"It hurts our families just like it hurts the Jews. It causes a lot of difficult problems and internal conflicts which often end in violence…If there are children as a result of these relationships, it becomes a burden on our society. The difference is that we oppose this just like the Jews, but we never used racist expressions…a person is allowed to live with whomever he wants. In any case, one can oppose something without presenting racist opinions."

Classic case of bad spin? The Jews and Bedouins actually seem to agree on the issue, but somehow the Jews haven’t been able to present their case in inoffensive terms. Here’s an idea: Teach girls about unhealthy relationships in general, and offer them good skills for dealing with men and dating, instead of just saying, “don’t date Bedouins.” Need I remind people that not all Bedouins seduce girls and then leave them alone and pregnant? Learn more about Bedouins in Israel here. 

This awesome article first appeared on July 1, 2008 and has been republished as part of the series JEWCYEST WEEK EVER.

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The baby’s mother was five months pregnant when tests showed that there was intrauterine bleeding, and that her fetus had no pulse. Doctors then initiated what’s being called a “second trimester termination procedure” the baby was delivered and pronounced dead. The baby was then sent to a cryogenics lab where she was put in a refrigerator, and five hours later, when the baby’s father asked to see it, doctors found that the baby showed signs of spontaneously breathing. She was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit, but unfortunately she wasn’t able to survive for even 24 hours. Presumably this time, when doctors pronounced the baby dead they checked a little more thoroughly.

Here in America, pro-lifers are being forced to make a tough decision in the upcoming Presidential election, and pparently neither candidate has convinced hardliners that he’s the best choice.

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(Cross-posted on The Jew and the Carrot)

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There are plenty of cases of severe neglect reported in America every year (this story comes to mind), but in Israel it seems to be a symptom of the political situation. Israelis walk around all day trying to distract themselves from their own suffering and trauma. It seems to me that as a result of having to push their own personal grief below the surface, they also end up ignoring all kinds of suffering that they see around them, be it the suffering of Palestinians, Holocaust survivors, or even their own children. To a certain degree, we all push those thoughts aside in order to get through the day, but we try to maintain a sense of compassion. In Israel, because it’s nearly impossible to really ignore the suffering, society has developed a sort of flat affect. Neglect happens and everyone acts shocked but quickly moves on, not wanting to dwell on any more pain. There’s something about the Israeli machismo that appealing, and that makes me proud to be Jewish. But there’s something ugly under that machismo — a gaping hole where I’d expect to see compassion, and it’s horrifying.

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But Tisha B’Av shouldn’t just be a commemoration of events that happened hundreds of years ago. Contemporary Jews have experienced plenty of major traumas, events that rocked the Jewish community, and changed the way we practice Judaism. Most recently, the raid on the AgriProcessors plant in Iowa, though certainly not as spiritually damaging as the destructions of the Temple, has had serious reverberations around the Jewish world. It has affected what we buy and serve and eat, and how we think about our treatment of our colleagues and those who work around us. It has changed our relationships with the world, both humiliating us — as the poor behavior of our brethren is exposed to the world — and forcing us to shape up and raise the standards we have for ourselves and those we support. Ancient Jews brought sacrifices to the Temple: animals killed in the name of God. But the sacrifices were not enough. Prophets warned us that our behavior was as important as the sacrifices, and when we didn’t learn, the opportunity to bring sacrifices was taken away. Here we are, more than a thousand years on, and somehow we’ve fixated on kosher meat, and not on our own behavior. Maybe this experience, as difficult and upsetting as it is, will serve to remind us about what’s really important, and will reconfigure our priorities.

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The term eruv refers to the act of mixing or combining, and is shorthand for eruv hazerot–the mixing of domains, in this case, the private (rashut hayahid) and the public (rashut harabim). An eruv does not allow for carrying items otherwise prohibited by Jewish law on Shabbat, such as money or cell phones. Having an eruv does not mean that a city or neighborhood is enclosed entirely by a wall. Rather, the eruv can be comprised of a series of pre-existing structures (walls, fences, electrical poles and wires) and/or structures created expressly for the eruv, often a wire mounted on poles. In practice, then, the eruv is a symbolic demarcation of the private sphere, one that communities come together to create.

It sounds strange, but not hugely problematic, right? Wrong. Over the years, there have been a number of political controversies centered around the construction of eruvs (or, more accurately, eruvin). Major and minor disputes over eruvin have unfolded in New Jersey, London, Chicago, Washington Heights, and Venice Beach. Meanwhile, even within the observant communities, there are those who don’t believe that eruvin are legitimate ways of getting around the prohibition of carrying. Chabad, for instance, doesn’t generally hold by any eruv. For those who know about and use an eruv, the idea of it being controversial is absurd. In some cases, it can be as noninvasive as already existing train tracks, or highway barriers. At its most invasive, an eruv is a wire, or a piece of string. There is no holy gravitational pull inside an eruv, no religious force field, no magical powers. An eruv is literally a loophole, a way that the rabbis devised to get around the prohibition against carrying on Shabbat. The only way a non-Jew or non-observant Jew would be affected by the construction of an eruv is if the eruv caused a glut of observant Jews to move to the neighborhood. While one may have objections to living in a neighborhood full of frummies, it’s hard to cast those objections as anything but anti-Semitism. The world has no shortage of genuine religious controversies. Why waste time on something as relatively petty as an eruv?

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Conservative groups, abortion opponents and some members of Congress are welcoming the initiative as necessary to safeguard doctors, nurses and other health workers who, they say, are increasingly facing discrimination because of their beliefs or are being coerced into delivering services they find repugnant. But the draft proposal has sparked intense criticism by family planning advocates, women's health activists, and members of Congress who say the regulation would create overwhelming obstacles for women seeking abortions and birth control. There is also deep concern that the rule could have far-reaching, but less obvious, implications. Because of its wide scope and because it would — apparently for the first time — define abortion in a federal regulation as anything that affects a fertilized egg, the regulation could raise questions about a broad spectrum of scientific research and care, critics say. "The breadth of this is potentially immense," said Robyn S. Shapiro, a bioethicist and lawyer at the Medical College of Wisconsin. "Is this going to result in a kind of blessed censorship of a whole host of areas of medical care and research?"

Apparently there are numerous reports of health care workers having to violate their conscience “by providing or assisting in the provision of controversial medicine or procedures,” and the Department of Health and Human Services wants to ensure that there isn’t discrimination against those with strong religious convictions in the health care profession.

Is it me, or is the answer to this problem just that Conservative Christians shouldn’t go into gynecology? Or, if they do, they need to make it clear to their patients that there are certain procedures they won’t perform, and if the patient needs an abortion, or the morning after pill, she’ll just have to go somewhere else to get it. Being religious means making some sacrifices. As someone who keeps Shabbat, I know I can never run a night club, and while that’s sad for me, it’s not like there aren’t any other options out there. A Conservative Christian doctor can easily choose to be a pathologist, a urologist, or an oncologist without having to compromise his or her religious priorities. If you can’t perform the duties of a certain job it’s not discrimination when you don’t get promoted. I’ve always been a champion of religious freedom, but in this case I don’t see much of a conflict.

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• Failed Messiah broke the news that the May 12th raid also uncovered more than 100 fake and fraudulent identity documents from the AgriProcessors Human Services department. It also seems that workers knew they could come to the Human Services department to get fake documents. So you can add forging official documents to the list of AgriProcessor’s evils.

• The New York Times has an in depth look at labor violations in the AgriProcessors plant, including child labor violations. There were kids as young as 13 working there, despite regulations that prohibit anyone under 18 from working on the floor of the meatpacking plant because of the danger involved. One of the kids who worked there tells the Times he felt like he was a slave.

• CBS reports that many workers have been docked pay that they earned before the raid.

• The Jew and the Carrot has an interview with Uri L’Tzedek co-director Ari Hart about whether the AgriProcessors boycott was called off too quickly.

• Jewschool has an amazing post about the recent rally in Postville to support the workers. The pictures are especially fantastic.

• Want to get familiar with the crooks and creeps of Agriprocessors? Check out our Most Wanted.

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