Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men attended a rally Sunday at the New York Mets’ stadium on the dangers of the Internet and how to use modern technology in a religiously responsible way.

Women were not permitted to attend the meeting at Citi Field in Queens. However, it was broadcast live to audiences of women in schools and event halls in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. The event garnered so much interest that organizers rented the nearby Arthur Ashe Stadium for the overflow crowd. [Read More]

When I learned about conservative Judaism was the downfall of my respect for the religion (and only the religion). The misogyny hit deeply. I considered myself a feminist long before I became a self-proclaimed atheist. The event of learning more about “my religion” was a merging of the two (yet I still didn’t use the term “atheist” for a bit of time).

In any case, the idea of internet rules is something many of us fight tooth and nail against. With the plethora of congressional bills that have either died or are slowly working their ways around, one thing has become clear: people on the internet hate rules for the internet.

We can moderate ourselves. We don’t need religious groups dictating what we can and cannot view.

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Via CNN’s Belief Blog:

At a party this weekend celebrating New York Design Week, which begins today, the Chilean-born artist plans to hand out 100 “Christian Popsicles” made of “frozen holy wine transformed into the blood of Christ” and featuring a crucifix instead the tongue depressor that typically hosts the frozen treats, he said.

An image of Jesus Christ positioned traditionally on the cross is visible once the ice pop is consumed. As for the frozen wine, Errazuriz said, he concealed it in a cooler and took it into a church, where it was “inadvertently blessed by the priest while turning wine into the blood of Christ during the Eucharist.”

Errazuriz will hand out the wine creations on Saturday at Gallery R’Pure in Manhattan’s Flatiron District before the “Love It or Leave it” exhibit.

The phrase “inadvertently blessed” does make me chuckle.

Wine popsicles? I can see those taking off on their own.

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From The New York Times:

The first shock came when Mordechai Jungreis learned that his mentally disabled teenage son was being molested in a Jewish ritual bathhouse in Brooklyn. The second came after Mr. Jungreis complained, and the man accused of the abuse was arrested.

Old friends started walking stonily past him and his family on the streets of Williamsburg. Their landlord kicked them out of their apartment. Anonymous messages filled their answering machine, cursing Mr. Jungreis for turning in a fellow Jew. And, he said, the mother of a child in a wheelchair confronted Mr. Jungreis’s mother-in-law, saying the same man had molested her son, and she “did not report this crime, so why did your son-in-law have to?”

The moral fiber of a community strives for its people to feel safe from predators of all types. Mental and physical well being of children (but, really, all people) should be of the utmost importance. The safety of children needs to be considered. In some religious communities, it is not. We’ve all heard of priests molesting boys so much, it’s the butt of many jokes. This reminds me of this poorly executed Catholic group’s logo: 

All silliness aside, the Catholic molestation cases are prevalent in our minds but not so much the Jewish ones. Whether or not this is only happening in a handful of communities, the problem is that this is happening at all. Sometimes “keeping to themselves” becomes a hefty issue that the larger society must sort out.

Pearl Engelman, a 64-year-old great-grandmother, also noted that the community has failed her.

In 2008, her son, Joel, told rabbinical authorities that he had been repeatedly groped as a child by a school official at the United Talmudical Academy in Williamsburg. The school briefly removed the official but denied the accusation. And when Joel turned 23, too old to file charges under the state’s statute of limitations, they returned the man to teaching.

…

“There is no nice way of saying it,” Mrs. Engelman said. “Our community protects molesters. Other than that, we are wonderful.”

[Read More]

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“Standing Silent” is a new documentary by Phil Jacobs. It uncovers the ritual abuse in an Orthodox Jewish community in Baltimore, Maryland. Jacobs went on a quest to uncover the stories from the sexual abuse survivors.

The Washington Post has a piece on it. It’s very moving.

One by one the victims stood and described their alleged molesters: the Torah teacher, the rabbi, the ice cream truck driver, the man at the mikvah.

That meeting, held nearly six years ago in a small room in a synagogue in Pikes­ville, just outside Baltimore, went on for four hours. Seated in a circle with the other victims was Phil Jacobs, a Baltimore Jewish Times journalist. He was not there as a reporter. He was there because he, too, had experienced sexual abuse.

…

“Standing Silent” was filmed between 2007 and 2010, with a three-person crew that traveled with Jacobs through Baltimore’s suburbs and to Israel, eventually recording more than 125 hours of video, much of it interviews with victims and alleged perpetrators.

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There is a gallery of a few still from the movie. You can view the “Standing Silent” gallery here. I’m unsure where to actually watch the film. Or when it’s coming out.

In any case, there’s also Survivors for Justice.

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One Iranian writes: “We are 2 civilizations with more than 2,500 years of friendship. Why should I hate Israel?”

With the war drums between Israel and Iran beating at a fevered pace, an Israeli couple has launched an online campaign with the hope of reaching out on a personal level to the people of Iran.

Ronny Edry, 41, said that he and his partner Michal Tamir, 35, both graduates of Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, created the poster campaign last Thursday on something of a lark, with no idea that within days it would take on a life of its own.

[Source]

I don’t know if ordinary citizens promises really hold up but it’s a nice thought. Visit Israel Loves Iran.

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CNN:

A teacher was gunned down along with his two children at a Jewish school in southern France Monday, while the director of the school saw his daughter shot and killed in front of him, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a somber appearance at the school.

It is the third time in the past 10 days that a gunman on a motorcycle has fired on members of ethnic minorities in the southwest of France. Authorities believe the cases are linked, and a court in Paris has opened an investigation under anti-terrorism powers.

Monday’s killing of four people at Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse was a “national tragedy,” Sarkozy said. He called for a minute’s silence in French schools on Tuesday.

The gunman pulled up in front of the Jewish school just before 8 a.m. and started shooting, authorities said.

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A commenter on YouTube, dummychaos, puts it this way, “Bill O’Reilly brings out the worst from people. He’s pretty good at that.”

Here’s the original video from The O’Reilly Factor:

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This historic case has inspired hundreds of other Israelis to get divorced from the Jewish religion. Israel is 15-37% atheist, so this comes as no surprise. The less religious people are in the middle east, the greater the chances are for an end the violence. If only more people of “Muslim” countries came out as atheists (or nonreligious), we could be closer that goal.

Kaniuk’s case has been celebrated as a victory for separation of state and religion in Israel. Actually, he may have fought the wrong battle. The court decision gives people more freedom to define themselves, but only according to predetermined categories. The division of Jewish ethnicity and religion is an embarrassingly simple bureaucratic distinction in place of the mixed up identities of real Jewish life—the kind of complications on which a novelist should thrive.

That said, the Kaniuk case has its benefits. It sheds light, for instance, on how Americans and Israelis misunderstand each other when they use the word Jew. And it helps show that the current Israeli government’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state is silly.

I’ve never liked the idea of a “Jewish state” because I don’t like the idea of any religion having it’s own state.

Israel doesn’t need a Palestinian stamp of approval to be a Jewish state. Nor does it need the registration system that Kaniuk used to voice his anger. It needs only a majority that considers itself Jewish in one not-quite-consistent way or another and that has the freedom to conduct a roiling, constant argument about Jewish culture. If Kaniuk’s suit reminds the rest of the tribe of how messy the issue of Jewish identity is, how unsuited it is for sharp delineations, he will have performed a service. [Read More.]

I wonder if this will, in fact, mix up any political happenings in regards to Judaism as an ethnicity rather than a religion.

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