On Lag B’Omer, the last Wednesday of the semester, I snuck past a challah baking event to say goodbye to the Stony Brook University Chabad Rabbi, Adam Stein. Rabbi Adam and I danced with his children to the music from a livestream of Meron in his backyard. At a pause, I tapped my kippa and tzitzit and said, “I wanted to rub it in. You were wrong; I did stay religious these four years.”

Rabbi Adam responded with a chuckle, “You cheated. You went home every Shabbos.”

Since graduating, I’ve told this story to friends and rabbis with responses ranging from, “I agree: That’s cheating,” to “I never had any doubts you’d stay Orthodox” to “I thought I’d have to cut you out of my life after a year in secular college.”

As a Five Towns-grown, Modern Orthodox boy, the fear of assimilating, especially in secular college, has been seeded and cultivated within me from almost the beginning of my education. When I decided to attend Stony Brook University for undergrad, almost everyone (not my parents) freaked out.

One high school principal still reminds me that I was the first student from DRS, my yeshiva, to attend SBU for undergrad (I don’t think I was). My Rabbi expressed concern but left it at that. One friend tried to convince some other friends to agree not to give up on me even though I would attend a school with little Orthodox Jewish representation. Rabbi Adam told me it would be virtually impossible to maintain my religious observance.

For this reason, or because I’m all about preparation, I established a religious foundation for myself six months before attending Stony Brook. I emailed two JLIC rabbis. I learned with my rabbi in Israel while talking about challenges and solutions with others. By the time I started my freshman year, I had scheduled learning time with five rabbis in Israel, two friends, my Rabbi, and my dad each week. I made an effort to attend every Hillel and Chabad event on campus and immediately joined the Hillel student board. This, in addition to my own academic schedule.

The number I remember hearing regarding modern and centrist Orthodox Jews going off the derech secular college is one in four. I’m deeply confused about what that means. Is “off the derech” total denial of God? A shift to Conservative or Reform Judaism? Intermarriage? Does “secular college” include Yeshiva University or Touro College?

Based on what friends and rabbis taught, I expected to show up to an 8:00 a.m. college class that opened with a powerpoint entitled, “Philosophical reasons why Judaism is completely wrong and you should be a Marxist.” I expected to be invited to party after party while secular Jewish and non-Jewish classmates goaded me into drinking my weight in vodka and exploring sexuality towards orgiastic nirvana.

In real life, girls who had no problem divulging their sex lives took my being shomer negia (not touching those of the opposite sex) more seriously than I did. Students asked me about the thing on my head and the strings hanging out of my shirt. I had hours long conversation about feminism and Judaism, about circumcision and consent, about religious growth and challenges.

Of course there were difficulties, too. It’s easy to skip shacharit (morning services) when there is no minyan and you have 8:00 a.m. classes. I couldn’t keep up that freshman semester learning schedule and so had to cut it down. But small lapses in observance happen to us all no matter where we are in life. It’s up to us to work up and bounce back.

I think it’s a major misconception that people lose their religion when they get to college. In my experience, many of these people really lost their religion years prior. College is their first opportunity to explore alternative lifestyles without having their communities breathing down their necks. Someone with an unwavering dedication to Shabbat, for example, won’t cut corners once they’re in university. But someone who only kept Shabbat because their family and friends at home did probably won’t keep it through four years of college.

Reasons for leaving the fold of Orthodox Judaism can range from intellectual disagreements to the general trend towards secularization to not feeling comfortable within the system. To deride secular college is to lower the fever rather than heal the infection.

In college, I’ve found, people are generally accepting to those who can defend their practices. This is no reason to get complacent, but I feel no more obliged to fear collegiate pressure to give up my religious beliefs than the girl I meet at Starbucks who tells me she’s a practicing Wiccan. We’ve both clearly thought about and can defend our respective religious practices.

Throughout my four years, I was more likely to get, “Hey, I’m sorry to bother you—and please tell me if I’m being offensive—but what exactly are you celebrating this holiday?” than any philosophical attack.

To expect all young Orthodox Jews to only engage within Orthodox spaces is idealistic at best. Rather than express undue concern and try to pressure students to stay in Israel a second (or first) year or switch to a more “Orthodox-friendly” campus, rabbis, friends, and community leaders can offer support for young Jews’ journeys. I had enough chutzpah to bother people to learn with me but sometimes this seeming lack of support can dishearten young Jews further.

It would be better to instill a foundational understanding of our values and a support system for when we, inevitably, find ourselves somewhere Orthodoxy does not reign. For all the concerns about my leaving the “Orthodox bubble,” I’ve emerged with greater commitment than some who have remained within these four years. And I’ve been exposed to a wider and more nuanced world.

College is a time to explore and find yourself. We shouldn’t be told to erect walls and go four years without evolution of thought.

Educate young Jews to love and understand the foundations of Judaism, support them, and let them be.

Image via Pixabay

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Dor Yeshorim has disavowed the video, and claims that the girls reached out saying they regret the video’s leak. Since the girls are remaining anonymous, it is unclear if this is true, so as a compromise, we will not post the video here but link to it.  You can also read the full lyrics on Genius.

I decided to reach out to my resident expert on both Yeshiva life and rap music to analyze the girls’ song (#frumcore?) and decide whether or not it lives up to the hype, and examine its rap style and origins:

No disrespect, Beis Yaakov girls, I love what you’re doing, and you know I only say this because I’m truly genuine but someone’s got to say it: your flow is a shtickel wack. As a matter fact, all these frum MCs need to seriously step up. The current state of Orthodox rhyming is a chillul hashem, no question.

OK, OK, am I being too harsh? Aren’t these just kids? Of course I am, of course they are, but stick with me.

When I was in yeshiva a young fellow named Yaakov Shwekey was burning up kumzitzes and keduashas. There was genuine excitement in my high school when he passed through Chicago. I didn’t follow my friends to the concert, something I still regret. I bet Shwekey puts on a great show.

This was 2001, and while pop charts were dominated by Destiny’s Child, a smattering of R&B artists and the last gasps of commercial pop rock, Yaakov Shwekey’s music featured a disco beat. How significantly was Orthodox music behind the times? Disco Demolition Night was 1979, so let’s round it off to a solid thirty-year lag.

(Was Shwekey just disco? Of course not. There’s Carlebach in there, along with chazonus and a lot of other things. But the disco groove is undeniable.)

Back to the frum MCs: Our rap game is in the 1980s. We’ve got to stop rapping like Ronald Reagan is in office. Flow has evolved tremendously since then. In particular, rap no longer sounds like this:

Though, about 30 years ago, it did:

So, yeshiva boys and Beis Yaakov girls, turn off the metronome, loosen up. Some internal rhyme, please. And your rhythms sound like nursery songs. These day, rap sounds like this:

I don’t mean to boast, but damn, if I don’t brag

Them crackers gon’ act like I ain’t on they ass

The Martha Stewart that’s far from Jewish

Far from a Harvard student, just had the balls to do it

Minus the “damn,” “ass” and “balls” I see no reason why frum rap can’t sound more like this.

In conclusion, frum girls, your rhymes are wack. But they need not be. Study up, and start catching up.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Inspired by Hollaback‘s viral (and controversial) video depicting a woman being catcalled on the streets of New York for ten hours straight, comedian Scott Rogowsky has documented his own experience as a publicly identifiable Jewish man. The results are appalling: he is harassed every few blocks by men from the Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement, urging him to “do a mitzvah,” sniff an etrog, or say a prayer. They even speculate about whether or not he’s circumcised (captured in the screenshot above).

As a woman, I can not imagine what it would be like to subjected to this sort of harassment on a daily basis. Aside from occasionally being offered Shabbos candles in the subway in Brooklyn, my default position in communal, Orthodox Jewish religious practice is: pretty much invisible. Never have I felt more grateful to not be counted in a minyan. Halachic cloak of invisibility FTW!

Hats off to Rogowsky for his courage and good humor. Now, back to braiding those challahs in the peace and quiet of my kitchen.

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Fortunately my eyesight is pretty good, so I managed to do just that, and can report that Mimu Maxi’s style is original, simple, chic—sort of Urban Outfitters meets Eileen Fisher, with a touch of… Gandhi? I know, it sounds bananas, but it’s great! I would like one of everything, plus the ability to look effortlessly cool in loose, unstructured garments. Thanking you in advance, universe.

The post An Inside Look at Chic, Modest Jewish Fashion Label “Mimu Maxi” appeared first on Jewcy.

In recent years, the co-mingling of the sexes has become a major source of tension on flights to and from Israel. Some very religious men are being seated next to women to whom they are not married or related, which necessitates an extended game of musical chairs before take-off. (Never mind the departure time, modesty trumps timeliness. Always.)

Now Israel’s national airline, EL AL, has pledged its commitment to its passengers spiritual safety in a new in-flight video. Never again, thank God, will a man be forced to sit next to a pesky little woman for several hours at a time. Effective immediately, every aircraft will be equipped with a “male congregation area”—and if a male passenger absolutely must sit next to a woman, he may avail himself of the use of a transparent full body protection vest to keep the lady-cooties at bay. (Added bonus: Ebola protection.) There’s even a shofar for attracting attention in the event of a safety breach. So innovative! (They don’t call Israel the “Start-Up Nation” for nothing, right?)

Read more about this ingenious Israeli solution over at our sister-site, Tablet Magazine.

The In-Flight Safety Video El Al Should Show from Tablet Magazine on Vimeo.

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Walking into the current installation at Soapbox Gallery in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn is like walking into an alternate reality.

At the gallery’s entrance sits a twin bed made up with worn, floral linens. On the wall, the outfit of an ultra-Orthodox girl hangs unassumingly. A sign indicates that this piece is called Gut Nacht Hindy (“Good Night Hindy”). The bed is flanked by two aged bedside tables. On the left-hand side, a tattered book of tehillim (psalms) lies unopened. To the right, dying flowers sit in a mason jar, atop an open drawer exposing a collection of old family pictures.

The exhibit—emphatically titled “BE!“—is a personal memoir of sorts, inspired by artist Sara Erenthal‘s upbringing as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, and subsequent departure from that world.

Erenthal, 33, resides in New York, and has been showing her work publicly for the last two-and-a-half years. “I was challenged to bring my life story into this gallery,” she says, and indeed she has: while I was there, one of her cousins—who also “broke free” from Orthodoxy (his words)—visited the gallery to show his support, and recognized himself and his parents in a few of the family photos.

Erenthal was raised by Neturei Karta parents in ultra-Orthodox communities in the Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem, Borough Park in Brooklyn, and Kiryas Joel in upstate New York. She ran away from home to escape an arranged marriage at 17, and her entire community rejected her.

The community, she remembers, is a strict one. A large-scale sculpture that stands out as the centerpiece of the show, Eidele Meidele, channels this very memory. The giant papier-mâché sculpture depicts a girl’s face, eyes turned down, with long, thick braids made of coarse rope. Braids were the singular hairstyle permitted to the artist as a child; here they are secured to the floor, representing the community’s expectations and limitations.

In Erenthal’s world, “everything is imperfect, it’s flawed in some way.” Her portrait series of an ultra-Orthodox mother, father, and son are deliberately imperfect. The portraits, which hang prominently around the gallery, are made of different materials, including burlap, like the sacks Neturei Karta members wear to anti-Zionist protests. Their clothing is frayed, with strands still sticking up from the final product. “It’s imperfect,” Erenthal reiterates, “but it’s intentional.” It tells her story.

“My family didn’t really fit in anywhere,” she recalls. There is no Neturei Karta community in New York, so even though Erenthal grew up among other ultra-Orthodox Jews, she was never really fully one of them. Furthermore, she revels, “my mother’s a little bit of a hippie and artsy,” which is not mainstream within those communities. When asked more specifically about her family, she looked visibly uncomfortable. “I’d rather not talk about them,” she said.

In addition to telling her story, Erenthal’s exhibit also considers what her life would have looked like had she not fled her community and marital expectations. Taking up a prominent section of the gallery, 22 Styrofoam wig heads manipulated with papier-mâché sit in near-perfect lines on the cement floor. The installation, she explains, depicts “what would have happened if I stayed in the community and got pregnant and then kept getting pregnant.” She chose the number 22, she explains, “because it is visually powerful.” Above the heads, speakers provide a soundtrack of ultra-Orthodox Israeli children playing in Hebrew and Yiddish, courtesy of Matan Dorembus, a film student in Be’er Sheva.

Directly parallel to this hypothetical reality, Erenthal depicts her actual reality. She did not remain in her community, nor get pregnant. Instead she forged a new path for herself, enlisting in the Israeli army and then backpacking through India. A video installation dramatically depicts this process of emancipation. In the video, she stands naked, bound in tefillin, at first looking dejected and passive, and then trying with growing intensity to break free of the religious bonds.

The show is open at Soapbox Gallery this Thursday, Friday and Saturday through September 13, with a special concert this Friday night from 7-10pm.

(Image by the author)

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It was past midnight and we were driving home when I broached the subject. “Who can we set him up with?”

“I was already considering it,” my husband answered a bit too quickly. “Actually, it’s all I’ve been thinking about since we walked out of the theater.”

We had spent the evening at a big Broadway production. A friend from high school had a prominent role. I’d seen Andy rarely in the years since we’d graduated, at weddings mostly. Still, I was eager to cheer his success. It was exciting, but I was dreading the visit backstage after the show. I hate feeling like a hanger-on, waiting around awkwardly while I try not to look like a gawker.

This time was different, though. Andy was so sweet and generous, asking about our kids and excitedly introducing us to the actors. I felt not at all a gawker, more a visitor to a friend’s for an intimate dinner party. When my husband asked Andy if he was involved with anyone, Andy—looking almost longingly at the iPhone pic of our brood—answered, “No, I’m all alone.”

And so there we were, stuck in construction traffic at one o’clock in the morning, paging through our mental Rolodexes under “Jewish gay men, 30s, artsy.” After trying on a few matches for size, we both settled on someone we thought would be a great match: Jeremy. He was sweet, smart, good-looking, and a successful musician to boot. A little younger, maybe. There was only one problem.

We weren’t positive he was gay.

Well, it doesn’t always come up. I mean, we kind of assumed he was gay, but I couldn’t tell you precisely why. And when, exactly, is the right time to ask? Maybe it could be added to the requisite question list when you invite someone to dinner. “Any food restrictions? Allergies? Vegetarian? Gay or straight? Gluten-free?” Not exactly practical.

Because my husband is a rabbi and our family is religious, gay people are sometimes unsure whether they should reveal their orientation to us, concerned we might reject them—or try to turn them. But keeping the laws of Shabbat should not cause a person to be less compassionate or understanding. As far as I’m concerned, if a Jew reads the Torah and her takeaway is a list of people she’ll never accept into her “club,” then she’s missed the point.

Someday in the not-so-distant future, I choose to believe, the sight of Yeshiva kids walking into school with their two Abbas will be old hat. In the meantime, I identify with those Abbas in so many ways. As a religious Jew and a feminist, I have to gauge how “out” I can be in all kinds of situations.

Is this the kind of Orthodox shul where I can wear a tallit when I pray? Can I go into this bookstore and buy a Gemara and reveal that it’s for me? Or would it be safer to say it’s for my son? And lest someone think I’m being paranoid, I relate this story that happened two weeks ago. I started an online conversation about women wearing kippah and tzitzit in Jerusalem. The response I got from one woman was chilling. If you are interested in being safe, she said, you won’t ever do something like that. Someone could, God forbid, break your jaw. Or, God forbid, throw acid in your face. It was like a conversation out of “The Godfather.”

I’m a mother of four with a masters degree, but part of me remains a 12-year-old girl, angry as her body begins to betray her and advertise her sex on the outside. When your sexuality and gender are the first things people notice about you, it’s exhausting. I get it. But still, I was determined to make the match.

After discreetly inquiring with an acquaintance of Jeremy’s (who couldn’t answer with any certainty), I realized my best option was to be direct. My husband agreed to take one for the team. He casually texted Jeremy to give him a call when he had a chance. Jeremy called back. While they talked, I did what I often do when faced with an awkward situation: I hid.

While I cowered idiotically in the next room, I thought about the conversation I had had with my kids the previous night when they overheard us discussing our predicament. Why, they wanted to know, had we been assuming Jeremy was gay? How could you tell just by looking at him, or having a conversation? “You’re just stereotyping!” they insisted. I knew they were wrong, but I was having trouble with the why.

The truth is, we’re constantly making assumptions about people based on superficial evidence—the car they drive, the shoes they wear, their accent, their haircut. Using these limited clues, we determine class, education, politics, religion. Sexuality is more complicated, though. As a child, I was a serious ballet dancer. Dance had a culture of its own, but even then I noticed that some teachers and choreographers deliberately and consciously carried their delicate movements with them outside the studio. It was complicated to be out in the eighties. Yet these men proudly announced, by the tiny choices they made about how to present themselves to the world, who they were.

As self-involved ten and eleven year olds, my fellow dancers and I didn’t dwell on the private lives of our teachers. As far as we were concerned, they vanished into thin air when we left the building. So when one of our favorites stopped teaching, and didn’t even attend our performances, we felt only a vague annoyance that we’d have to get used to a new set of expectations with our next instructor. A year or so later, when we heard that he had died, you could almost see the little light bulbs clicking on above our identical, perfectly groomed buns. Oh. Our hunch was correct. No judgment. Just sadness.

I suppose that’s what I want my kids to know: thinking someone is gay is only bad if you believe being gay is bad. It’s the negative judgment that’s harmful—not the supposition itself.

I got the transcript of the conversation as soon as my husband gave me the all-clear.

“Jeremy,” he’d started, “can I ask you a strange question?”

“Sure?”

“Are you interested in being set up?”

Pause. “Well… I’d be interested, but there’s a twist.”

And here, I’m pained to admit, is where my husband was a rock star, while I hid in other room with a pillow over my head, mortified by the awkwardness of the situation. “So,” he replied, “if the twist has anything to do with the fact that the person we had in mind for you is a man, you’re in luck.”

There’s a Jewish tradition, more a superstition, I suppose, that anyone who makes three matches—presumably ending in a wedding—is automatically granted entrance into the world to come. It’s holy work, to help people find partners and build homes together. I don’t want to go back to a time when people felt compelled to extinguish a piece of their essence in order to conform. But all the uncertainty is a little too stressful for me, I’m not sure I can handle the pressure. I’ll take my chances with charity and good deeds.

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Recently engaged Crown Heights couple Zevi Goldin, 25, and Chana Simon, 21, are indebted to an unorthodox—but very determined—matchmaker: UPS deliveryman Terry Spiers.

Spiers has worked in the neighborhood for many years, delivering to various Jewish families and businesses, and has long had his heart set on making a shidduch. Two of the regulars on his delivery route are the Goldin family and the educational non-profit where Simon’s mother works, and a couple of years ago he began to focus his efforts on their respective families, trying to arrange a match.

“He always tries to put people together,” the bride’s mother Regina Simon told COLlive.com, “but I never looked into it… I didn’t take it seriously.” Then, to her surprise, one of her married daughters suggested setting Chana up with someone called Zevi Goldin, which prompted further investigation. Spiers acted as the go-between, asking Goldin for his shidduch resume and passing his number onto Chana’s uncle, a local shadchan (matchmaker).

“I was dismissive of the entire thing until he came back and told us, ‘Yeah, her mom is really interested. Do you have one of those things, a shidduch resume?'” Goldin told DNAinfo New York. “Next thing I knew, her uncle was calling me up to try to set up a date.”

Goldin says he knew Simon was his bashert by their second date, but he waited two months before proposing. The couple will be married on June 2.

Mazel tov!

Image: Tupungato / Shutterstock.com

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A park in Kiryas Joel which came under scrutiny last year for sex segregation “will now be subject to strict NYCLU and ACLU oversight,” reports Gothamist. The park serves the 22,000-strong Satmar community and is divided into two sections: blue for boys, and pinky-red for girls (natch).

When the park opened in 2013, municipal treasurer Rabbi Gedalia Segdin told Hasidic site Behadrey Haredim that the sections were “separated by hills, which actually form a modesty buffer and allow the place to remain completely pure.” Signage in Yiddish at the entrance further enforced the separation of the sexes.

If the funding for the park came from public coffers, the sex-segregation is patently illegal. The Times-Herald Record reports that the state awarded Kiryas Joel $195,000 to build a park back in 2001, but community leaders turned down the grant. In July 2013, the NYCLU and ACLU requested documents pertaining to the financing and construction of the park. That request was denied, and in December they filed a lawsuit against the Village of Kiryas Joel.

The parties reached a settlement last week, with the community agreeing to allow the NYCLU and ACLU to inspect the park twice each summer for the next three years to ensure that segregation was not being enforced. In addition, signs explicitly stating that the park is segregated must be removed.

“Public parks cannot segregate based on sex any more than they can on race or national origin,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman today. “This agreement ensures that all park visitors have equal access to the entire park.”

Will the ruling actually effect change? The blogger Failed Messiah is skeptical: “This settlement is likely meaningless… Kiryas Joel leaders will just instruct followers in the synagogue or through robo calls to ‘voluntarily’ gender segregate. The followers will do it, the park will be gender segregated, and the NYCLU will have lost, despite its claim of victory today.”

(Image: aerial view of Kiryas Joel park, via NYCLU)

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There’s a lot of news, and a lot of tension, concerning the Orthodox and secular Jews in Israel. It’s not often that you get to see the lighter side of things.

In a new video, which promotes “Israeli Shabbat,” when religious Israeli families invite secular families over for Shabbat dinner, we see the lives and stereotypes of two very different families. While the stereotypes could be used as mean mocking (the religious wife cleans the house while the secular children think that everything is boring), it instead is used to show that these two families, while religiously diverse, have a lot in common. Both families are loving, tight-knit, and, in both families, the women are the head of the house.

For an English translation, check out Jewishmom.com.

Watch and enjoy.

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