'Ben Salomo Means the Son of Peace'

'Du, Jude' is a depreciative word in German. I've heard it exchanged more between teenagers of different backgrounds in different parts of Berlin, including the high-end Western side neighbourhoods.

I am referring to a reality of the 2000s, the time when I started my German experiences, and also had enough language knowledge to grasp different nuances and jargon.

In his autobiographical book - in German - the Israeli-born rapper Ben Salomo - Jonathan Kalmanovich - witnesses his experience as he landed in Schöneberg's Berlin in the 1980s, as a small child. The dream of the perfect multicultural understanding was shattered once he entered the teenage years, as his football companions coming from different backgrounds started to ask THE QUESTION: 'Where are you coming from?'. The friendships suddenly turned into a fight - yes, that real physical fight - for survival. 

And the story goes on. He created the popular Rap am Mittwoch/Rap on Wednesday events where various hip-hop artists had the chance to play. Himself, he built up a musical brand focused on spreading understanding and peace - Ben Salomo means in Hebrew the 'son of peace' - and his songs are sharing stories about what does it mean to live in Germany, to be Jewish and how to take on religious belief - very light, bitte.

The hip-hop landscape in Germany is not race neutral and anti-semitism is often rampant and sometimes also rewarded. The popularity such rappers enjoy explain maybe why Jewish children are often beaten and bullied in German state school - and in private ones as well, as recently happened in the famous JFK. The fact that this situation is taking place for decades and only gets more visibility because of social media, doesn't change the fact that proper education and pro-active measures failed to be taken.

Who known, maybe rap can change something...

Women and Hanukka

There are a lot of discussions lately regarding if the women are allowed or not to light the Hanukka candles. Some apparently ruled out of nowhere that the role of the women is just to be an extension of their husbands therefore, they have to be part of the event only. 

True is that usually in the Askenazi households there is the minhag (tradition) to do not light the candles, although ironically there is a Hanukiah for each member of the family (not the case by the Oriental Jews).

However, more than a minhag, it is not. According to Gemara (Shabbat 23a), women have the obligation to light the candles, according to the principle of af hein hayn b'oto ha-neis (they were also part of the miracle). They can light for the others as well as to fill the role of lighting it on behalf of the man. Lightning the candles per se is not a personal obligation, but it derives from the general obligation that each household should have a candle lit (ner ish u'berto). When there is no man in the house, a woman can do it. By extension, a woman has the same right as a man to light the candles, although traditionally - the various reform movements do have a completely different take on it - they are excepted from time-bound obligations (like, for instance, praying with a minyan - the minimum 10-men quorum requested for the prayers).

Chag HaBanot

There is another tradition associated with Hanukka which has the women in their center. The Jewish communities from the North African area - Algeria, Libya, Tunisia - do celebrate on the 1st of Tevet chag habanot - the festival of women. It fell on the 7th night of Hanukka and it involves dance, a feast as well as ceremonies aimed at passing down inheritances. If you had some disagreement with another woman, this is the right moment to make peace between each other.

This festival takes place on the first day of the new month - Rosh Chodesh - which customary represent an opportunity for women to gather and celebrate. As it also involves Hanukka celebration, it has a double meaning.

Chag HaBanot - which given its 'feminine' significance is reshuffled recently within the reform communities - started to be celebrated since the Middle Ages and it is held in the honour of Judith/Yehudit, which is also celebrated on the occasion of Hanukka. 

Judith, the daughter of Yohanan, the high priest, seduced the very cruel Assyrian general Holofornes who sieged the city of Betul  - situated nowadays between Jerusalem and Hebron. She served him cheese and red wine and when he fell asleep, she severed his head which was displayed on the walls, discouraging the Assyrian armies who disangaged and the ciy was saved.

On Chag HaBanot one serves cheese, special round cakes - eventually baked by men, crescent-shaped cookies and date-coconut balls.

The current trends/fashions aiming at excluding women from the public Orthodox space are becoming heretic. You don't have to declare yourself modern or emancipated in order to survive, you just have to turn to the complexity of the Jewish law and read them using the knowledge not the limited outlook of a fanatic heart. 

Book Review: Becoming Eve by Abby Chava Stein

What are the successful literary ingredients of a successfull newly emerging OTD - off the derech, leaving the fold - literature (especially memoir)? Add some details about how insular and inadequate according to the standards of the 21st century those Hasidic Jews are living, include a spicy detail about arranged marriages (which happen in other traditional non-Jewish communities as well), don't forget to mention some hard-core information about the lack of sexual education and the family purity laws. If you have some references to the Kabbalah, so popular for all the wrong reasons, you can call it a recie for success.

The non-religious Jewish and non-Jewish audiences will easily roll their eyes while enjoying to have once again a confirmation of their deep doubts about 'very' religious Jews. 

On the OTD literature shelf, Becoming Eve. My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman by the very active Abby Chava Stein is unique because it deals with the first transgender ex-Hassid featured in a book. 'A beautiful, traumatic, loving, angry, obedient, rebellious journey'. 

However, exactly this transition part is last featured in the book, covering around 40 from the 300 pages. The rest is covering in the small details the daily school and yeshiva program, the intensive 'sexual education' program received before marriage and other exotic details about Hasidic families, for instance the dispute regarding the colour of tights her mother was expected to wear in order to respect the modesty standards in her father's family. 

The fact that will lead to the decision of finally coming out as a woman is confirmed many times during the story, with reference to memories as early as of 3 years old. Through hypnosis, maybe it is possible to have such recollections from such an age.

Personally, I was waiting for this memoir for months, but probably I had too many expectations. 

Descending from the line of Besht, the founder of Hasidism, Abby Chava Stein belongs to the Hasidic royalty, whose representatives 'have to be role models, (...) have to be careful with everything (...)'. From her early school years, Abbi Chava Stein challenged the learning system and the chore of faith itself. So bad that probably a lot from her story got lost due to various commercial reasons probably. I hope there will be a continuation of some kind of this memoir.

As for now, my favorite OTD memoir is Leah Vincent's for the dramatic introspection and insights about what it really means the deep loneliness of leaving your community and starting a completely new life. Some outsiders will clap their hands extatically and praise the move, but how it really is only the person doing it really knows. 

A New Research Path in Studies about Hasidism

After reading several (meaning good dozen) of books about Hasidism, one may realize after a short while that the content is becoming repetitive. There are inevitably information about the history of the movement, outlines of the founders and famous dynasties (Satmer and Chabad especially, as they are by far the most successful; too much Chabad though in my humble opinion). Some unique information revealed in well-kept archives of various groups is what differentiates one book from the other. 

Historical Atlas of Hasidism has a completely different type of perspective. It has maps focused on various dynamics and trends, from the structure of the courts to the circulation of petitions and migrations and resettlements after WWII. 

'Hasidism has been conditioned by the spatial characteristics of the movement, not only in its social organization, but also in its spiritual life, type of religious leadership, or cultural articulation. And it is possible to capture this dimension of Hasidism with maps'. Such an approach is a welcomed changed of shift which may help seize trends and mentality patterns, as well as aspects of the material culture that previous studies neglected or were unable to understand.

Rightly, the author mentions among the limitations of the research in this field:  the predominance of intellectual history which neglects economic, social, cultural or political histories; an inadequate use of sources of non-Hasidic origin (particularly if not in Hebrew or Yiddish); a chronological focus on the early stages of the movement; esentialist and ahistorical approaches when it comes to what is and what is not Hasidism.

The focus on geography and classifications in general may lead to uncovering very interesting aspects on Hasidic life in Central and Eastern Europe but also allows regional identifications of trends and mentalities. 

Compared to the richness of information contained in the maps, the texts are not necessarily outstanding and repeat basic information about the various movements and dynasties found elsewhere. In one particular case when mentioning the 'Romanian features' - not detailed - of dynasties like Nadvorna or Vizhnitz - both named for localities that actually do not belong necessarily to the Romanian-administrative space, the author omits completely to offer well-deserved explanations of any kind.

Personally, this book helped me a lot in my future researches on Hasidism and hopefully will be able to go more into depth research.

The Most Efficient Way to Fight Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism has a long history that will never end. It only change faces and manifestations, but the profile of the actors stays mostly the same, both on the right and the left.

I was looking to read How to Fight Anti-Semitism not waiting to discover anything new, but curious about exactly what the title say. After all, some compare it to infamous 1930s, but the tools we have at our disposal are different. Also, there is something else that was not before, called the state of Israel, where the Jews can be protected when there is no safe haven left.

And what a lesson of fight this book is! Without being apologetic, without forgetting the difficulties the Israeli democracy is going through, without leaving behind any single aspect of religious Jewish life and identity.

This book resonates completely or partially with the experience of many Jews in Europe and America: keeping your identity hidden, even change your name for being left alone in your anonymity, hiding your religious identity signs (kippa, Magen David, tzitzit) for avoiding being aggressed, keeping quiet about what one thinks about Israel by fear of not being labelled 'Zionist'. From the right to the left, strong identities, which set apart from the majority are considered dangerous and treated accordingly. But how was it in the time of Queen Esther, the assimilated Jew at the Persian court who saved the murder of fellow Jews from Haman who couldn't stand them staying apart?

When you know who you are, you know what you are fighting for. This is how anti-Semitism is fought, with the mild yet sharp weapon of knowledge and education. Educate your critical thinking and be able to express your concerns in a reliable, coherent way. It is about time that more and more people give up the mentalitiy of the woman being raped accused for being her fault because dressed immodestly.

The 'how to' part takes only one chapter from the book - which I had in audio format, narrated by the author, but to be honest, even without this otherwise important chapter it's obvious how exactly one can fight anti-Semitism. I've seen reviews mentioning that the book fails to mention how to do that fight. Wrong. If at least once, or twice, or many times you've been victim of anti-Semitism you can easily figure out what it is all about. The story is already there. A story that concerns both Jews and non-Jews, Christians and Muslims. They always start with the Jews, but rarely ended with them.

A Jewish Mystery with a Talmudic Touch

Rabbi Small is one rabbi of a kind, working for over a year in the 'temple' in Massachusetts, for a couple of hundreds of Jewish families.When he was in the middle of the discussions about the renewal of his contract, an attractive young blonde babysitter was found dead on the synagogue's lover lane and her bag in the rabbi's car.

The first from the 12 series built around Rabbi Small, Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman was published in 1964 and received the Edgar Award for Best First Novel one year later. 

For me, this was my first encounter with the rabbi and it was a pleasant lecture. It is a classical mystery novel, with hints spread long before the crime was committed, with a simple narrative and relatively easy going characters - both the bad and the good ones. The solution to the crime is highly unexpected, with couple of fake possible culprits dismissed during the search, but makes logically sense.

Additionally, there is the talmudic touch of the story, which makes it into a Jewish mystery. The Rabbi, a learned man deeply immersed into his learning and disregarding the need of building up alliances among the synagogue board members, uses his bright mind and talmudic knowledge to judge and find the murder. Compared to other religious chiefs - like the Catholic and Protestant priests - through judgment can a rabbi help the larger society in the middle of which he is living (not by blessing yachts for instance). But there are some ugly faces to the co-existence - which by the way are still surviving in the 21st century America: once the rabbi was counted among the suspects, there is a group of 'idiots of the village' - we'll call them 'alt-right' nowadays - calling him and his wife throwing up nauseous anti-Semitic attacks and even painting a red swastika on their door. The ways in which the Jews are seen by the majority is a matter of concern for the board of the 'temple' which makes sense anywhere in the diaspora.

I enjoyed this mystery and would love to read all the books from the series. Rabbi Small is a very relatable person to deal with.