about. I’ve been an outspoken critic of certain aspects of religious life and one of my websites, SiddurWiki, presents some decidedly non-Orthodox positions. Combine that with the fact that we were married by a halachically-observant but officially – gasp – Reform rabbi in the U.S., and there are some big question marks hanging over my children’s futures.

To be cynical (like I haven’t been already), this all seems like a ploy to increase the staffing levels at the Chief Rabbi’s office, providing more jobs to cronies at the taxpayer’s expense, although as I wrote earlier, the financial burden of the inquiries will be borne by the person being investigated. Talk about chutzpah!

Ultimately, this new ruling, if it’s not overturned, will serve as further fodder to the increasingly strident attacks against the official rabbinic establishment – just see the passions ignited by Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai’s recent comments.

When I shared this article with my teenage daughter, she couldn’t understand what the Rabbinate was trying to achieve. Neither can I, other than to create a blatant wedge between Israeli and Diaspora Jewry.

The ruling has plenty of detractors, including Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky, the American Jewish Committee’s Dr. Ed Rettig who called it “a power grab of breathtaking scale,” and Anat Hoffman, head of the Israel Religious Action Center who has demanded that Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein cancel the new procedures “on the grounds that they were not issued by the justice minister and approved by the Knesset Law Committee, as the law demands on matters of marriage and divorce,” the Jerusalem Post reports.

David Rotem, an Orthodox member of the Knesset from the Israel Beitenu party and chairman of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, has also joined the opposition, saying he’s ready to go all the way to the Supreme Court to fight the politicization of “our beautiful halacha.” Adds Rotem, “These scandalous guidelines manifest the attempt to oversee every aspect of everything that happens in the country.” Ironically, Rotem is behind a bill that would change the way conversions are recognized that has also been derided by non-Orthodox critics as being overly stringent.

Maybe this new ruling can serve as a wake up call. One of the main reasons we chose to live in the revitalized Jewish state was to be able to have a say over our own destiny. When you don’t like something, you can take action – demonstrate, vote, write letters to your parliamentary representatives. That’s both a challenge and an opportunity. I for one welcome the coming battle.

This article appeared on the Israelity blog last week.

Map to the festival. Take the green route

Run, no sprint to the Light in Jerusalem festival, which is closing tonight – in just a few hours! – after a successful seven day run. The event consists of tens of creative, playful and often awe inspiring light installations from internationally renowned “light artists,” displayed and often tightly integrated into the fabric of Jerusalem Old City – walls, windows sometimes entire sides of synagogues.

Last year, some 250,000 visitors from all over Israel attended, as did our family. While there were small klatches of overseas tourists, most of the participants wandering the Old City this week seemed to be part of large boisterous tour guide-led groups of Hebrew-speakers for whom, by the looks on their faces, this was their first time in the Old City perhaps since childhood.

Indeed, the winding alleyways of the Old City seemed even more packed than last year. Particularly in the Jewish Quarter, you often had to queue up just to pass through a particularly narrow arch.

We got a tip from a friend on Facebook – thanks Arlene! – which I want to pass on to you here. Avoid the crowds and take the green route which starts Kikar Zahal (the intersection of the Old City and Jaffa Street) and meanders into East Jerusalem. There are far fewer visitors and the installations are truly fabulous.

Two in particular stood out. In “What do trees do at night?” by artist Joseph Meir Jimmy, a large oak tree set against the Old City walls comes to life via clever projections of images, animation and an accompanying soundtrack. The tree, with wonderfully expressive cartoon eyes, was beset upon by birds, children and scorpions, while transitioning through rain and snow. When the lights went off, it was hard to believe we were looking at just a plain tree and a wall.

Zedekiah’s Cave (Solomon’s Quarry) is an enormous underground cavern, where rocks were mined to build the First Temple. For the festival, it was turned into a aquarium-like environment created by Eran Klein and Eli Kochavi. Phosphorescent blue lights lit the way through the cave towards a light installation simulating fish swimming through water while soothing new age music played. It was truly magical.

What was particularly unique was the fact that many of the light shows were built specifically for the locations. The images projected on Damascus Gate, for example, used the shapes and turrets of the gate to weave its tale. It wouldn’t have worked anywhere else.

There’s lots more to see – tall illuminated rods depciting green grass at Jaffa Gate; a history of the Old City projected onto the newly reconstructed Hurva Synagogue.

The festival runs tonight from sunset until midnight. There’s inexpensive parking in the City Hall (Kikar Safra) parking lot (that’s the closest to the green route). as well as the Mamilla and Karta lots with free buses from the farther flung Ammunition Hill and Old Train Station parking locations. Or take the bus. Just don’t miss it.  More information from the festival’s website.

This review of the show appeared earlier in the day on the Israelity website.

Lee Vatkin, z'l

The text message came in early Tuesday morning: “There are no words to express our thoughts and feelings at this time. Our darling daughter Lee Gabriella’s funeral will be at 11:15 PM tonight.”

By this time, of course, we already knew – half of Anglo Jerusalem did, whether by email, phone calls, or Facebook status updates. Our friend Fiona Kantor’s 16-year-old daughter, Lee Vatkin, along with her 21-year-old boyfriend, had died of a drug overdose some hours before.

The late hour of her burial – funerals usually take place the same day as the death in Israel – was to allow an autopsy which according to news reports, indicated the two had taken methadone that was either “dirty” or possibly laced (intentionally or accidentally – it’s not sure) with poison.

The world of English-speaking liberal/religious southern Jerusalem consists of multiple overlapping circles. Lee’s mother, Fiona, is at the center of many of them – a go-getter who had, among many activities in a vivacious career, organized Anglo support for Nir Barkat’s mayoral campaign (she was persuasive enough to get me to volunteer).

I didn’t know Lee, but our daughter Merav, also 16, did – she had gone to elementary school with her and even attended Lee’s bat mitzvah – although they had fallen out of touch since then. The Israeli tabloid Yediot Ahronot – which devoted a full two-page spread to the tragedy (unfortunately intended less to report than titillate and spur sales) – provided some additional details into Lee’s life.

Lee was a smart and talented kid: she had attended the prestigious L’yada high school in Jerusalem but later moved to the Ankori school which specializes in preparing young people for their matriculation exams. She also began hanging out in a tough neighborhood near Zion Square downtown that attracts teens and young adults who don’t fit into “the system.”

The story in Yediot focused on the “great love” between Lee and her Russian-born boyfriend, an only child from a troubled background who was being raised by his father and grandmother (his mother stayed back in Russia). The boyfriend, apparently, had an extensive criminal record.

While Lee’s family rightly refused to be interviewed for the article, Yediot nevertheless provided scandalous details about how the couple had been found lying together on a mattress in the apartment they shared in Jerusalem’s Nachlaot neighborhood. The paramedics pronounced them dead on the spot.

If you go looking for Lee’s Facebook profile, you won’t find it – it was taken down after her death (by who – how does that work?) In its place is a memorial page with just under 700 members as of this writing.

Hundreds of people attended the funeral despite the late hour. The combined communities couldn’t have been more diverse. There were Lee’s modern religious parents and their friends, mixed with Lee’s hevrah of the downtown distraught, many pierced in multiple places, some with hair dyed in surreal shades of phosphorescent purple and orange.

I have been to many funerals in this Jerusalem hall, but I had never seen crying like this. When Fiona, Lee’s mother, spoke, in a shudderingly broken voice, she hinted that she knew something was coming – that she “was losing her daughter.” She just didn’t know it would be this, she said.

It’s been several days now,  but I’m still shaking – every parent was, thinking about their own beloved teenagers and what dangers might yet be lurking. What causes a good girl from a family living in a “quality” neighborhood (as the Yediot article intoned) to drop so far down?

None of us at the funeral knew. But maybe that wasn’t the point. Fiona articulated it best in the final words of her eulogy. “Hold onto your kids,” she said. “They’re the most precious thing you have.”

Hold on. Hold on tight.

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This story appeared earlier this week on the Israelity blog.

Can a hookworm make you healthy? Jasper Lawrence seems to think so. And now his special therapeutic worm treatment is available for shipment to Israel.

I first heard about Lawrence and his worms when they were featured on an episode of WNYC’s Radio Lab (which was rebroadcast last week on This American Life – one of the most popular podcasts available on iTunes). Lawrence had been suffering from asthma and allergies that were so debilitating that he could barely step outside.

Lawrence began to study his condition and discovered some fascinating research going on about parasites. We’ve all been taught that worms in the gut is a bad thing, leading to a whole range of illnesses, some quite serious (ask anyone who’s picked up a nasty bug in India).

But some worms may actually be good for us. A particular type, called helminths (specifically hookworms and whipworms), apparently calms down inflammation rather than induces it. Joel Weinstock, a gastroenterologist in Iowa, did much of the pioneering research in the early 1990s.

The story gets kind of yucky from here. Lawrence traveled to Africa and began stomping around barefoot in public latrines. Eventually he picked up the worm he wanted and, lo and behold, he was cured of his allergies.

Dr. Weinstock’s work was originally conducted to understand why instances of IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) have increased so rapidly in the last century. His conclusion, according to The New York Times:

“After a long co-evolution, the human immune system came to depend on the worms for proper functioning. When cleaner conditions and new medicines evicted the worms from our bodies, the immune system went out of kilter.”

As someone who suffers from the IBD condition of Crohn’s Disease, I know that the traditional treatments of steroids and surgery are highly intrusive and don’t work all that well. Weinstock says he has seen remarkable remission rates with worm “re-infestation.”

So where does Israel fit into the picture (other than the fact that Jews tend to be more prone to inflammatory bowel diseases)?

After allergy suffering Jasper Lawrence’s remarkable turn-around, he set up a company to harvest and sell worms to fellow sufferers. The U.S. FDA promptly shut him down and out of the North American market. But, as Lawrence wrote to me in a personal email, you can get his therapeutic worms here in Israel.

Helminth worm treatment reportedly works with other auto-immune ailments beyond IBD including celiac disease, psoriasis and MLS. There’s one big downside: treatment from Lawrence’s company starts at about $3,000. And you have to keep re-infesting yourself – it’s not a one time hit. And – no, don’t even ask – it’s definitely not covered by the local kuppot (Israeli HMOs).

My Crohn’s is mostly quiet these days. But if it heated up again and I were facing down another round of prednisone and pain, I’d seriously consider swallowing a cocktail of worm eggs.

More information at Lawrence’s website: http://autoimmunetherapies.com

I originally wrote about therapeutic worms for the Israelity blog.

The Simpsons came to Israel last week. Not the actors themselves or large foam rubber versions of the popular yellow characters dancing on ice; rather the show itself, which after over 20 years as the longest running sitcom on television, finally had an Israel-themed episode. I enjoyed most of it but there was an ongoing theme that got under my skin.

In the episode, entitled ‘The Greatest Story Ever Dohed,” Ned Flanders is down to his last straw in terms of helping Homer see the light and become a good Christian. He offers the Simpson family a trip to the Holy Land.

The episode was typical Simpsons, which is to say, mostly amusing and not too deep. There were no serious jabs at the political situation and only a few mild caricatures of Israelis (the writers clearly didn’t want to make many waves).

Sacha Baron Cohen, of Borat, Bruno and Ali G. fame, voiced the part of Jacob, the abrupt Israeli tour guide who kept telling his flock to “shut your face.” While a bit over the top, who hasn’t met a gruff Israeli like that at some point during an extended visit to Israel? Maybe not on the tour circuit but perhaps at a government office?

There was also Yossi’s pint-sized cousin Dorit (voiced by singer Yael Naim) who employed the Israeli martial art of krav maga to subdue Bart – again, a little stereotyped but nothing to get up about.

So what irked me? The portrayal of Israel as a kind of Middle Eastern version of Fiddler on the Roof. There was the matza ball truck, followed by the Chosen People moving van (set to a klezmer music background), and the tour group stayed at the Wailing Waldorf (with, yes, a fiddler cleaning the gutters). Many of the Israelis depicted wore tallitot around their necks and black hats on their heads.

In a nod to “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan,” Homer marveled over local soft drinks with Eastern European names like “Lemon Lime Oy” and “Diet Briskit” (although the “Chickpea Fizz” was at least relevant to the local milieu).

Perhaps the funniest bit of the show is when Homer tries to order falafel over the phone “with pepperoni, sausage and extra cheese.” After a pause, he responds, “yes, I know what a falafel is.” I also chuckled when Krusty the Clown patronized the “Gaza Strip Club.”

Of course I exaggerate. I’m glad, after 20 years, the Simpson took the opportunity to make fun of our eminently parody-able state. Homer even tried to make peace. While suffering from Jerusalem Syndrome and proclaiming himself the messiah, he ascended the Temple Mount and declared that one thing Jews, Muslims and Christians have in common is an abiding love for chicken.

Too bad most of the real players in the region seem to be devout vegetarians.

I first shared my frustrations on the Israelity blog.

Beit Avi Chai has launched a fascinating new lecture series at its Jerusalem headquarters. The program is called “Fact and Fiction: Diversity Within” and features documentary films followed by one-on-one discussions between the film director and Amy Kronish, a long-time movie maestro and critic who’s put together the series.

Monday night was the opening session and it featured “The Name My Mother Gave Me,” a tearjerker of the Zionist kind. A group of Jewish Ethiopian and Russian pre-army teenagers undertake an emotional journey to Addis Ababa and Gondar to explore the Jewish roots of the most recent immigrants to Israel.

In the course of the trip, the Ethiopians visit villages they haven’t seen in a dozen or so years and the Russians gain an appreciation for the Ethiopians’ Jewish history. “Don’t let anyone tell you there were no Jews here” in Ethiopia, one of the Russian teens declares. By the end of the film, these two groups – who were once was at each other’s throats – became a single bonded unit.

The most emotional moments of the film were when the group visits an abandoned synagogue in a remote village that still has Hebrew prayer books, and the meeting of one of the Ethiopians with his mother who he’s been separated from for 14 years. The moment is heartbreaking, however, as the mother shows little interest in her son who has come so far for such a bittersweet reunion.

The film’s director Eli Tal-El described afterward how difficult it was to make the film. Israel Television said they’d pay him for his footage, but only to use it as part of a muckraking documentary on the sorry state of Ethiopian immigration in Israel. Tal-El refused. It subsequently took him some five years to finish the work and only then when Beit Avi Chai stepped in at the last moment with some long overdue funding.

“The Name My Mother Gave Me” has played at film festivals around the world. A trailer is streaming online; you can also purchase the movie at the same site for $29.90.

Future sessions of the film series will look at Israeli development towns, ultra Orthodox women entering the workforce and the “secret” of Russian aliyah success. More information at www.bac.org.il.

This post was originally published on the Israelity website.

I’ve written in the past both about eBooks and sex, two of my favorite subjects. My stated position on eBooks is that they will supplant printed books entirely within 20 years, probably less; newspapers and magazines will be entirely digital as early as 5 years from now. My recent article on sex explored how premarital relations can fit into an Orthodox Jewish perspective.

eBooks and sex came together this past weekend over a Shabbat meal when I was asked to explain my contention that Jewish law will ultimately bend to allow digital readers to be used on Shabbat and holidays.

A quick recap of my post from last year: what happens, I asked, when most reading goes electronic and it will no longer be possible to buy a printed newspaper or the latest paperback to read on Saturday afternoon when turning on an off electricity is forbidden by halacha?

While there will still be printed material for the more ultra-Orthodox community, it will comprise religious texts and newspapers. The more modern community will be left without a print option for Haaretz…or The New York Times.

The subject is particularly relevant this week as Apple is strongly rumored to be releasing its long-awaited and much drooled for tablet computer on Thursday. The “iSlate” (or whatever it will ultimately be called) could, if not entirely ushering in a new era in digital reading, at least give it a serious kick in the pants.

To wit: at this month’s Consumer Electronic Show, there was, for the first time, an entire pavilion just for e-Readers. Devices that have already been announced include the Plastic Logic Que, the EnTourage eDGe (yes I capitalized that correctly), two devices from Samsung, the Booken CyBook Orizon, the iRiver Story, and Hearst’s Skiff which is focused entirely on newspapers, including dynamically targeted ads. And all that that doesn’t include already shipping products like the industry-leading Amazon Kindle, the Sony E-Reader, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

It seems we may have already reached the tipping point.

Now, when it comes to using e-Readers on Shabbat, there are a number of options. Certainly we could see the Tzomet Institute, which has already created weekend-friendly telephones and other devices that can be used on Shabbat, applying its know-how to e-Readers. But with the plethora of non-observant choices in the digital reader market, religious consumers may be reluctant to forego their iSlate for a frumSlate.

In my previous article, I suggested that another approach might be to re-think the entire concept of why electricity was forbidden on Shabbat and holidays in the first place. There is at least one rabbinic authority who ruled that there was no prohibition against turning on a light if it doesn’t heat a metal filament until it glows (I go into much greater detail in the article, including why that same rabbi said that electricity should nevertheless be avoided otherwise “the masses (may) err and turn on incandescent lights on Shabbat”).

Now, here’s where eBooks tie in with sex. Dr. Jennie Rosenfeld wrote her doctorate on sexuality in the Orthodox Jewish world. Speaking in October in Jerusalem, Rosenfeld – while not condoning sex outside of marriage – suggested that there may be paths towards leniency in times of need (for which religious singles, who now often remain unmarried until well into their 30s, may qualify).

Taboos against relations (from touching to intercourse) are dropping, in practice if not in published responsa. I posit that the same thing will happen with e-Readers. When faced with a choice between a page of gemara and the next Dan Brown bestseller (OK, maybe that should be prohibited on Shabbat), many religious Jews will opt for the latter.

The main question may turn out to be: will it be clandestine or public? Will the observant community come out of the closet and bring their Kindles to shul? Will the rabbi, instead of saying, “please turn to page 152,” instruct congregants to “enter 152 and click ‘go?’” Will the e-Reader bark commands as you scroll (“stand here, now bow, take three steps backward!”)

Or will the march of e-Reading technology simply serve to widen the gap between those who observe halacha to the letter of the law and the more flexible modern masses? Already young people from non-haredi streams are fleeing observance with increasing rapidity. Can Jewish practice change to keep up with the times? Will this time be different than the schisms that in the last century pushed apart Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and all the rest?

Or put another way: will the quest for a faster, smaller hard drive generate the same attraction as an insatiable sex drive? Stay tuned…

My friend Cliff called this week to say he was getting rid of an old air conditioning unit and would I want to take it off his hands…at no charge? Cliff knew that I had spent much of the summer sweltering in my top floor home office.

I have an air conditioner already but, at only ¾ horsepower, it’s woefully underpowered and on a hot day, I can’t get the room temperature to less than 28 degrees Celsius (that’s over 80 Fahrenheit) – not a particularly conducive environment in which to work.

My predisposition for a bargain however was tempered by a counter thought: was this kosher? I don’t mean whether the assembly of the air conditioner was supervised by Chabad. Rather, would adding another air conditioner into the world mesh with Jewish law?

Now, of course, there’s nothing in the Torah or Talmud that forbids keeping comfortably cool, but what’s the point of scrupulously keeping the minutia of halacha if doesn’t promote concern for the planet and ultimately the welfare and continued survival of the people who live in it (including the ones keeping all that Jewish law)? After all, on Yom Kippur you first have to make peace with your fellow men and women before anything supernatural can kick in.

It turns out that Jews have been thinking about the environment for awhile. In the late 1970s. Rav Zalman Schachter-Shalomi coined the term “eco-kosher.” His point was that it’s not enough to make sure the meat you’re eating is slaughtered according to Jewish law; the animal has to be treated humanely, the environment must not be harmed, and the workers who toil in the kashrut factories cannot be exploited either.

This has been a hot topic in recent years with the revelations of scandalous conditions at Agriprocessors, the leading kosher meat producer in the U.S., involving a variety of issues including health, safety, the environment and animal welfare.

It’s only logical to extend the concept of eco-kosher to the environment as a whole. Rav Zalman noted that while a Styrofoam cup might be useful to someone keeping kosher, it would not be a good choice for someone concerned with the environment. A more hi-tech example would be whether it’s politically correct to buy printed books and newspapers that deplete the rain forests when electronic versions are growing in popularity (run out and get a Kindle).

In this light, whether to accept Cliff’s air conditioner was no longer just a personal choice; it had become a metaphor for how to conduct one’s life ethically and socially as a traditional Jew. One must ask: is the air conditioner “green” enough (in Cliff’s case, since it was a very old unit, probably not)? Are there other alternatives? Would a strong fan be sufficient?

This need is even more pronounced in Israel where we can, as a sovereign nation, make a real difference, if not on a planetary level then at least in our little corner of the Middle East.

There are a number of Jewish groups already active in this area. These include the New York-based Hazon organization and its Jewish Climate Change campaign. Another – called The Green Prophet is an “environment news site reporting on the Middle East, Israel and the Arab world.” It recently co-sponsored a 2-day workshop in Madaba Jordan called “Blogging for the Environment” with the aim to “bring 15 prominent journalists and bloggers in Arabic, Hebrew and English to meet and brainstorm new ways to report on and instigate environmental change in areas of activism, design, urban health, religion, and clean technologies.”

Michael Kagan’s “Jewish Climate Initiative” strives to ground a Jewish approach to the environment in classic texts, bringing Hilkhot Shekhenim as a source addressing the key issue of pollution as it influences climate change.

That text, writes Initiative staff member Rabbi Julian Sinclair, explores “the diverse ways in which neighbors damage one another through their domestic and economic activities and the redress that is available in each case.” And while “the rabbis did not imagine our situation in which coal-fired power stations in Michigan may contribute to drought in Mali,” today we clearly are causing damage to “neighbors” whom we will never meet.

Kagan told me in an email that one way to make the issue of climate change more accessible is to “forget greenhouse gas emissions” and rather look at “the terrible state of the oceans…of food production, health…air (and) water purity.” There is no doubt,” he adds, “that these are all human made devastations upon the well-being of the planet. Let’s clear up this mess, then global warming will fall in place.”

Philadelphia-based Rabbi Arthur Waskow suggests that even the message of the recent holiday of Hanukah, where a single day’s supply of oil lasted for eight days, can serve as a trigger to focus our attention “on energy conservation and breaking our dependence on fossil fuel,” After all, if the Macabees could milk the most out of a limited amount of fuel, modern society should be able to invent vastly more powerful technology.

In light of these various approaches to the intent of Jewish law, I am perplexed by the phenomena of climate change deniers, particularly the Jewish ones. Jonathan Rosenblum, writing in a recent issue of the Jerusalem Post, pulls out all the stops in trying to discredit the global warming community as secular “high priests” who lay claim “to certainty based on human intelligence,” relying on unproven hypotheses regarding “imminent catastrophe.”

Rosenblum cites the recently released hacked emails to and from researchers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit as proof that there is no scientific consensus and that the agenda is being driven by “tremendous financial incentives for the alarmists to keep ratcheting up their hysterics.”

There’s no question that those emails paint a not-so-straightforward picture. But Rosenblum uses the controversy to bolster his underlying thrust that when humankind claims to know more than God, nothing positive can come from it.

An opposing religious perspective comes from my colleague Tzemach Yoreh, author of the Religious Atheist website, who writes that prayer may serve a model for engaging Jewish tradition in the service of the greater good.

“The common denominator uniting much of our prayer,” he says, “is that much of what we speak of is beyond our power as individuals, and that it can only be accomplished through a concerted communal effort. By praying, we validate those communal aspirations and give ourselves strength to continue.”

I’m not saying that we all need to start praying. But the value of prayer and its role over the past two millennium in the history of the Jewish people may give us an authentically Jewish starting point from which to galvanize our efforts.

The time to act is now. In a recent interview on the NPR program On the Media. George Monbiot, a columnist for the British newspaper The Guardian, pointed to opinion polls that show only 57% of U.S. citizens believe that climate change is man-made. The numbers in the U.K. are even lower at 41%. And they’re dropping fast.

Monibot compares this response to looming environmental disaster to what happens when a doctor tells someone that they have cancer. The patient initially sinks into denial. If that’s the case with the climate change challengers, what will happen when the prognosis turns terminal?

I’m certainly no expert, but from what I’ve read, the overall science remains pretty conclusive. And so, when it comes to that air conditioner, I’m saying no. It’s a small step for sure, but it hopefully won’t be the last as my own social consciousness grows. And a billion small steps can add up quickly.

The Jewish people has a critical opportunity…no, a responsibility to lead the charge against the deniers and to do its part to help save the world. In this way, we may be able re-frame for modern times our historical role as a light unto the nations. The planet is counting on us.

A shorter version of this article appeared on the Israelity blog.

With negotiations heating up over the release of Gilad Shalit in exchange for up to 1,000 hardened Palestinian prisoners, debate on the merits of the deal have been all over the news for days, as well as in discussions within our own family.

Two recent events have made it particularly personal.

The crux of the issue is, of course, over whether it is incumbent on the Jewish state to strive tirelessly to save any captive taken in war – a promise that the army makes to its soldiers and to which that the Shalit family has been campaigning these past three years – or whether the greater good outweighs the needs of the individual where, in this case, releasing prisoners may potentially lead to the death of tens if not hundreds of Israelis if those Palestinians return to terrorist activities.

This heartbreaking question represents a classic moral dilemma and one that was vividly portrayed on the TV series MASH. In the show, a group of South Korean refugees is hiding in a bus in the vicinity of enemy soldiers. In that group, a mother holds a crying baby. It is clear that if the baby does not stop bawling, the enemy will hear. The hide out will be exposed and all the refugees will be killed.

Does the mother smother her baby in order to save the others?

When this question is put out to test groups, about 50% of the respondents say they would kill the baby to save the group. But when the question is phrased differently – would you kill your own baby? – the number of yes’s drops precipitously. (In the MASH episode, the mother does kill her baby.)

The argument for not killing the baby is that you don’t know absolutely for certain that the enemy soldiers will find you. Perhaps a bomb will explode outside the hiding place and the soldiers will all die or flee. Calculating the odds is a zero-sum game that no parent, or any human being for that matter, should ever have to play.

The same is true for Gilad Shalit. We don’t know that the terrorists released will 100% for sure return to terrorism that will lead to more deaths. We do know, however, that if a deal is cut, Gilad Shalit will be set free. Is it worth it?

Danny Gordis, writing in The New York Times last week, says that releasing Shalit “makes no strategic sense.” But, he goes on, “with the conflict likely to persist, and with our sons and daughters asked to make extraordinary sacrifices to keep us safe, they need to know that we are no less devoted to them than they are to us.”

Now here’s where it gets personal.

Last week, our son Amir joined the army. He is now in the position to be kidnapped as a soldier, just like Gilad Shalit. Were we in Shalit’s parents’ shoes, wouldn’t we act in exactly the same way, doing anything to free our child?

On the flip side, among the terrorists slated to be freed is the mastermind behind the bombing of the cafeteria at Hebrew University in 2002 where our cousin Marla was killed. What kind of justice is there when the murderers of young 22-year-old Jewish studies student can now walk around free and plot similar atrocities? What will stop such a terrorist from killing again?

These are not easy decisions. They are ones that we wish we as a nation didn’t have to make. I’m not going to attempt here to take a stand. There are plenty of other pundits who have articulated the positions better and more vociferously than I could on the relatively small stage of this blog.

Ultimately, it is up to our elected officials to make the call. And they seem intent on cutting a deal. Right or wrong, that’s the nature of democracy and it’s the backbone behind our return to this land. Without it, we might have no Gilad Shalits. But we would also have no country. And that’s a calculation I can live with.

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This article appeared last week on the Israelity blog.

The annual Jerusalem International Oud Festival has become the leading event of its kind on the ethnic music calendar. Now in its tenth year, the festival, which kicks off tonight, lasts for 16 days and includes shows in both Jerusalem and Nazareth. But those of us fortunate to have attended last week’s “Boogie Nights” dance party got a special sneak preview.

Boogie is a Jerusalem institution. A twice-monthly feel good free movement extravaganza, Boogie is a place where you don’t have to worry about your dance steps or partner. You just flail your arms around, hop up and down and twirl to the beat which emphasizes energetic world music rather than the disco or trance found at more traditional clubs and bars.

This edition of Boogie featured an hour-long oud performance in a separate room. The tight group of three performed on guitar, darbuka and a strange breathy sounding flute. The crowd lounged on yoga mats arranged haphazardly across the floor. Many clutched cups of Chai tea, a popular Boogie beverage, in keeping with its international flavor.

The oud is a strange-sounding (to Western ears) kind of Middle Eastern lute. It owes its origins to the Arab world but there are now practitioners from Turkey, Spain, India, and Greece.

To mix it up even more, tonight’s opening of the official festival features veteran Israeli rockers Nikmat HaTraktor (The Tractor’s Revenge) performing versions of Jewish piyutim (medieval poetry) written by the Spanish poet and rabbi Yehuda Moshe Ibn Ezra, regarded as one of the literary giants of the golden age of Spain. And yes, they’ll be playing an oud.

Other concerts in the festival, according to the Ministry of Tourism, include:

– “Sounds from Syria,” a tribute to Sabah Fakhri, performed by the Tarshiha Orchestra for Arabic Music.

– “This Was What He Originally Intended” – piyutim of Hebrew poet Rabbi Israel Najara.

– “Debka Fantasy,” an Israeli musical exploring the early days of Jewish settlement blending Eastern and Western music.

– “Ad Adei Ad,” a work composed specially for the festival based upon texts from the Kabbalistic Sefer ha-Yetzira.

As for the funky rhyming name of the Boogie special evening – “Oud v’Rikoud” – the latter is Hebrew for “dance.”

Hmm…I wonder what they’ll call the next Boogie in two weeks? That one features another eclectic special event: an African drumming workshop and performance. Hakuna Mata-boogie? I’ll most certainly be there and let you know.