Wednesday 30 January 2013

It will be now, not never

It will be very counter-productive to start dropping names. Perhaps because the list is not clear at all and there are so many things to be clarified that starting a discussion right now about how done and who covered and why they were covered is too risky.

But the victims know very well who they are, who made them suffer for life and tempted to destroy their soul. Some of the predators and abusers dared to give lessons about who is and not off derek. But it is too late: the victims waited for so long till at least justice will be done; and they, the predators did too much for being allowed to continue. It does not matter who they are, how old, wise and how many teshuvas they wrote or how many people are davening in their shuls. Those - many of them - who did not get intoxicated by their lies and corrupted way of being don't care about any excuses. And telling that the goyim will disregard us is another huge piece of lie: keeping the monsters in is the biggest danger for our communities. 

Trying to hide their facts - because they are the son of the famous x rabbi or belong to the prestigious x family - is not an excuse. All those who nurtured the rings of abusers and rapists and paedophiles should pay. This may be our chance to go to the path of the shalom bayis into our big house. We have enough to see all the pain they created to innocent souls. 

Sunday 13 January 2013

All you need is motivation

I knew that this will happen one day or another. I was warned as well, but besides it, I feel it I am about to go through this messiness as welll. Nothing extremely wrong, but enough messages in the last 48 hours for a serious wake-up call. I was about to forget reading my kapitels, not too much learning in the last weeks or when I did, I was quite absentminded, hasty reading of the parasha, without too much concentration, arriving a bit late in shul, saying some brachos completely inert, reminding a second before eating the cheese sandwich that it is not the time to do so after the chulent. The tzedakka for the last month was meagre, despite a relative improvement of the financial situation. 

I know there are not transgressions as such, but it is a certain fatigue that may be understandable at the end of a certain stage of development, but worrisome if the leniencies are not prevented by serious communal involvement and more learning.  Everything is going fabulous, in fact, but there is a certain routine that is replaced by new rules and schedule and priorities going in the same direction but sometimes any drop of mediocrity could endanger the stability of system set to fight only for the best. At least I don't have to fight laziness. Yet.

Saturday 5 January 2013

The mitzva of saving the Jews from Yemen

Yemen’s dwindling Jewish community faces extinction | j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California

Shabbat reading

It was a good Shabbos for reading, following a couple of days in a row when I did nothing else but reading and writing from time to time. I still have a lot of reviews from the last year to finish and tons - not a stylistic poetry, but the raw reality of my reading life lately - of reviews to be done, but be'H will be done sooner than expected.

The first choice was an interesting book of comparative literature regarding the relation between Poles and Jews through the eyes of the authors from the end of the 19th, century: Poles and Jews, a Failed Brotherhood, part of the series of the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry Series

I continued with Gil Yaron's trips where I found some interesting ideas for interviews, but did not like the angle so, I will rate this book with only two modest stars. I wasn't extremely impressed by the next book either, a collection of academic essays with a stereotypical title: Judentum zwischen Tradition und Moderne (Judaism, between Tradition and Modernity). Some interesting ideas about synagogal architecture and various details about the Jewish life in Germany through academic eyes. 
The best choice was almost at the end of Shabbos, when I started to read Tropical diaspora: The Jewish experience in Cuba. A book not only rich in illustration, but who's offering a lot of inspiration for one of my projects in process about Jewish communities around the world, especially in places where we, in the Western galut, do not have any idea that it may be any trace of Jewish life. I've read already 1/4 of it and will continue the lecture once I log off from blogger.


Shavua tov!

Wednesday 2 January 2013

Judah Touro, the American philantrophist


19th of Tevet, yesterday, marked the yahrtzeit of a special person, the American Jewish philanthropist Judah Touro (1775-1854). His good deeds were so impressive and an example to follow for the next generations. On his tombstone, it is written that he is inscribed in “the Book of Philanthropy, to be remembered forever.”

Source: Wikipedia
Touro’s childhood was marked of poverty. He grew up in Newport, Rhode Island, as the son of Isaac Touro, hazzan of the Sephardic synagogue in Newport. During the revolutionary war, his family was on the part of the British troops and they eventually relocated to Kingston, Jamaica, where Isaac Touro died in 1783, when Judah was 8. His mother,Reyna, moved to Boston where her brother, Moses Michael Hays was living. Four years later, Judah’s mother died and the children were raised and taught the Jewish traditions by Hays. They also got a basic training in international commercial ventures, the main occupation of the Hays. Moses Hays was the founder of first Boston’s bank.

It is not clear why Judah moved to New Orleans. Some will say that it was a love story at stake, as he was not allowed to marry his first cousin, Catherine Hays. What it is sure is that Touro was never able to marry. In New Orleans, he took all the advantages of the economic boom taking place in the city at the beginning of the 19th century, following the acquisition of the city by the US. Touro fought under the command of gen. Andrew Jackson and was severely wounded in the battle of 1815, but he survived and dedicated a significant amount of time to his businesses. His successes never made him forget how he started in life and invested with measure. "I have saved a fortune by strict economy, while others had spent one by their liberal expenditures.", is he quoted saying. For instance, he never mortgaged his properties to finance other ventures. He sold various products – such as candles, fish and soaps – to England.

He invested in a variety of cases. He started by dedicating impressive amounts of money to non-Jewish causes, as the building of a Catholic cathedral, some Protestant churches and the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston which was completed thanks to his money, but also to local libraries. Later on, under the influence of Gershom Kursheedt and Rabbi Isaac Lesser from Philadelphia, he understood the importance of the everyday challenges of the Jewish life. Thus, he contributed to the creation of the Sephardi synagogue Nefuzoth Yehuda in New Orleans where he attended the service regularly. He also provided money for the religious school, the purchase of land for the cemetery as well as the daily management of the congregation. He was also the founder of the Jewish local hospital, the Touro Infirmary, that will be the biggest free hospital in Louisiana.

After his death, he donated $100,000 to Jewish causes in New Orleans, and another $150,000 for Jewish congregations from the US. For instance, thanks to his money the old Newport synagogue where his father was a hazzan was reopened. An amount of $60,000 was sent to the poor Jews living in the then Palestine. He donated $20,000 to the Jews Hospital in New York City, currently Mount Sinai Hospital. Part of the funding was dedicated to some non-Jewish health institutions. In 1970, the Touro College, created in the New York State is meant to honor the name of the family and the transmit the inspiration of Judah’s good deeds.
According to the testimonies of the time, he is one of the first Jews ever who donated so much money for such a diversity of causes.

Sources:

Tuesday 1 January 2013

Top 10 anti-Semitic incidents of 2012

There are many others, but those ten were the most outrageous.

Let's hope and work for having less hate in the next 12 months!