Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

Shais Rison, left, and Yitzchak Jordan are black Orthodox Jews, a rarity in New York and the nation.

By TRYMAINE LEE

Robinson’s website.

NYT story originally published here.

For those not born Jewish, joining the Jewish religion requires overcoming high barriers, even within the more liberal streams of Judaism. To put it in its simplest terms: for men, blood must be drawn. Get past the circumcision, the studying, and the meetings with rabbis to become an official Jew, and there is often still, shamefully, some other Jew questioning a convert’s sincerity or authenticity.

Ultimately I believe the guidelines of “Who’s a Jew?” must be expanded if the Jewish community — particularly the American Jewish community — is to remain relevant well into the 21st century.

There’s precedent for changing the answer to “Who’s a Jew?” In Biblical times, our forbears inherited Judaism through their fathers. In the Rabbinic age, it switched to the mothers, and the notion of “matrilineal descent” is still deeply ingrained in much of world Jewry today. But in modern times, the Reconstructionist movement (in 1968) and then the much larger Reform movement (in 1983) accepted Jewish identity through either parent — provided that the children were raised and educated as Jews.

That bold decision to accept patrilineal descent has enabled literally hundreds of thousands of individuals to call themselves “Jewish” who previously couldn’t, which many Jews support but others believe is a terrible disaster for the Jewish people. At the time, and for years after, the Reform movement was accused of splitting the Jewish people in two. But the reality is that we were always more than just two kinds of Jewry.

Today, while there are still only a few different synagogue denominations, there are hundreds of ways for Jews to express their Jewish identity. And that diversity could bode well for the Jewish future, because the American belief in the “marketplace of ideas” has extended to religions as well. Last year’s “Faith in Flux” study from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that “about half of American adults have changed religious affiliation at least once during their lives.”

Unfortunately, until now the religion-switching that Pew identified has meant a net loss for Judaism. It makes sense, considering how much easier it is to leave Judaism than to enter! But the past does not have to dictate the future. If only we could “open the gates” of Judaism, as the late researcher Gary Tobin advocated, and offer all the various ways of being Jewish, many more people might choose to join us.

Absorbing large waves of newcomers is a scary proposition for many Jews, even in Israel, a country that has proven that it can do it over and over again. For American Jews, particularly the majority who are not religiously observant but are still connected culturally or “ethnically,” the notion that anyone would actually be attracted to Judaism often seems baffling, though it shouldn’t. In many cases, newcomers see the values in our traditions even better than those of us who grew up in the community.

This inability to graciously accept newcomers is a phenomenon I call “Born-Jewish Privilege.” It is a Born-Jewish Privilege to be able to ask someone, immediately upon learning that he or she is a convert, “You mean you actually chose to become Jewish?” — even as an attempted joke. And it is a Born-Jewish Privilege to then turn around (at perhaps the very same event!) and ask the non-Jewish spouse of a Jew, “Do you plan to convert?”

It is a Born-Jewish Privilege to not do a single thing Jewish all year — not attend synagogue, not observe Shabbat, not donate to Jewish causes — yet feel completely 100-percent Jewish while at the same time questioning the authenticity of an intermarried household where the non-Jewish parent is doing all of those things in order to instill a Jewish identity in his or her child.

Overcoming Born-Jewish Privilege will be very difficult, because the privileged are always loath to give up their status. But pointing out that the privilege even exists, by a simple accident of birth, is the first step. Helping Jews recognize that there’s something worth sharing about Judaism with the rest of the world seems like another logical step. That Amar’e Stoudemire’s recent Jewish journey would provoke such fascination in the Jewish community a full decade after Madonna embraced Kabbalah, or that Chelsea Clinton marrying a Jew would require so much open soul-searching about Jewish intermarriage when more than half of all American households containing a Jewish spouse today are intermarriages, means we’re still stuck in the same place as we were decades ago, without providing increased access for more people to make the Jewish journey with us.

In most cases, it doesn’t really matter “Who’s a Jew,” because it’s rarely an issue of halakhah (Jewish law). If Amar’e wants to read from the Torah at a Conservative synagogue during Shabbat services, we’ll worry about it then. Odds are good that he doesn’t want that. Odds are also good that Jews will trip over themselves helping him find what he’s looking for, because he’s a superstar. (And as a long-suffering Knicks fan, I have no problem with that.) But what about the million non-Jews married to Jews in the U.S., almost all of whom are not famous like Amar’e? Or the children and young adults from intermarried families? What is the Jewish community doing proactively to incorporate them? Still too little.

Some have attempted to find special names for the non-Jews among us, like ger toshav (resident alien), but how about, for those who want it, “Jewish”? Intermarried families raising Jewish children are, as Rabbi Kerry Olitzky, executive director of the Jewish Outreach Institute, simply calls them, “Jewish families.”

The Jewish community does not have a unifying creed that can easily be signed onto, the way you can call yourself Christian by accepting Jesus as Savior. There’s a Jewish movement that accepts the Torah as the exact word of God, and a Jewish movement that denies the existence of God; there are Jews for whom Zionism is their most important belief, and Jews who reject the establishment of the modern State of Israel as immoral. There is scant little we agree on, and we need to define ourselves to newcomers based on what we are, not what we’re not. The Biblical Ruth had a simple credo as her “conversion” to Judaism: “Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” The “people” in that phrase came before God for a reason. Would it be so bad for the Jews if we reverted back to that kind of conversion?

Or perhaps we can draw our credo from Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, who is quoted as having said, “I consider as Jewish anyone who is meshuge [crazy] enough to call themselves ‘Jewish.’”

Originally published here.

On Katz’ Past:

When I asked him to give me a summary of himself, he easily joked that it sounds like an online profile. He even opened the summary with the his astrological sign (Aries) and the fact that he likes walks on the beach. He’s played piano since he was four, guitar since he was 13, and has been playing the jiuta-shamisen for the past 7 years. Danny quickly added, “I used to play the violin and viola too, but kinda sucked at em!”

Katz, 33, explained how he doesn’t recall ever declaring he wanted to be a singer, “and if I did, I probably forgot that decision about 5 second after I made it.” According to Danny’s oracle, though, it just sort of happened a long time ago. In fact, Danny could not remember a time when he saw himself as anything but a musician, at least in one form or another. Danny had enjoyed performing from a young age (from recitals to school plays) but it wasn’t until high school that he started stepping out of his “super-shy shell” to perform his own songs in public, telling people he was doing it to get the girls. “Ha! More like their brothers,” Danny quipped. Speaking of family, Danny’s parents have been there for him from the start. In the beginning, they went to all of his shows in coffee shops and bookstores. Since Danny doesn’t perform at either of their places in the suburbs anymore, his parents can’t make all of the shows. None the less, Danny thinks his parents have been supportive enough by not pestering him with fairly reasonable questions about his job choice. They have also helped partially fund all his previous albums. “You can’t ask for better encouragement than that!!” He also stated that they didn’t evict him when he chose to move back home in his late 20s so he could focus 100% on his music.

When I asked him about professional training he recalled his 4 weeks with one of the more well-liked voice teachers while in college. “I found him to be a bit of a pompous a** and I just wasn’t interested in studying further with him.” That’s not to say that Katz refuses proper singing lessons when his schedule gives him the time. “I’m usually good with the high notes but once I hit the low notes I sound like I could use a good T-Pain autotune session.”

Songwriting for Danny came naturally during his time in junior high school. His influences at the time were the B-52’s, Erasure and Genesis, followed shortly by R.E.M. and Billy Joel. But just because the idea of being a musician came easily to him, Danny asserted that pursuing music as a solidified career option was in many ways a post September 11 decision. “I mean—I had been performing for years at that point and had several albums under my belt already, but I was also seriously considering putting music on the back-burner to go do something respectably painful and responsible like law school.” The tragic events of 9/11 changed things by showing the musician how short one’s life can possibly be and, “and that doing something creative and true to myself was essential for my sense of fulfillment and happiness.”  Katz added, probably with a smirk while typing, “If I can’t match my socks in the morning how good a lawyer could I possibly be? Flirting with the judge will not a good trial make.”

Given that he’s satisfied with his life, Danny would not change anything if ever given the chance to go back in time. That’s not to say that he would not mind telling his younger version to hurry and join Hairclub for Men. He typed, “I was in denial that I was losing my hair forevah!” Musically speaking, he’d tell his 23-year-old self to have more confidence in himself and his music. He also wants to tell himself to relax and enjoy the process of music making and performing, but to not get so caught up with the business side of things. Another thing he’d ask himself to do is to avoid the clunkier forays into political songwriting or the attempts at channeling his undergrad major of Queer Theory. “Listening back now, some of those songs make me wanna roll my eyes, although the intentions when writing them were, well… I mean well.” He finished off by reassuring me that the desire to be a Japanese/Jewish gay male Ani Difranco only suited him for the first half of his 20s.

On his new album and moving to Japan:

Currently, Danny just wrapped up his 7^th studio album, “Japanese Satellites.” (Available on and Amazon.) Though his musical tolerance ranges from classical to hip-hop, Danny chooses to stick to 80s flavored folk-pop songs when it comes to writing his own music. He describes “Japanese Satellites” as a “mix-90s U2, Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon, and The Shins.” He then says that the album will “make your ears sparkle and your hair shine with delight. You cannot resist.”

80s flavored folk pop bliss. That was Danny’s reply when I told him to describe his new album in 5 words. The album was mean as a personal thought on the potentially fleeting nature of New York City relationships: “How the pace and culture of the city can create and destroy the most amazing and intense bonds between lovers, friends, one night stands and everyone figuratively (or literally?!) in between.” Just as his 2006 album “Strangely Beautiful” was about his experiences in his 20s, this new album is about his life in his 30s. Danny traveled quite a bit while these songs were written and any time he was in a new city he would wonder if relationships were easier then than in New York, “and also what makes people come to New York, what makes them leave, etc.” Going into the studio to work meant he would be leaving NYC. Tokyo was a possible location to call home, or at least a place where he could go to figure out what he really wanted from New York when he returns. “Hence the distanced observation of a ‘Japanese Satellite.’” He also divulged that it made for some very cute CD artwork by Joe Wu.

While Danny is very attached to all of his songs (“They’re my BABIES!”), his favorite would have to be “Taipei.” The lyrics  about ‘a crushed out high school girl’ apparently summarizes Danny Katz in a nutshell. Danny admitted to always having a hard time when recording songs: “I always ‘freeze up’ in the studio—it’s like when I see the red record button come on suddenly I start making all sorts of whacky mistakes…” Emotionally, though, “Modesto” was the hardest to record as the break-up that the song talks about came back to mind each time Danny performed it and the lyrics are so specific. “I couldn’t distance myself from the subject matter. At all. And in the studio you’ve gotta do take after take after take.” But Danny also found the recording session a little liberating. He was able to acknowledge how his ex and him both grew immeasurably during their time together and how sometimes a song can allow you to come to closure, “to incorporate the experience into your life fabric and move on.”

He came to Japan with numerous goals ranging from taking a break from NYC/America and learning to understand both environments more to leaving behind both comfort and heartache. He always intends to improve his Japanese for music and other career options, better his understanding of Japan from a worker’s perspective (instead of his past experiences as an exchange student and a vacationee), gain a more global understanding of the world, and to take a stab at the Japanese music industry. Since he’s only lived in Japan for 7 months, he still sees achieving those goals as a continual work in progress.

One moment he considers memorable is when he met his new and “very cute” co-worker. “He goes to bow; I go to shake his hand. Much confusion ensues and I almost accidentally smack him in the crotch.” He jokes, “I am THAT coordinated. And that culturally insensitive, apparently.” Japan has also taught Katz that he can be as out as he wants about his sexuality and they’ll still ask him if he’s found a girlfriend, which confuses Danny to no end.

When Danny was asked to compare the two musical epicenters of his life, New York and Tokyo,  he found it hard to answer. “…Both cities are quite different from each other and because I find musical talent relative.”  Though his songwriting hasn’t changed since moving, Danny does hope to incorporate some Japanese instruments into his recordings again. (He feature a jiuta-shamisen on a previous album, but decided to not use it on “Japanese Satellites.”)

On Music:

Insofar, musicians of different genres have inspired Danny. For earnestness, being out and proud, and having excellent melodic sense – Erasure. For songwriting and musical chops – Billy Joel and Paul Simon. For political savvy and confrontational wit – Ani Difranco. Other inspirations consist of Spitz, Lady Gaga, Missy Elliott, and of course The Beatles. But day-to-day inspiration comes from Danny’s indie singer/songwriter buddies. While practicing solo usually leads Danny to not focus on practicing, “band practices are always fun and since most of my musician buddies have shorter attention spans than I do, it forces me to focus on everyone…”

With lyrics such as ‘Lost in translation, I am nothing without you…’ I asked Danny if he was ever without music, would he consider himself “lost in translation.” He replied with a definite “absolutely.” He explains how a common language wasn’t always spoken, especially collaborating with foreign musicians. “It amazed me how we were all able to communicate through music. Though come to think of it, alcohol helped quite a bit…”

In the present day music world, originality is key. Danny feels he’s at a slight advantage with his life experiences—being gay, half Japanese, half Jewish, in his 30s and living in Tokyo—and it feeds into his understanding of how this business (and life) works. But other than that Danny is struggling to get recognized as much as anyone else. He constantly attempts to balance the “desire to create something unique with the desire to be heard and successful.” He believes he is a bit more balanced, humanistic, ethical, and giving than some other musicians, but concedes that may all be relative.

He tries to stick to some advice he was given which revolves around staying true to oneself without ignoring the fact that it’s a business as well. While he tries not to sell out, Katz knows that he has to listen for what the general public wants to hear. He also knows that he should appreciate his fans because he understands that without them this wouldn’t be possible. The best advice that Danny has gotten, though, would have to be, “if you’re not enjoying it, why do it?” Trite as it may be, Danny believes there’s a lot of truth to that one statement.

His message to fans was short and to the point: “Do it – there’s nothing better than creating and sharing with folks.” He also suggested you have thick skin if you want to enter the business. He informed me that the business can be brutal and “sometimes what you’ve created with blood, sweat and tears will fall on deaf ears.” But whether or not your music gets picked up by the higher ups, Danny said that nothing is more amazing than being able to connect with a fan and to know your music is making a difference in someone’s life.

Other facts:

If ever you catch Danny as a karaoke, he would probably be singing some American and British 80’s pop and mid 90’s Japanese pop. “And I have to admit, I can’t pass up a good sing-along to ‘Don’t Stop Believing,’ ‘Take On Me,’ ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine,’ and ‘Living on a Prayer.’” He also prides himself in doing Young MC’s “Bust a Move” better than any other folksinger in the history of “folksingerness.”

While he thought about taking on a more conventional job way back when, Danny is sticking to music for as long as possible. He may take a break from time to time, but never permanently giving it up.  In five years, he sees himself definitely making music. The idea of geographically where, however, is still up in the air. He wrote, “Maybe living with some amazing sugar-daddy on a California vista? Maybe being a geisha. Maybe becoming kosher. Stranger things have happened.”

Originally published here.

http://www.forward.com/articles/130011/

By Rachel Rubin

Published August 11, 2010, issue of August 20, 2010.

Like many 21-year-old travelers, I had no plan. No money. And no real assurance that I was even going to be picked up from the airport on a late rainy evening in Central America’s most notoriously dangerous city. Because I also knew no one.

All the same, I hopped on a plane to Guatemala City last May, convinced that my brothers and sisters in the faith of Abraham would receive me with open arms. After all, I had been welcomed earlier into the Panamanian-Jewish community for Passover and by the Jewish community in Costa Rica for Purim. I had discovered the widespread theme of marvelous Jewish hospitality, and it had fueled my adventurous side.

But this particular Guatemalan Jewish community was different from any Jewish experience I had ever had. Casa Hillel-Beit Hamadrij is a humble group of roughly 50 Christian-born converts who, unlike members of the country’s longer-established and more prosperous Jewish communities, come from Guatemala City’s struggling working class.

Alvaro Orantes, president of Casa Hillel, says that members of his community like to be referred to as “re-converts.” Some community members like to think they could be descended from Spanish crypto-Jews who fled the Inquisition, or from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. But there is no evidence to corroborate any of this.

“My soul is Jewish,” said Efrain Hernandez, a member of Casa Hillel. “When I began to study Torah, I just knew that this was part of who I am.”

The community members’ lifestyles seem roughly comparable with that of many observant Conservative Jews. They keep the Sabbath, lighting candles on Friday night and marking its close with the Havdalah ceremony. On Sabbath and on major Jewish holidays, they refrain from using electricity — though they do drive to services and to each other’s homes because of the high level of violence in their neighborhoods. Once they arrive at their meeting place on a typical Sabbath, they stay there all day, having meals and studying Torah. Family homes serve as Hebrew and religious schools during the week.

Orantes, who works as a salesman at a local tea and coffee plant, said he began his personal path to conversion at age 16, when he would visit a Jewish cemetery in Guatemala City. There, he said, he felt a sense of peace that he never experienced when he went to Catholic Church.

Ten years ago, Orantes, now 50, and his wife, Jeannette, 53, made a decision to embark on a self-directed study of Judaism. By 2003, he said, his feelings about Judaism inspired him to go to a doctor and have himself circumcised. But the couple, who had begun to gather a like-minded community around them, still lacked a real teacher to lead them. Orantes said he was curtly rebuffed when he approached local Jewish leaders for assistance.

Beside Casa Hillel, there are four Jewish communities in Guatemala, all located in Guatemala City. Centro Hebreo (an Ashkenazi Orthodox community) and Maguen David (Sephardic) are both long-standing and wealthy. There is also the Chabad-Lubavitch community and a group of more or less secular Israelis that gathers for holidays and the Sabbath. Only the secular Israelis would even talk with them.

Then by fate, said Orantes, he discovered Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn’s website in 2005.

Cukierkorn, a Brazilian-born rabbi at the New Reform Temple in Kansas City, Mo., operates an organization called Kulanu that focuses on discovering and converting lost Jewish communities of the world.

“We’d been looking for Judaism since 2000,” related Jeanette Orantes. The newcomers the couple had attracted were “interested, but confused,” Jeanette said, in uncertain English. “This is a kind of phenomenon in Latin America. Many people have been looking for being taught by the Jewish communities, but they are so closed, so we look for foreign orientation, and lucky us, we found Rabbi Jacques in 2005.”

Prior to meeting him, “There wasn’t anyone who could help us, giving trustable information,” she said.

Cukierkorn initially communicated with the nascent community over the Internet. Via video, he conducted classes in Judaism and discussed with them books he had assigned.

Eventually, he decided to convert Orantes and his wife and friends to Judaism, and to take on a role as the honorary rabbi of their community. Among other things, he also helped Orantes legally incorporate Casa Hillel as a religious organization.

Out of gratitude, the new converts named their group “Casa Hillel” after Jacques’s father, Hillel Cukierkorn.

A couple of times a year, Cukierkorn visits Guatemala and performs such rabbinical duties as conversion ceremonies. He also performs Jewish remarriages for couples who were married as Catholics before their conversion.

Cukierkorn’s synagogue has adopted Casa Hillel and is paying half its rent, providing its members with Jewish books in Spanish, Torah Scrolls, and other Jewish paraphernalia for their homes.

On one of his early visits, Cukierkorn, who felt the group should have local teachers to guide them, went with Orantes to meet Rabbi Shimon Lubelski, of Centro Hebreo, the Ashkenazi congregation.

According to Orantes and Cukierkorn, Lubelski initially agreed to meet further with Orantes to discuss teaching Judaism to his group. But he “called ten minutes later after he said he would do it” to cancel, said Orantes.

It is easy to imagine the fears that might make established Jewish leaders reluctant to convert the Catholic born aspirants in a heavily Catholic and very violent country. But there are also class issues. Most of the other Jews live in gated communities far removed from the everyday dangers faced by ordinary Guatemalans, as well as the country’s deep and widespread poverty.

During his visit to Centro Hebreo, Cukierkorn recalled, a synagogue administrator “was totally dismissive” of Orantes. “Had he been a dog, she would have noticed him more. She paid more attention to the chairs than to him… It was horrible!”

“These are some of the most committed, interested and eager people I ever encountered,” said the Reform rabbi. “After my own congregation, I can’t think of anywhere else in the world I wish to spend time.”

Calls and emails to Lubelski and leaders of the other Jewish communities were not returned. But asked in a 2008 interview with Hadassah Magazine about the Casa Hillel’s community’s outreach to him, Lubelski said his community does not perform conversions. “If people want to convert, they have to go to New York, Miami or Tel Aviv,” he said.

The Orthodox rabbi also acknowledged that mainstream Guatemalan Jews, most of whom are Orthodox, do not welcome Casa Hillel members and do not accept Cukierkorn’s Reform conversions.

“We respect [them], but we are not interested in any encounters between the two communities,” he said.

The rejection clearly stings. “I am not allowed to go to their minyan,” Casa Hillel member Santiago Castaneda told me with shame in his eyes.

The Castaneda family, who hosted me during my visit, gave me an inside look at the challenges they face as practicing Jews in their city.

On a Friday, I accompanied Raudith Castaneda, the mother, with the Castanedas’ two daughters as we spent a day preparing for the Sabbath. We cooked for the more than 30 people expected that night, carefully sifting through hundreds of spinach leaves as we made a casserole. There were charts of Hebrew letters on the wall, newspaper clippings of Israeli news, and a small table that stood in the center of their home, displaying a modest collection of their Jewish memorabilia.

Their 13-year-old son, Jose, a recent bar mitzvah, told me he will only marry a Jewish girl.

When Havdalah came the next day, the Castanedas and I stood around the table with our arms around one another’s shoulders and recited the prayers. It was a powerfully spiritual moment, although fleeting, as it was interrupted by a string of gunshots across the street.

“Now is the time we need to be united together,” Jeannette Orantes told me on the same visit. “And I am telling you ‘we’ because we are also Jews, as you are. The difference is that we chose to become Jews and you were born a Jew. We will run the same destiny with all of you, and we know this. The providence will provide us with what we deserve, on His perfect time.”

Jeannette said that her favorite holiday was Shavuot, when the Book of Ruth is read.

“How easy it was for her to become a Jew,” she said. “And what a lovely way of Boaz to accept her. Just let me share with you Ruth’s words: ‘Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.’”
http://www.forward.com/articles/130011/

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/1008/prominent.jewish.athletes/content.1.html

The Jewish Chronicle Online

Erica Lyons runs Asia’s brand-new Jewish magazine, Asian Jewish Life, from a small office in central Hong Kong. It is the region’s “Jewish cultural headquarters”, she jokes with her office mate, a journalist who presides over Hong Kong’s Jewish Film Festival.

But while they may poke fun at their fledgling project, the magazine’s launch this January is a symptom of real change in Asian Jewry. Whereas far-flung communities in places like India and China are often regarded as exotic relics of the past, Jewish life in the region is undergoing a renaissance.

The American Jewish Yearbook shows that there was a total of about 1,000 Jews in Hong Kong and China in the mid 1990s, and another 1,000 in Japan. Today, there are perhaps 5,000 in Hong Kong alone, with another 2,000 in Shanghai.

Like the Baghdadi Jews who fanned out across Asia and India hundreds of years ago, today’s Jews are lured to the region primarily by business.

“Shanghai and Beijing have a lot more Jews than five or 10 years ago,” said Philip Jay, editor of Jewish Times Asia, an established monthly tabloid.

While the overall growth is hard to quantify, in part because of the transient nature of expatriate lifestyles, communities of between 500-1,500 people exist in Tokyo, Kobe, Singapore and Bangkok.

But Rabbi Anton Laytner, president of the Sino-Judaic Institute, suggests that the best way to track Jewish growth in Asia is to follow Chabad. Three years ago, the Chasidic movement had 18 centres in six countries; now, it operates 26 centres in eight countries, including Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines and South Korea.

“That we’re a diverse community made up of Jews from all over the world is a positive thing, but it makes it difficult to create common ground,” says Ms Lyons, 38, an ex-lawyer from New York who moved to Hong Kong eight years ago as a “trailing spouse”.

The idea for a regional Jewish magazine first came to her in May 2009, after the terrorist attack in Mumbai several months earlier.

“Mumbai made me realise that our tiny pockets of Jewish life are deeply connected to one another. The Holzbergs were no different from young couples in our community,” she says, referring to Mumbai’s Chabad emissaries who perished in the attack. “And so the distance became very small.”

Not that her readership is restricted to Asia. “I got lots of emails from people in mixed marriages in the States. It really touched them,” she says.

According to the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, at least two per cent of American Jews are Asian; there are also many intermarried Jews in Asia, some of whom are raising mixed families. Still, Jews in most Asian cities have few options besides Chabad when High Holy Days roll around.

“Chabad does a service by sending emissaries to Asian cities, but our people probably would be more attracted to more liberal forms of Jewish faith,” says Rabbi Laytner. “The World Union for Progressive Judaism is trying to establish a presence in some communities, but is limited by lack of funds.”

On the upside, despite the Mumbai attacks, there seems to be very little antisemitism in the region. On the contrary, the new Jewish diaspora has sparked in many Asians a fascination with – and admiration for – Jews. Ten Chinese universities have begun offering courses in Judaic studies and most of the experts are Chinese.

“The slate is completely blank,” Ms Lyons says. “There has been little opportunity for contact between Jews and Chinese. The topic has become ‘hot’ because the opportunity is there now.”

Originally published here.

A lot of you might be too young to remember the saying by the bar mitzva boy, “Today I am a fountain pen,” (instead of “a man”), back in the day when fountain pens were the traditional gift.

Wonder what kind of goodies Elliott Maddox will get when he celebrates his rite of passage? Maddox, who played 11 seasons in the Majors, including stints with the Yankees and Mets, converted to Judaism in 1975. He will be called to the Torah on Monday, Aug. 9, at the NJY Camps in Milford, Penn.

Maddox is working with former Yankee teammate Ron “The Designated Hebrew,” running the camps separate baseball clinics. Blomberg will also speak at the ceremony. That should be interesting.

I have fond memories of Maddox because he was my first cover story for the NJ Jewish News back in 2004, a piece written in conjunction with a Baseball Hall of Fame symposium on “A Celebration of American Jews in America’s Game, 1871-2004.” He was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame that same year.

Here’s that article, for your consideration:

A switch-hitter’s conversion:

Elliott Maddox remembers the pride (and prejudice) as baseball honors Jews’ role in America’s pastime

Born in East Orange in 1947, Elliott Maddox knew two things at a fairly early age: that he had a talent for baseball and that “Judaism was the name given to what my beliefs were.”

“Once I started playing Little League, most of my friends were either Jewish or black,” said Maddox, who grew up in Vauxhall, a predominantly African-American section of Union.

“My first baseball coach was Mr. Shapiro, and I went to his home quite
frequently and played with his sons. By the time I got into high school, I was hearing things about the Jewish faith and came to conclusions about my own inner faith.”

Maddox, an 11-year Major League veteran who converted to Judaism in 1975, will take part in a celebration Aug. 29-30 recognizing the role of Jews in the national pastime at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.

In a telephone interview from his home in Coral Springs, Fla., the former Yankee remembered his journey to Judaism and the role it played in his life. “I had a kid in my homeroom who felt it was his obligation in life to steer me toward Judaism,” said Maddox. “Every day I would hear things from him regarding Judaism versus Christianity. There were days I didn’t even want to go to homeroom just so I could avoid him,” he said, demonstrating the sense of humor that made him popular with teammates and fans.

But his friend must have touched something in the inquisitive Maddox. When he enrolled at the University of Michigan (where he took premed courses before switching to pre-law), one mandatory class proved irksome.

“Probably the last thing I had interest in taking was U.S. history, so I
took Islamic and Judaic history. The more I studied about different
religions, the more I found I had more interest in Judaic history and moved further away from the Christian faith.”

He said that he didn’t change his faith or beliefs that much, “I simply gave it the correct name.”

A member of the college baseball team, Maddox was scouted by Irving “Rabbit” Jacobson of Elizabeth and signed with the Detroit Tigers as their number one pick in the 1968 baseball draft. He made his Major League debut in 1970 as a switch-hitting utilityman, playing both infield and outfield spots. He continued his studies at University of Michigan during the off-season, earning a pre-law degree in 1976.
Despite his success in the Motor City, he was traded to the Washington Senators following his inaugural season and remained with that team when it became the Texas Rangers.

Falling into place

Maddox was traded to the Yankees in 1974. It was at this juncture, after careful consideration, that he took steps to convert formally to Judaism, taking classes with a Conservative rabbi in Queens. “It was difficult, but interesting. But I feel most things that are too easy aren’t worthwhile,” he recalled. When asked why he picked that particular period to begin his studies, he replied in a typical Jewish manner: “Why at that time? Why not at that time?”

He elaborated, however, that everything just fell into place in New York.

“The preceding two years I was playing in Texas. That area was not the place to be studying Judaism. Long-horn steers, yes; the civil war and slavery, yes; but not Judaism.”

His family was supportive in his quest for spiritual identity.

“My parents were religious people, especially my mother. They though it was great that I finally believed in something.”

Maddox said he considers himself a Reform Jew and occasionally attends services, although he is not affiliated with any specific synagogue. He speaks with pride of having been married under a hupa and of his son Jared’s bris.

Maddox has been to Israel twice. His first trip, which he took during his
playing days, holds bittersweet memories for him. On the one hand, visiting sites like Masada and the Western Wall (“mind-boggling”) and other areas was an awe-inspiring experience. On the other hand: “I was there when Jews from Ethiopia were trying to immigrate to Israel to escape the famine, and they weren’t especially welcome. The airport security thought I was from Ethiopia and hassled me quite a bit. It took a few days to get over that.”

Back home, playing in the supposedly enlightened generation after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line, Maddox related incidents of prejudice and anti-Semitism. He mused, however, that “being  a ’shvartzer’ might have worked to my advantage. No one said, ‘Look at that Jew’ — although with my profile and bumpy nose…”

Beyond the typical juvenile locker room banter meant to bond players
together, Maddox observed general occurrences of “anti-Semitism on the field, in the clubhouse, from management. It’s alive and well in a very sick way.”

Ron Blomberg, an Atlanta-born Jewish player, was a teammate during Maddox’s years with the Yankees. One might expect a certain “member of the tribe” affinity, but, Maddox said, “the religion aspect was secondary, not primary. We were friends because we liked each other.”

He was also less than impressed with Baseball Chapel, an international
ministry recognized by Major and Minor League baseball that reaches out to athletes in a way some might consider proselytizing.

“I had problems with it. It was a one-way street, catering to one group. I’m not anti-religion; I’m just for freedom of religion. If you’re going to do something in baseball, in the workplace, in school, make sure it covers all religions. If not, don’t touch it.”

Following a successful four-year stint in the Bronx, Maddox signed as a free agent with the Baltimore Orioles and wound up his playing career with the Mets from 1978 to 1980. After retiring as a player, he coached in the minors for the Yankees at their Florida facility in Ft. Lauderdale and spent the 1990-91 season with the parent club. But the traveling got to be a grind, separating him from his family for too long. When the Yankees relocated their Minor League base to Tampa, he decided he missed being around his children as they grew up. He quit and worked for several years as a counselor for troubled youths in
Florida –  “end-of-the-road kids,” as he called them — but left that position to raise his son as a single parent (he also has two daughters from a previous marriage). With Jared leaving for college in the fall, Maddox said he looks forward to resuming a career in baseball. He has been in discussion with the Florida Marlins for a front office position, (“kenahora,” he invoked) when the team’s new stadium is approved.
In 1997 he was honored for his contributions with induction into the Union County Baseball Hall of Fame.

In the meantime, Maddox said, he has plans to head to Romania in the near future to help start up a youth baseball program there. He made a similar trip in 1989, when he traveled with President George H.W. Bush to deliver official Little League charters to Polish leader Lech Walesa.

“I was in Poland right after they broke away from the influence of the
Soviet Union, a key period in history,” he said proudly.

Originally published here.

NEW YORK (JTA) — After months of fits and starts, advocates for Ethiopian aliyah are hoping that a visit to the African country this week by Israel’s minister of immigrant absorption will help set in motion a process that will bring some 7,500 additional Ethiopians to Israel.

So far, the Israeli government has committed to checking only 1,800 of them for aliyah eligibility and bringing those who qualify to Israel.

But advocates for Ethiopian aliyah want a total of 8,700 Ethiopians checked for eligibility — all those they say have been waiting in the Ethiopian city of Gondar and are part of a list compiled in 1999 of potential immigrants. These advocates have been pressing their cause with Israeli government officials.

“It could either be done by a Cabinet resolution or the Knesset could adopt legislation,” said Joseph Feit, a leading board member at the North American Conference for Ethiopian Jewry, or NACOEJ, the U.S. Jewish group that has been leading the campaign for Ethiopian immigration. “The hope is the government will adopt a resolution and the legislation forcing the issue will not be necessary.”

NACOEJ has led a campaign for the 8,700 Ethiopians for about three years and, before them, for tens of thousands of other Ethiopians who have immigrated to Israel since the early 1990s. That’s when Israel began accepting Falash Mura — Ethiopians claiming to be descendants of Jews who converted to Christianity generations ago or claiming to have links to such people, but who now seek to return to Judaism and immigrate to Israel.

The Israeli government has declared an official end to mass Ethiopian immigration several times. Each time, however, aliyah from Ethiopia resumed after pressure by advocates convinced a key government official — usually the prime minister — to reopen the gates.

After the most recent declared ending of Ethiopian aliyah, in August 2008, it took a few months for the Olmert government to reverse course and agree to check the aliyah eligibility of 3,000 additional Ethiopians. Since then, some 1,200 Ethiopians have been brought to Israel.

In May 2009, the Netanyahu government affirmed that once all 3,000 were checked, Ethiopian aliyah would be over.

But now advocates say they are close to reversing that decision, too.

Thanks to aggressive lobbying by NACOEJ and its supporters, the number of Israeli officials and lawmakers who support an increase is growing. In recent weeks Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which is responsible for immigration to the country, has endorsed NACOEJ’s position, calling for Israel to examine the eligibility of all 8,700 would-be petitioners in Gondar and speedily bring them on aliyah so Israel can end mass Ethiopian immigration.

“The aliyah from Ethiopia must be completed,” said the director of the Jewish Agency’s immigration and absorption department, Eli Cohen, who works with Sharansky and accompanied Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver on her trip to Ethiopia this week. “The time has come to complete the mission. The longer we wait, it will not be solved. It will get more complicated.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who attended a ceremony at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport the last time he was prime minister, in 1998, welcoming what his government said was the last planeload of Ethiopian immigrants — has yet to approve an expansion of the list to 8,700.

But in the meantime, the Jewish Agency and NACOEJ have revived an agreement reached more than five years ago but never implemented under which the Jewish Agency would take over NACOEJ’s aid compounds in Gondar and bring all remaining eligible Ethiopians to Israel. The NACOEJ compounds, which provide schooling and some employment and food aid, have been blamed for providing an incentive for Ethiopians of all stripes to congregate in Gondar and claim links to Israel.

Under the agreement, NACOEJ would shutter the compounds and cease all operations in Ethiopia once the last of the eligible Ethiopians is brought on aliyah.

Now the job is to convince the prime minister, Feit said.

“Everybody’s on board,” Feit told JTA. “The 8,700 people in Gondar have been waiting there from two to 10 years. Even if more people come down from the villages, they won’t be allowed to make aliyah. It’s a closed list.”

Part of what makes the immigration from Ethiopia so complicated are the special circumstances surrounding the Falash Mura.

Unlike the Ethiopian Jews who made aliyah in Operations Moses in 1984 and Operation Solomon in 1991, the Falash Mura, whose ancestors converted to Christianity, did not maintain Jewish customs and were not identifiably Jewish. Until they left their villages, many practiced Christianity, had crosses tattooed on their foreheads and did not know what being Jewish was.

In 1991, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir decided they were not Jews and kept them off the planes during Operation Solomon. Subsequent Israeli governments reversed that policy, but due to the difficulty of finding evidentiary proof of their Jewish lineage, the Falash Mura were brought to Israel under the Law of Entry, a humanitarian measure aimed at family reunification. Other immigrants come to Israel under the Law of Return, which guarantees the right of Israeli citizenship to anyone with a Jewish grandparent, including Ethiopians.

Numerous officials involved in Ethiopian aliyah — from Jewish Agency officials working in Ethiopia to Israeli interior ministers in Jerusalem — have questioned the legitimacy of the 8,700 people, 1,200 of whom are already in Israel. Sounding a common refrain among critics of the Falash Mura aliyah, they have described the aliyah petitioners remaining in Ethiopia as mostly Christian Ethiopians deceptively claiming Jewish links and adopting Jewish observances in a bid to escape Africa’s desperate poverty for the relative comfort of the Jewish state.

Though the Israeli Rabbinate has determined that the Falash Mura have Jewish roots and should be welcomed back to the faith, critics say the Ethiopians left in Gondar are masquerading as Falash Mura.

That criticism, and concerns over the cost of absorbing the immigrants, has held up implementation of government decisions to bring Falash Mura to Israel — including the government’s decision to check 3,000 Ethiopians from among the 8,700 in Gondar.

Before Landver’s trip this week, which was organized by the Jewish Agency, the minister of immigrant absorption told The Jerusalem Post that she hoped her visit to Ethiopia would help her better understand the issues.

“Once I have seen what is going on, then I will be better equipped to sit with the prime minister and discuss what the goal of the Israeli government is regarding this aliyah and what exactly should be done,” Landver told the newspaper. “I have already sat with many organizations that either advocate for or against this aliyah, with kessim [Ethiopian religious leaders] and many more experts. I just want to create my own opinion on this complicated topic.”

Originally published here:

it was exactly a year ago tonight that MaNishtana was first born.

a ninth of av where instead of sitting around and bemoaning not only the past, but the present as well, i decided to try and actually do something about it. and since then there’s been the talks in philly, the interview with bechol lashon, the spot at jewcy.com, a ton of comments, some youtube videos, and my recently acquired and unnervingly uncanny ability to now be spotted in the most random of places by the most random of ppl.[like in a random turkish bar in an obscure location of williamsburg at 1:00 in the morning].

for a second, i really thought i mightve been accomplishing something.

then came the jewish multiracial network retreat. it was awesome. mindblowing even. at a point during one of the workshops, i zoned out and looked around at the roomfull of these typically “black” and  “urbanly” dressed ppl and had a “holy crap! everyone here is jewish!” moment.

lovely.

when it was over, and i was back home, i was strutting around the city WISHING someone would look at me crosswise. id’ve punched a horse in the face just to fight the cop riding it. THATS how pumped i was…and then came the crash…the somber sobering realization that, after having spent an entire weekend with jews who looked like me, didnt question me, who i didnt have to fight or prove myself to, after a weekend of being “just jewish” and “just black” and “just me” all rolled into one, after a weekend of having and wholly being part of an actual COMMUNITY…after all that i was home…and realized that i didnt actually have ANY of that in real life…

and thats when i was ready to hang it all up. i felt like id been playing at revolutionary. b/c id really had no concept of what it was i was fighting for, what it was i wanted to exist. and once id had the merest taste of it, i was suddenly struck with how far that goal is and how massive a task it was i was trying to chew at. its like i was fighting for a right to swim in a lake only to get there and realize it was an ocean.

but then luckily i discovered that in a way i still DID have a community. not as close or accessible as it’d been that weekend, but still there. and im really grateful for those ppl who were there to talk me down from the metaphorical roof [you know who you are and i love you guys].

so here i am, a year older, a year wiser, and with a more concrete goal than id ever dreamt of having a year ago, and with a more acute sense of the 9th of av than i did a year ago as well.

so its time to kick things up a notch.

with this post, im closing shop here at wordpress. but im not going away. in fact, im moving over to MaNishtana.net. come join me. read the blogs, watch the videos just a tab away, check out the store on the front page, join the MaNishtana community, join a group, create a group, rsvp to an event.

MaNishtana.net is the ultimate blogging one-stop shop. interested in conversion? there’s a group for that. have a crazy question about jews you want answered? just post it in the forum! are you a joc looking for love? then check out jocflock, the dating site for jews of color thats a feature right there. looking to just hang around and chat? just join and click on the chat tab. [its in the same place it is on fb, so it isnt even hard to find!] want some MaNishtana merchandise? feel free to shop at what in my humble opinion is the funniest store on the web.want to know what other jocs are out there? click on the who’s who tab.

im moving ppl. come along from the ride

–MaNishtana

Originally published here.