Jewish Studies

Honoring the diversity in two distinct but linked communities

Anonymous — Thu, 16 May 2024 22:35:48 +0000

Honoring the diversity in two distinct but linked communities Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 05/16/2024 - 16:35

Samira Mehta

Asian Jewish Americans have a double reason to celebrate their heritage in May

May is both Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Jewish American Heritage Month. Two entirely separate commemorations for two entirely separate communities, right?

Think again. Not only do Asian American Jews exist, but we come from a variety of places and come to Judaism in a range of ways.

Centuries of history

Some Asian American Jews come from long-standing Jewish communities in Asia. The two most famous of these are the Kaifeng Jews of the Henan Province in China and the Jewish communities of India.

Samira Mehta is director of the Program in Jewish Studies and an assistant professor of women and gender studies at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder.

Today, the Kaifeng Jews are a tiny number of people to which very few, if any, Chinese American Jews trace their heritage. The community likely arrived in China from India or Persia around 1000 C.E. and probably had about 5,000 people at its peak.

Indian Jews, however, are another matter. In fact, they consist of three separate communities: The Bene Israel, the Jews of Cochin and the Baghdadi Jews. Each arrived in India at different moments – with the Baghdahi community being the most recent – and therefore their traditions sometimes differ. For instance, the Jews of Cochin are known for their musical traditions, and the Bene Israel give particular importance to the Prophet Elijah.

In 2020, there were about 4,800 Jews in India, but almost 85,000 Jews with Indian roots live in Israel and a few hundred in the United States.

Indian Jewish communities have distinct cultures that come from living in a majority Hindu and Muslim society. Indian American Jewish artist Siona Benjamin, for example, creates art that fuses her American and Jewish identities with her Indian childhood – “inspired by both Indian miniature paintings and Jewish and Christian illuminated manuscripts,” as the Brooklyn Museum described her work. Figures in her paintings are often blue, reminiscent of Hindu depictions of incarnations of Vishnu, and they include images of lotus flowers.

Multiple heritages

Many other Asian American Jews are children of one Jewish parent and one non-Jewish Asian parent – like Angela Buchdahl, the Korean American rabbi of New York City’s Central Synagogue. Buchdahl has an Ashkenazi Jewish father, meaning that his ancestors came from Central or Eastern Europe, and a Korean Buddhist mother.

Raised in a synagogue that her Jewish grandparents helped to found, Buchdahl has written and spoken publicly about the pain that she experienced as a teen and young adult when she was the only Asian person in Jewish spaces. At other times, she was not recognized as Jewish – for instance, by the Chabad rabbis on her undergraduate campus.

She has also talked about moments when her family blended their heritages. During Passover, for example, the traditional plate for the Seder meal includes “maror”: bitter herbs to remind Jews of the pain of slavery. Many families use horseradish, but one year, Buchdahl’s mother swapped in kimchee.

When the rabbi appeared on the PBS program “Finding Your Roots,” she talked about the resonances that she sees between Jewish and Korean Buddhist culture, such as respect for elders and education.

It is this type of experience – growing up the child of an interfaith, interracial marriage – that sociologists Helen Kim and Noah Leavitt focus on in their 2016 book “JewAsian,” the first major study of Asian American Jews.

‘You’re Jewish?’

Other Asian American Jews were adopted into Jewish families, most of whom are white and Ashkenazi – an experience studied by the Adoption and Jewish Identity Project. Many families raising Asian American Jewish children face challenges that are shared with other transracial adoptive families, such as adoptive parents not knowing much, at least initially, about their child’s culture of origin.

A Jewish man lights a lamp inside the Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue in Mumbai, India, after restoration work in 2019. (Photo: AP/Rajanish Kakade)

Some challenges, however, are more unique, such as the reality that Hebrew School and Chinese School are often at the same time. In fact, in my hometown when I was growing up, they were at the same time and in the same place, such that there was a Hebrew School-Chinese School car pool – but also such that no one could participate fully in both programs.

In addition, Asian Jewish adoptees and other Jews of color face assumptions from many white Jews that Jews of color are not Jewish or are converts. Usually, children adopted into Jewish families do undergo a formal conversion. They grow up in Jewish homes, as familiar – or not – with Jewish traditions as people born into Judaism.

Converting to Judaism

Some Asian American Jews are adult converts to Judaism, like SooJi Min-Maranda, the Korean American executive director of Aleph: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal, a movement that trains and ordains Jewish leaders from a range of Jewish backgrounds. So am I, a half-South Asian scholar of American Jewish religious history.

I usually do not look for ways to combine my Indian heritage and my Jewish religious life, but every now and then I find myself doing so – as at Hanukkah, when I have celebrated with deep-fried Indian food, and during the festival of Sukkot, when I have imagined making the holiday’s signature booths out of Indian bedspreads.

As with all people who choose to live Jewish lives, Asian Americans convert to Judaism for many reasons. After conversion, we often find ourselves fending off the assumption that either we are not Jewish or that our conversions were motivated exclusively by marriage.

In fact, there are enough Asian American Jews out there that several organizations serve them. For instance, the Lunar Collective “cultivates connection, belonging and visibility for Asian American Jews.” They host Seders and Friday night Shabbat events for Asian American Jews, along with a range of other programming. Other organizations, such as the Mitsui Collective, founded by Chinese American Jewish activist Yoshi Silverstein, address a broader range of the Jewish community but carefully include and make space for Asian Jewish experiences.

Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Jewish American Heritage Month come every May. They offer us a moment to remember that both of those communities are far more diverse than one might initially imagine, that they overlap, and that in their overlap, there is truly amazing diversity.

Samira Mehta is director of the Program in Jewish Studies and an assistant professor of women and gender studies at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Asian Jewish Americans have a double reason to celebrate their heritage in May.

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Democracy is bound to get ‘rough,’ scholar says

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 19:40:23 +0000

Democracy is bound to get ‘rough,’ scholar says Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/14/2024 - 12:40

Bradley Worrell

German historian Paul Nolte discusses what populist movements in the United States and Europe mean for liberal democracies during ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder colloquium

Is democracy in crisis?

It’s a question Paul Nolte, an eminent German historian, has been ruminating on for more than a decade.

“I’ve been concerned with the history of democracy since about 2010. And it was about that time when (I had) the first idea that something was going in the wrong direction,” Nolte noted Tuesday afternoon in a research colloquium titled “Crisis or Transformation? From Good-old Democracy to Rough Democracy, ca. 1970-2020.”

Nolte was the invited scholar for the event that was jointly organized by the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Program in Jewish Studies, the Louis P. Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History and the Pacific Office of the German Historical Institute Washington in cooperation with the Gerda Henkel Foundation. His visit was co-sponsored by the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Center for Humanities and the Arts; the International Affairs Program; and the Departments of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, History and Sociology.

At a Tuesday colloquium, attendees listen to German historian Paul Nolte discuss the outlook for liberal democracy in the 21st century. (Photo: Bradley Worrell)

During the colloquium, Nolte noted that while it’s not possible to predict the future, it seems unlikely that democracies will return to what some might call the “good-old democracy” days of the 1970s through 2020—what could be called the Liberal Age for democracies in Europe and the United States.

“The good old times for many European countries, in which there were just three or four political parties, center left and center right … the classical Westminster model, they’re probably gone for good. It’s not a very likely expectation that this will return,” he said. “There is a broad understanding (among historians) that we’ve entered a new period of history where things are not as they were in the 1970s.”

Specifically noting democracy in the United States, Nolte cited the work of author Daniel Rogers, who wrote the 2011 book Age of Fracture, detailing the disintegration of shared American values.

“The (book) title speaks volumes,” Nolte noted. “If we’re in an age of fracture economically, and also in social rifts, and the old working class does not exist, why would we expect anything else for the state of democracy?”

Nolte also said people need to understand previous developments in “rough politics” in Europe and the United States during the late 18th and 19th centuries and the “new roughness” in recent years as politicians on both the political right and left have embraced populism.

“Will we spend two more decades lamenting a persistent crisis, or even conjuring up the imminent downfall of democracy, somehow yearning for the good old days that never return?” Nolte asked in a paper shared ahead of the colloquium. “Or will we take up the challenge, academically and politically, of democracy not being steady-state, but changing in larger historical contexts? Welcome, then, to the old-new rough democracy.”

Top image: Paul Nolte (left) and Thomas Kaplan, the Louis P. Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History and interim director of the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Program in Jewish Studies (Photo: Bradley Worrell)

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German historian Paul Nolte discusses what populist movements in the United States and Europe mean for liberal democracies during ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder colloquium.

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Research colloquium addresses ongoing crisis of liberal democracy

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 20:04:30 +0000

Research colloquium addresses ongoing crisis of liberal democracy Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 02/12/2024 - 13:04

Eminent German historian Paul Nolte will discuss whether the golden age of democracy is over or whether it can escape collapse and recover

One of Germany’s leading contemporary historians will present a research colloquium addressing the stage of crisis that liberal democracy has entered in the early 21st century—asking whether the golden age of democracy over and is on course for eventual collapse, or whether it can recover.

Historian Paul Nolte will present the colloquium, titled “Crisis or Transformation? From Good-old Democracy to Rough Democracy, ca. 1970-2020,” which is jointly organized by the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Program in Jewish Studies, the Louis P. Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History and the Pacific Office of the German Historical Institute Washington in cooperation with the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

Historian Paul Nolte will discuss the crisis in liberal democracy at a research colloquium Tuesday.

It will be from 2-3:30 p.m. Tuesday in Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE) E422. To receive the pre-circulated text on which the discussions will be based, please RSVP by email to cujewishstudies@colorado.edu.

At ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, the visit is co-sponsored by the Center for Humanities and the Arts; the International Affairs Program; and the Departments of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, History and Sociology.

As one of Germany’s leading contemporary historians, Nolte holds a chair in modern history with a special emphasis on contemporary history and international relations at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Freie Universität Berlin. His research areas include social, intellectual and political history of the 18th to 20th centuries, especially post-1945 Germany and the United States; transatlantic history of democracy; public intellectuals and social, economic and political concepts and mentalities; urban history and metropolitan cultures; religion and civil society in Western societies; and public history and cultures of memory.

Research colloquium

What: Crisis or Transformation? From Good-old Democracy to Rough Democracy, ca. 1970-2020

When: 2-3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13

Where: CASE E422

More information

Nolte has written more than a dozen books and has served as a fellow or guest professor at Oxford University, Harvard University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Among his many transatlantic undertakings is chairing the academic advisory committee of the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies, which brings American PhD candidates to Germany.

His colloquium will focus on the current state of crisis in which liberal democracy exists, when they are under attack from neo-authoritarian ideas, movements and regimes, externally as well as from within. He will address what a potential recovery could look like, asking, “What if we were not witnesses to a crisis of democracy, but rather to its transformation, with the current predicaments being the new normal?”

Nolte will discuss how, from a historical point of view, “pre-crisis” democracy corresponded to social structures, cultural milieus and technological environments that will never return. Further, this longing often projects a relatively short period in the trajectory of democracy, participation and liberal society as an ideal state, while it was in itself full of shortcomings, rigid structures and privileges for the few.

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Eminent German historian Paul Nolte will discuss whether the golden age of democracy is over or whether it can escape collapse and recover.

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Enjoying an old holiday in new ways

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 22:02:46 +0000

Enjoying an old holiday in new ways Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/05/2023 - 15:02

Samira Mehta

Hanukkah celebrations have changed dramatically—but the same is true of Christmas

Hanukkah is not the Jewish Christmas. Articles and op-eds in newspapers remind readers of that fact every year, lamenting that the Jewish Festival of Lights has almost become an imitation of the Christian holiday.

These pieces exist for a reason. Hanukkah is a minor festival in the Jewish liturgical year, whose major holidays come in the fall and spring—the High Holidays and Passover, respectively. Because of its proximity to Christmas, however, Hanukkah has been culturally elevated into a major celebration.

American shops and schools nod to diversity by putting up menorahs next to Christmas trees or including the dreidel song in the “holiday concert” alongside Santa, Rudolph or the Christ child. Even Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish movement, holds public menorah lightings that look remarkably like public Christmas tree lightings.

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder researcher Samia Mehta is director of the Program in Jewish Studies.

Store windows, doctors’ offices and college dining halls display Christmas trees and menorahs side by side, though the latter is a ritual object, not merely a decoration. A menorah, or “hanukkiah,” is lit in a specific way, on specific days, with accompanying prayers—more akin to a Christian Advent wreath than to the holly decking the halls.

Much of my Jewish studies and gender research focuses on interfaith families, for whom these issues can be especially tricky. I empathize with Jewish Americans worried about Hanukkah growing too similar to Christmas—but the history of both holidays is more complicated than these comparisons let on.

Ancient revolt

There’s a deep irony, of course, in seeing Hanukkah as a prime example of assimilation: The festival itself celebrates a victory against assimilation.

In 168 B.C.E., Antiochus IV Epiphanes, king of the Seleucid Empire, sent his army to conquer Jerusalem. He outlawed Jewish holidays, Shabbat observance and practices such as circumcision. His troops set up altars to the Greek gods in the Jewish temple, dedicating it to Zeus.

The Maccabees, a Jewish resistance movement led by a priestly family, opposed both Antiochus and Jews who assimilated to the conquering Greek culture. Hanukkah celebrates the rebels’ victory over the Seleucid army.

In the temple, the Jews kept an eternal flame burning—as synagogues do today. When the Maccabees reclaimed the temple, however, there was enough oil to last for only a day. Miraculously, the story says it lasted for a week: enough time to bring in more oil.

Traditional holiday celebrations, therefore, include lighting the menorah each night for eight days and eating food cooked in oil. Spinning dreidel games are also traditional, as are songs like “Maoz Tzur.”

“Hanukkah bushes” topped with a Star of David, extravagant presents, community menorah lightings in the park, blue and white lights on houses and Hanukkah Advent calendars? Not traditional, if “traditional” means things that have happened for hundreds of years.

Carols and carousing

Assimilation to the United States’ Christian-majority culture has played a role in Hanukkah’s modern transformation. That said, the story of how Hanukkah came to have the commercial, kids-and-gifts focus that it has in the U.S. today is a bit more complicated.

When people worry that Hanukkah is simply a Jewish adaptation to the Christmas gift season, I think they are imagining that Christmas itself has always been as most Americans today know it—with the presents, the tree and the family togetherness. But, in fact, both contemporary Christmas and contemporary Hanukkah grew up together in response to the Industrial Revolution.

Before the Industrial Revolution, both Europe and North America were primarily agrarian societies. When the harvest was completed, the entire Advent season took on an air of revelry—there was caroling in the streets and a certain amount of drunken carousing. For the more wealthy, it was a season of parties and balls. Sometimes, there would be class-based conflict—like vandalism or other crimes—between the wealthy partygoers and the working-class street parties.

The highlight of the season was New Year’s rather than Christmas. Gifts, if any, were small and usually handmade. The wealthy gave end-of-the-year bonuses to servants and tradespeople. All in all, the season was as much about friends as family, and celebrated in public as much or more than in private.

For a variety of reasons, social campaigners in the early 19th century looked to make Christmas into the domestic celebration of consumption that we have today. The shift from seasonal farm work to round-the-clock factory work made the evenings of carousing problematic, for example – hungover workers are not good workers—and moving the celebration to a single day solved that problem. Meanwhile, religious voices tried to emphasize Christmas as a celebration of Christ in Christian homes.

But more to the point, the Industrial Revolution created a huge market of relatively affordable goods that needed a market. Christmas provided an abundant market. And so did Hanukkah.

Adapting Hanukkah traditions has given people new ways of engaging Judaism in a new space and time. (photo: iStock)

New needs, new traditions

Jews received the same advertisements for gifts and festive foods as their Christian neighbors, and it was hard to resist the pull of the celebratory season. However, the late American studies scholar Dianne Ashton’s book “Hanukkah in America: A History” suggests that Hanukkah did not take its current form only because American Jews were imitating Christmas in some sort of religious version of keeping up with the Joneses.

Hanukkah, which is celebrated mostly in the home, gave Jewish women a place to shine—much like a domestic Christmas gave such opportunities to Christian women. It allowed Jews to focus on the family bonds, which often felt fragile and precious in the shadow of immigration and relatives left behind.

And focusing on children, such as by having them light the candles – a job traditionally done by adult men—offered a way to engage the next generation in a time and place where being Jewish felt like a choice.

In America, Jews were full citizens, free from the laws that had previously kept their communities isolated in many parts of Europe. That freedom also made it easier for each individual to choose how much to engage with Jewish community, if at all. In America, you could leave your Judaism behind without converting to Christianity—and many Jews did. Hanukkah was a fun way to build attachments to the holiday.

American Jews adapted Hanukkah to their own needs, emphasizing aspects of the religion that made it work in this new environment. One can see that as assimilation, sure, but it was also adaptation for survival. Joining in the “holiday season” did mitigate the feeling of being an outsider, and a minority, at the holidays. But it also allowed for the creation of a new way of engaging Judaism in a new space and time.

Samira Mehta is director of the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Program in Jewish Studies.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Hanukkah celebrations have changed dramatically—but the same is true of Christmas.

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Program aims to offer deeper insight into Israel, Gaza war and history

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 20:26:39 +0000

Program aims to offer deeper insight into Israel, Gaza war and history Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/27/2023 - 13:26

In response to public requests, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder experts will discuss range of topics in Arab-Israeli conflict at Wednesday forum, which is open to the community

A weekend cease-fire extension and the continuing release of hostages have raised some hopes, but the devastating war in the Middle East has also raised many questions.

Many members of the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder campus community have asked for expert insight into the conflict and its centuries-long history. In response, the Program in Jewish Studies will host “Explaining Conflict and War in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank: Community Discussions with ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Faculty Members” from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 29, in UMC 382-384.

Map of Israel and Palestine

The event, which is open to the public, is being organized by the Program in Jewish Studies and co-sponsored by the Center for Humanities and the Arts, the Department of English, the Department of History and the International Affairs Program.

It will follow an informal format and allow individuals and smaller groups of participants to discuss a specific sub-topic, ranging from antisemitism to the long history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, with faculty experts, including:

Janet J. Jacobs, professor of distinction in women and gender studies
Zach Levey, Israel Institute visiting professor and visiting professor of international affairs
Karim Mattar, associate professor of English
Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, Louis P. Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History and interim director of the Program in Jewish Studies
Eyal Rivlin, teaching associate professor of Jewish studies

The program will continue the discussions about the war, which is a significant escalation of the decades-long conflict. The war began with the terrorist attacks by Hamas, which killed 1,200 civilians on Oct. 7. Not since the Holocaust had this number of Jews been murdered in a single day. Israel’s response to the terrorism, an invasion of the Gaza Strip, has drawn criticism from some observers.

The Program in Jewish Studies sponsored a panel discussion last month, as well.

Wednesday’s event will offer another forum for these discussions. Many members of the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder campus community are directly affected by the war, given that they have family and friends in the region who have been hurt or killed.

For weeks, tensions have been running high on many U.S. university campuses, including ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, and many students feel threatened and unsafe. Social media continues to be saturated with inflammatory posts, partial truths and falsehoods.

For more information, please contact the Program in Jewish Studies at 303-492-7143 or ŷ��ڱ��ƵJewishStudies@colorado.edu

In response to public requests, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder experts will discuss range of topics in Arab-Israeli conflict at Wednesday forum, which is open to the community.

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Israel-Hamas war an ‘ongoing catastrophe,’ faculty say

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 22:36:07 +0000

Israel-Hamas war an ‘ongoing catastrophe,’ faculty say Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/12/2023 - 16:36

Maxwell Garby

At a panel discussion Wednesday, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder experts on the modern Middle East noted that the current war differs from previous conflicts

Though conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas has simmered and flared for decades, the war initiated Saturday by Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel is different, experts on the region said Wednesday.

At a panel discussion convened in response to the war in Israel and the Gaza Strip, Zach Levey, the Israel Institute Visiting Professor at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, said that while tension between Israel, a sovereign state, and Hamas, a terrorist organization, has a lengthy history, everything from the past few days has been very different from previous clashes.

Saturday’s terrorist attack by Hamas on Israeli territory yielded hundreds of Israeli deaths, as well as dozens taken hostage. In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retaliation, officially declaring war on Hamas and conducting airstrikes back across the Gaza Strip.

Levey said that the attack can be regarded as “a great failure and a security fiasco for Israel” and that accountability for the lapse likely will be demanded. He also noted that a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip would be extremely costly, and that the Israeli government’s current strategy of inducing a humanitarian crisis via airstrikes to topple Hamas is nothing short of a “tragedy.”

University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder faculty (left to right) Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, Zach Levey, John Willis and Karim Mattar participated in a panel discussion about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war Wednesday evening.

Panelist Karim Mattar, a ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder associate professor of English, called the war an “ongoing catastrophe.” He called Hamas' atrocities a “stain on Palestine and the Palestinian people,” as well as a “stain on the name of Islam.” He said that if peace is to come, both sides must analyze their history, collectively come to terms about antisemitism and find a mutually beneficial agreement.

Of particular concern, Mattar noted, are some of the U.S. government’s actions, including essentially giving Israel the green light to do whatever is deemed necessary to protect Israeli citizens. This could lead to the continuation of the cycle of hatred and violence that has plagued the people of Palestine and Israel for the past 75 years, Mattar said.

John Willis, an associate professor of history who specializes in the modern Middle East and a panelist Wednesday, said that the current war may significantly affect Israel’s relationships with the United States as well as other regional states, especially the Gulf States.

When asked whether there might be an opening for negotiations or peace talks between the two sides, Levey responded with a firm “no.” He noted the long history of negotiations between the two sides, which are nonetheless at war. “Negotiation prospects have been shattered,” Levey said, adding that if there any diplomatic overtures were to be made, they would likely come from Egypt regarding freeing the hostages.

Mattar said that attacks along the West Bank likely will only increase in the coming days, with deepening impacts on the Palestinian people.

Levey noted, “If the current Israeli government has its way, there will be no path forward,” and he sees “no solution to this issue, not in the short term, not in the medium term and possibly the long term, too.”

However, the panelists emphasized the importance of discussing such highly contentious issues in a respectful and informative manner, with the hope that further education and greater understanding can pave the way for a peaceful future.

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At a panel discussion Wednesday, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder experts on the modern Middle East noted that the current war differs from previous conflicts.

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Finding home and community in a temporary shelter

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 20:17:07 +0000

Finding home and community in a temporary shelter Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/26/2023 - 14:17

Samira Mehta

On Sukkot, the Jewish ‘Festival of Booths,’ each sukkah is as unique as the person who builds it

Sukkot is a Jewish festival that follows right on the heels of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Judaism’s High Holy Days. The harvest holiday, which begins on Sept. 29, lasts for seven days when celebrated in Israel and eight days when celebrated elsewhere.

Like many Jewish rituals and traditions, from lighting Friday night candles to hosting Passover seders, Sukkot is primarily celebrated in the home–or rather, in the yard. Translated as the “Festival of Booths,” Sukkot is celebrated in an outdoor structure called a sukkah, which is carefully built and rebuilt each year.

As a Jewish Studies scholar, much of my work looks at how diverse Jewish American identities are today. From intermarried families, to Jews of color, to Jewish communities from all over the world, there have always been a myriad of ways to be Jewish–and home-based holidays like Sukkot help people honor all these parts of their identities.

Harvest holiday

Held during the autumn harvest, Sukkot likely has origins in huts that ancient farmers erected so they could sleep in the fields. Yet tradition also says that these booths represent the tents that the Israelites lived in while they wandered the desert for 40 years following the Exodus, their escape from slavery in Egypt.

People in Jerusalem pick out palm branches for the roofs of their sukkot. (Muammar Awad/Xinhua via Getty Images)

Some aspects of Sukkot happen in the synagogue, including special prayers and readings from the Bible. Yet the main action takes place at home, in the backyard sukkah–the singular form of the word “sukkot” in Hebrew. For Jews who observe the holiday, tradition says to start building the sukkah as soon as possible after Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; some people even start building the structure are soon as they have broken their 25-hour fast.

The makeshift walls, of which there must be at least three, can be made out of anything one wants, from pre-made walls printed with blessings said during the holiday to tablecloths or rugs. People often decorate to say something about who they are: photos of Jerusalem, quilts made by relatives. I have always imagined that, if I had a sukkah, I would use Indian tablecloths for walls, merging that piece of my heritage with my religion.

The roof, however, is supposed to be made out of natural materials like palms or branches; one friend of mine likes to use cornstalks. The roof should provide shade but must allow gaps to see the stars. Those of us who do not have yards can get creative with our balconies or, like me, drop hints that they would welcome invitations to other people’s sukkot. One New Yorker friend turns her living room into a faux sukkah–you cannot see the stars, but it is filled with nature and decorations.

In the United States, many families decorate their sukkot with classic elements of the American harvest season: corn husks, colorful dried ears of corn, harvest gourds and even the occasional bale of hay. In New Mexico, you sometimes see “ristras,” the decorative red strings of chiles that hang from porches.

The traditional plants of Sukkot, however, are four distinct species: a citrus fruit called an etrog, and fronds of palm, myrtle and willow, which are bound together and referred to as the “lulav.” The lulav and etrog are blessed and shaken together on a daily basis throughout the festival.

Our yard, our holiday

Beyond this, Jews are supposed to live in the sukkah for the festival, which technically means eating and sleeping there. But as with all religious holidays, individuals celebrate Sukkot in a wide variety of ways.

Many Jews do not construct sukkot at all, let alone sleep in them for a week. Of those who do, some sleep every night in the sukkah; some have one night of family “camping”; others do not sleep in it at all. Many people entertain guests there: I have been to many a meal–and one graduate seminar–in sukkot all over the country.

It is the fact that so much of Sukkot is held at home that accounts for the holiday’s immense flexibility. Like at Passover, most Jews who celebrate Sukkot encounter it in spaces where people can honor their values, cultures or histories.

Ruth Sohn decorates her family’s sukkah with Egyptian designs in Los Angeles. (Stephen Osman/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

What this looks like is as diverse as the world of American Jews.

For instance, for the years that I taught outside of Philadelphia, I attended a multinight open house, called “Whiskey in the Sukkot,” hosted by an interfaith couple. The Jewish wife explains that when she and her husband–a whiskey aficionado from Appalachia–got married, his thought process went: “harvest festival, grain, whiskey.”

Each year, he curates a selection to share with his guests, with new offerings for each night. Accompanied by pungent cheeses and other nibbles, this festival of whiskey offered him a way to make the holiday his own. In the process, the couple created an event that welcomes their Jewish–and non-Jewish–communities.

On his Afroculinaria blog, the chef, culinary historian and author Michael Twitty created a Southern harvest soup for Sukkot, which he notes uses “traditional Southern ingredients and flavors.” His soup is vegetarian, but he also offers a “trayf alternative,” meaning a version that is not kosher–a recipe that swaps out olive oil for bacon grease. Even in the most liberal Jewish settings, one cannot usually serve pork in a synagogue setting, but this is your Sukkot table. If you, like most American Jews, do not keep kosher, why not go full-on Southern in your flavors?

Not everyone sees their full identity reflected on Sukkot. Emily Bowen Cowen, a cartoonist who is Jewish and Muscogee (Creek), has written a comic called “My Sioux-kot,” imagining what Sukkot could look like if, like many contemporary Passover celebrations, it emphasized social justice. Cohen muses on the parallels she saw between Sukkot celebrations and 2016 protests to block an oil pipeline at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. At the time, both were events where people talked about valuing nature as sacred. Yet no one mentioned the protests in the sukkot she visited that week.

Indeed, some Jews are finding ways to realize the social justice potential in the holiday. Fiber artist Heather Stoltz used a sukkah as the basis for an art exhibition called “Temporary Shelter,” decorating its walls with stories of unhoused New Yorkers and with art made by children staying in the city’s shelters.

Perhaps the time will come when Sukkot, too, becomes infused with possibilities for a more just future.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

On Sukkot, the Jewish ‘Festival of Booths,’ each sukkah is as unique as the person who builds it.

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‘Calling in,’ not calling out, the racism of those who love you

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 20:52:04 +0000

‘Calling in,’ not calling out, the racism of those who love you Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/22/2023 - 14:52

Daniel Long

In her recently published book, Samira Mehta offers insight into a lesser-known, but nevertheless hurtful, type of racism

It’s 2016, Pennsylvania, and Samira Mehta, who would later become an associate professor of women and gender studies and director of the Program in Jewish Studies at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, is having dinner with an old friend.

He asks about her experiences during the election, as he, like many people, has become worried about the xenophobia stirred up by the Trump campaign. How’s that been for her?

Short answer: not great.

The daughter of a white mother from Illinois and a father from India, Mehta has twice been spat on at her local grocery store and told to “go home.” (Home, by the way, is Connecticut, where Mehta was born and reared.)

Samira K. Mehta, an associate professor and director, explores the intersectionality of religion, culture and gender, including US family politics.

Yet although such flagrant acts of racism are scary, Mehta tells her friend, they aren’t the kind of racism that really hurts her. The kind that really hurts her, she says, is “the racism of people who love me.”

Now Mehta has published a book exploring this topic, The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging, which takes a first-hand look at the challenges of mixedness and encourages discussion of a kind of racism that is sometimes overlooked, under-addressed or misunderstood.

Usually, when we think about racism, Mehta says, we think about big historical moments. We think about the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; about Los Angeles police officers brutally attacking Rodney King; about Rosa Parks being told to give up her seat on the Montgomery, Alabama, bus; about John Lewis being beaten on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

“What’s much harder to talk about and think about are moments of racism that you encounter in relationships where you love the other person and they love you,” says Mehta.

The racism of people who love you is a subtler, more elusive form of racism, Mehta explains, and one that can be especially challenging for mixed-race individuals. Mehta herself has endured it on many occasions.

One example concerns the very friend she was having dinner with in 2016.

Years earlier, she was flying out to visit him, she recalls, “and I got searched really aggressively by TSA, and it was invasive. I got pulled out of the line and had to take off clothes, and I was worried. And my friend was like, ‘If, by searching people who look like you, they keep everyone safe, this is just an inconvenience.’”

Another example involves Mehta’s maternal aunt. At a family get-together, Mehta was wearing Indian clothing, and so her aunt decided to ask her, “So, are you super ethnic now?”

Neither Mehta’s friend nor her aunt was deliberately being racist. In fact, they’re the kind of people who’d vehemently disavow racism. “These are people for whom being liberal, or maybe even being progressive, is really central to their identity,” Mehta says.

Yet it’s precisely this tension between who the person is and what the person says that can make the racism of people who love you so difficult to address.

“It’s really hard to talk to people about these things, because to them they’re one-offs; to them they’re little things,” says Mehta. “They don’t necessarily recognize what they’re saying or doing as indicative of a larger power structure.”

Plus, Mehta says, “nobody wants to see themselves as a racist,” especially when that person is someone close—an old friend, for instance, or a family member—and especially nowadays, when charges of racism feel extremely high stakes.

“We’ve got a sort of one-drop rule of racism in the United States, where, if you do one racist thing, the distance between you and someone who would burn a cross on someone’s front lawn collapses. It’s the worst thing you could say to somebody,” says Mehta.

This then creates a Catch-22 for those suffering from the racism of people who love them: “If you don’t say anything, you lose the friendship because you let them go off and be racist. And if you do say something, you run the risk of losing the friendship because you just called your friend a racist.”

Put bluntly, either lose the friendship or lose the friendship.

But Mehta has a way around this dilemma, one she drew from the work of Loretta Ross, a feminist, activist and educator known for her work in women’s rights, reproductive justice and anti-racism, and a cofounder of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.

Ross distinguishes between two modes of confronting racism: calling out and calling in.

"The Racism of People Who Love You" by Samira Mehta investigates the complicated challenges within mixed-race families and relationships.

With calling out, Ross says, “You think somebody has done something wrong, you think they should be held accountable for it, and you think they should be punished for it.”

Calling out is an opportunity to shame, says Ross. It’s done out of anger. And for that reason, she believes it is ineffective. “With this approach, you’ve guaranteed one thing. With this blaming and shaming, you just invited [the person accused of racism] to a fight, not a conversation.”

Calling in, however, is basically the same as calling out, but “done with love,” says Ross. It is not an opportunity to shame but an invitation to change. It promotes conversation, not fighting.

It’s the difference between volubly condemning someone at the Thanksgiving table and asking them to a private chat on a walk after dinner.

When it comes to the racism of people who love you, says Mehta, it’s calling in, not calling out, that’s the thing to do.

And that is one thing she hopes her book helps readers do. She hopes it helps those who’ve experienced racism from the people who love them, as well as those who’ve committed such acts of racism, find a healthy way to discuss that racism.

But Mehta is also quick to admit that these conversations don’t always create the desired outcome, which leads one to wonder, as her audience members often do at her book talks, when to forgive a person for his or her racism and when to cut that person off?

“How you make that judgment call is really individual,” Mehta says. “It depends on what's going on in your life. It depends on how much you need that person. I do not think it’s a good idea to cancel the people you love for things that they do that hurt you, but I also don’t think you should be a doormat who is willing to be hurt forever.”

There is a balance to strike, in other words. Care should be taken.

But, ultimately, Mehta believes in people’s ability to be and do better, as long as they’re given the chance.

“If you cancel people, they never grow and change. But they can grow and change when you call them in and offer them love.”

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In her recently published book, Samira Mehta offers insight into a lesser-known, but nevertheless hurtful, type of racism.

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‘Untraditional’ Hanukkah celebrations are often full of traditions for Jews of color

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 19:31:17 +0000

‘Untraditional’ Hanukkah celebrations are often full of traditions for Jews of color Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/19/2022 - 12:31

Samira Mehta

Multicultural Jewish families and Jews of color are innovating food-centered holidays to bring their whole selves to the table

Hanukkah, the Jewish “festival of lights,” commemorates a story of a miracle, when oil meant to last for one day lasted for eight. Today, Jews light the menorah, a candelabra with eight candles – and one “helper” candle, called a shamas – to remember the Hanukkah oil, which kept the Jerusalem temple’s everlasting lamp burning brightly. Each year, the holiday starts with just the shamas and one of the eight candles and ends, on the last night, with the entire menorah lit up.

But because the reason for the light is oil, Jews also celebrate by eating food cooked in oil. In the United States, most people think of those oil-soaked foods as latkes, or potato pancakes, and jelly doughnuts called sufganiyot. For most American Jews, these are indeed important holiday foods, replete with memories – both of their heavy, greasy deliciousness and of the smells that permeate the house for days after a latke fry.

More specifically, though, these treats are Ashkenazi, referring to Jews whose ancestors came from Eastern Europe. Two-thirds of Jews in the U.S. identify as Ashkenazi, which has strongly shaped American Jewish culture. That Eastern European culture, however, is only one of many Jewish cultures around the world.

At the top of the page: Hanukkah creates opportunities for families to celebrate their heritage—especially in the kitchen (zilber42/iStock via Getty Images). Above: Many families find ways to incorporate other sides of their heritage into Jewish ceremonies and holidays (Lindsey Wasson/Getty Images).

In recent years, Jews of color and non-Ashkenazi Jews have been bringing attention to new Hanukkah traditions that celebrate the diversity of Judaism in the U.S. My work as a scholar of gender and Jewish studies often looks at how multicultural families navigate and celebrate the many aspects of their identities.

Many different Jewish stories

Jews of color come from many places. Some people were born into communities that have always been Jewish and have never been considered white: For instance, there are Jewish communities in India, Ethiopia and China. Others are people of color adopted into white Jewish families; adult converts to Judaism; or children of interracial, interfaith marriage.

Many Jews of color have strong ties to Ashkenazi Judaism. Increasingly, though, they are publicly celebrating the range of traditions they bring to the table, making space for more diversity in mainstream Jewish life. There’s been more conversation about the Ethiopian Jewish holiday Sigd, for example, and what role it might play in American Jewish life.

One of my favorite examples is a children’s book called “The Queen of the Hanukkah Dosas,” which features a boy and his little sister, named Sadie. Their dad is Ashkenazi and their mom is Indian or Indian American, as is their live-in grandmother, Amma-amma. In their house, Hanukkah means cooking up a plate of dosas, South Indian crepes sometimes wrapped around a savory filling. The narrator is annoyed by Sadie’s tendency to climb on things, but her climbing skills save the day, and the dinner, when the family is locked out of their house and she can climb in and open the door.

What I especially appreciate about this particular book is that the dosas are not the point of the story. This is a story about an annoying little sister who in the end saves the day, and her family just happens to make dosas as a Hanukkah treat. “The Queen of the Hanukkah Dosas” doesn’t mention whether the Indian side of the family is Jewish, but either way, its message for kids is clear: It can be totally normal to be a half-white, Jewish, half-Indian kid who has dosas for Hanukkah.

‘Kosher Soul’

In real life, one of the most influential Jews of color adding distinctive Hanukkah foods to the communal table is Michael Twitty. This acclaimed food historian is author of “The Cooking Gene,” about the social and culinary history of African American food, and “Kosher Soul,” which brings together traditions from these two sides of his identity.

Twitty notes on his blog, Afroculinaria, that “traditionally African Jewish communities – the Beta Yisrael of Ethiopia, the Lemba of Southern Africa, and groups in West Africa, did not celebrate Hannukah.” That said, in the spirit of celebrating Jewish food from around the world, he shared the Somali dish sambusa, a flaky deep-fried pastry something like a samosa, that can be filled with meat or vegetables. As with dosas, it is not so much that these foods are traditionally associated with Hanukkah but that they could provide Black Jews with a way to celebrate African and Jewish aspects of their heritage with a food fried in oil.

Worshippers celebrate the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashana, at Shaare Rason Synagogue in Mumbai, India (Pratik Chorge/Hindustan Times via Getty Images).

Twitty is known for his skill at a wide range of cuisines, including a wide range of Jewish food; cuisine cooked by African Americans for themselves and, at times, white employers; and African foods. Drawing on all these traditions, Twitty created a riff on more traditional latkes: Louisiana-style latkes, which include the “holy trinity” of Creole and Cajun cuisine – garlic, green onions and celery in this recipe – plus a bit of cayenne pepper.

Plenty of people improvise their latke recipes: My former synagogue, like many others, had latke cook-offs in which people brought all sorts of innovations, including black bean and sweet potato latkes and latkes flavored like samosa fillings. For Twitty, pulling from Creole flavors allows him to marry his Jewish religion and his African American heritage – and to offer a path for other Black Jews to do likewise.

Full table, full selves

In my new book, “The Racism of People Who Love You,” I think a lot about being brown in white spaces and about the innovations that come from blended identities.

I am not from a historically Jewish Indian community, but my own innovation, as a Jew of color, is this. The last Hanukkah before the pandemic, my mom came out to visit me. She is neither Jewish nor Indian but became an excellent Indian cook during many decades of her marriage. I, however, am not an excellent Indian cook and, whenever I am able to spend time with my mom, I want her to make something called aloo puri, which is a chickpea and potato dish served with crispy, puffy fried bread. I have no idea how to make the bread, and it is a “seeing Mommy” treat.

I invited an Indian colleague who was not going home for winter break to join us for dinner. When I happened to mention this dinner to one of my senior Jewish studies colleagues, he commented that he wanted to have my mom cook an Indian dinner for him, and so, with my mom’s permission, I invited him and his husband to join us as well.

My mom looked at me. “Puri are fried in oil,” she said, and all of a sudden we had a Hanukkah party, with a menorah lighting and fried food. For me, having my senior colleague there and excited to join us was a moment of realizing I could bring my full self to the table.

If I were the type to make holiday wishes, that is, perhaps, what I would wish for: a place where all Jews of color could bring their full selves to all the tables where they sit.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Multicultural Jewish families and Jews of color are innovating food-centered holidays to bring their whole selves to the table.

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Research & Innovation Office names newest Faculty Fellow cohort

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 18:13:09 +0000

Research & Innovation Office names newest Faculty Fellow cohort Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/09/2022 - 11:13

The Research and Innovation Office has announced the 2023 RIO Faculty Fellows cohort, which includes 17 faculty members from departments and research institutes spanning the campus.

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Jewish Studies

Honoring the diversity in two distinct but linked communities

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