Category: Books & Resources

Jewish Ethics: Links to Books

Image: An Amazon distribution center work floor. Photo from 7 Examples of How Amazon Treats Their 90,000+ Warehouse Employees Like Cattle by Jacob Weindling on PasteMagazine.com.

I often recommend books on this blog, and I am certainly an avid consumer of books. I’m working my way towards some better choices, and I thought I’d share the process with you.

Every consumer has a different menu of choices for consumption. The choices available to an able-bodied suburban consumer who owns a car are different from the choices available to a consumer living in an area with limited options for transportation and severe time or energy constraints. I want to emphasize that I am NOT making a judgment on choices forced by poverty, disability, or other menu-shrinking constraints. Rather, the same method follows: evaluate your choices and pick the best for you, whatever it is.

Jewish tradition bids us to take care not to injure others, directly or indirectly. When we do business with a company, we validate their choices about labor practices, sourcing their products, impact on the environment, etc. Their choices become our choices. Therefore it is worthwhile to think through our priorities for consumption.

Years ago, I boycotted Amazon.com because I saw it as a killer of locally owned bookstores. Gradually, as the bookstores succumbed anyway, and as my disabilities expanded, I altered my behavior and began using Amazon’s extremely convenient services, including book sales. The ability to have things delivered to my home as well as the convenience of the Kindle for reading in bed drove my decisions.

I winced whenever I read about Amazon’s labor practices, poor working conditions, and other questionable policies. Still I did not see better options for me, so I kept on buying from Amazon. Even here on the blog, I linked the names of books I recommended to their Amazon pages.

However, I made an error in my ethical calculations. I framed the choice to do business with Amazon as a binary choice: buy nothing from them vs. buy automatically from them. That is an easy mistake to make, since our brains tend to frame questions in the binary. There is also a sneaky convenience in saying, “I have to buy X from them, I might as well buy Y as well.” In fact, there are more options than those two.

Instead of “all” or “nothing,” I now re-frame the Amazon decision: I will buy from that company if and only if it is the least-harmful option available to me for genuinely necessary consumption. That’s going to take some extra time and effort, but I see it as a more ethical choice.

The part of that decision that will be visible here on the blog is that I’m going to start linking book titles to other choices than Amazon. In the most recent such post, Book List: Jewish Spirituality, I’ve begun my new practice. When an author has a web page with a link for buying the book, I’ll link to that, because no matter what it links to (usually Amazon) the author will get more money for their work. When there is no such page available, I’m going to link to an independent bookseller, and I’ll mix those up among several I know. On the recent list, I linked to Powell’s Books, an independent bookseller in Portland, Oregon with a good website and excellent service. Readers can navigate to the bookseller of their choice or to a local library.

Finally, as with all such questions, I’m open to the hope that Jeff Bezos (owner of Amazon) will see his way towards treating his employees with decency. Consumer pressure makes companies improve bad policies all the time: ask Nike, for instance, which has had an ongoing conversation with consumers and activists since the 1990’s.

Some principles to ponder:

Money is power, even in small quantities. We influence companies when we choose to do business with them, or not to do business, or to do business as little as possible.

Most menus have more than two items. I thought of Amazon as a yes/no decision, when in fact it was a yes/no/sometimes choice. If the only way a person can afford something they need is to buy it Walmart, Jewish tradition teaches that it is not my business to judge them, because I will be much too busy working out my own ethical problems.

Buying “Used” is an option, too. If we are concerned about the planet and sustainability, sometimes buying used goods is the most ethically sound option. I recommend this option with enthusiasm, although it has a downside: the author gets no pay for a used book sale. Again, the choices are ours and none of them are 100% “pure.”

Book List: Jewish Spirituality

Image: Two old books, open and stacked. (Photo: Woman1907 / Pixabay)

A rabbi friend and I were talking about good books about Jewish spirituality. Here’s my list – do you have any books to add? If so, I would love to hear about them in the comments.

The Sabbath, by Abraham Joshua Heschel. This book is the best I know of for learning about the spiritual richness of Shabbat.

Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar, by Alan Morinis. Mussar is about personal development, and it has seen a revival in recent years.

Jewish Meditation by Aryeh Kaplan. Meditation is a universal practice, but Kaplan writes about some specifically Jewish approaches to the art.

One God Clapping by Alan Lew. Rabbi Lew was both a Conservative rabbi and a credentialed Buddhist teacher. This is his account of his spiritual journey from American Judaism to Buddhism and back again.

Eyes Remade for Wonder by Lawrence Kushner. This is a collection of Rabbi Kushner’s writings; I could easily add many of his books to this list.

Wise Aging: Living with Joy, Resilience, and Spirit, by Rachel Cowan and Linda Thal. Granted, this book addresses the challenges of aging, but it advocates spiritual growth for wise aging, and points the way.

Nurture the WOW: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting, by Danya Ruttenberg. Another life-stage focused work on spirituality by a rabbi living in the thick of it.

A View from Spaceship Earth

Image: Past occupants of the ISS, Astronaut Christina Koch, Cosmonaut Alexey Nikolaevich Ovchinen, and Astronaut Nick Hague prior to their trip to the International Space Station. (Photo from phys.org)

On July 15, 2019 I watched the International Space Station (ISS) fly across the sky above my home. It was a small bright light, moving too fast to be a star or planet. I recognized it because an app on my smartphone alerted me to it: ISS HD Live: Live Earth View. (Link is to Google Play. Apple users are on their own, but I’m certain there is an Apple version.)

I am fascinated by the ISS. The first crew took off on Oct 31, 2000 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:53 a.m. local time time. Since then, it has become the longest uninterrupted human presence in an orbiting lab. The station began as a shared project and it continues as an enormous cooperation among a large group of entities:

As of January 2018, 230 individuals from 18 countries have visited the International Space Station. Top participating countries include the United States (145 people) and Russia (46 people). Astronaut time and research time on the space station is allocated to space agencies according to how much money or resources (such as modules or robotics) that they contribute. The ISS includes contributions from 15 nations. NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia) and the European Space Agency are the major partners of the space station who contribute most of the funding; the other partners are the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

– Howell, Elizabeth, “International Space Station: Facts, History and Tracking,” Accessed 7/17/2019

While I stood in my garden staring at the tiny light in the sky, I was moved by the fact that despite whatever tensions are underway here on Earth, the people who occupy the ISS manage to live peacefully for their time there. They do so because lives depend on it: it is a fragile little assembly, aging fast, and if they do not cooperate with one another, they’ll all die.

We here on “Spaceship Earth” have not yet internalized the same sense of urgency. The same nations that cooperate on the ISS fail to cooperate on too many matters of survival: climate change, international trade, respect for one another, etc.

In the words of a rookie astronaut who is on the station at this writing, Christina Koch:

The trio and their three-man backup crew spoke of cooperation rather than competition following the mission seen by some as the dawn of an era of commercial space travel.

Koch, a 40-year-old rookie, said the SpaceX success was a “great example of what we’ve been doing for a very long time.”

“And that is cooperating among partners and making things that are very difficult look easy.”

“Astronauts who survived Soyuz scare ready for new launch despite glitches” on Phys.org, accessed 7/17/2019.

As the little light disappeared over my roofline, I whispered a prayer for the residents of the ISS, and for all the residents of our other, larger spaceship:

May we recognize and respect the fragility of both our homes, and keep them safe. Amen.

Image: The view from the ISS. (Photo by skeeze from Pixabay.)

Summer Reading, 2019

What are you reading this summer? Here is my current list, always subject to change when a bright and shiny object appears:

Elizabeth Zimmerman, Knitting Without Tears (rereading – a beloved favorite)

Sofie Hagen, Happy Fat

Allan Levine, Seeking the Fabled City: the Canadian Jewish Experience

Rabbi Amy Sheinerman, The Talmud of Relationships

Rachel Mankowitz, Yeshiva Girl. (Recently finished and highly recommended.)

Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice

As you see, it’s a mix. What’s on your list? Is there anything you’ve read lately that you recommend?

Black Power, Jewish Politics

Image: The cover of Black Power, Jewish Politics and photo of author Marc Dollinger.

You may think, “I know what that book is about,” when you see the cover of Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960’s. Certainly that was my first thought.

I had been taught that American Jews reached out to assist the Black community in securing more civil rights, and for a while, all was good: we marched together, we accomplished a great deal. Then came the Black Power Movement, and things began to fall apart. Black anti-Semitism pushed the two communities apart. Farrakhan and other figures vilified the Jews. Today there have been many missed connections and misunderstandings around Black Lives Matter and the Women’s March with “intersectionality” as the villain. It is all very sad.

The paragraph above is the received wisdom among many liberal Jews. I certainly had not questioned it. Turns out, I didn’t know much. Black Power, Jewish Politics tells a story that is much more interesting, complex and uncomfortable than that. 

Historian Marc Dollinger of San Francisco State University tackles the subject of Black-Jewish relations in the 1960’s with energy and curiosity. He explains the origins of the received narratives in play, and holds them up against the time line of events in the 1960’s and 1970’s. There were indeed Jewish activists who risked life and limb in the Civil Rights Movement, but the vast majority of American Jews were not actively involved in it, and in fact got very nervous any time local African Americans began acting as if they were truly equal. Rabbis who got actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement did so at much more risk of losing their jobs than of losing their lives.

And as for the Black Power movement, that’s a much more interesting story as well. There was a rich interplay of ideas between the Black Power movement leaders and Jewish American leaders, as the Jews began to take inspiration from the Black Power leaders and cultivate their own ethnic national movements, including the popularization of widespread American Jewish Zionism. 

By far the most provocative part of the book is in the Epilogue, in which Dr. Dollinger observes the current scene: the Jewish-African-American conflicts over Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March, and intersectionality. At a time when conversations are breaking down right and left, I see his effort to check out the old narratives as a hopeful first step in reigniting authentic dialogue.

I attended a book launch event at which Dr. Dollinger presented his book along with a dialogue with Ilana Kaufman, the Director of the Jews of Color Field Building Initiative, a national effort focused on building and advancing the professional, organizational and communal field for Jews of Color. Ms. Kaufman pointed out that one serious limitation of Dr. Dollinger’s thesis is that he does not account for the fact that “Jews” and “African Americans” are in fact not separate categories of people. Jews of Color straddle the borderline between these two populations, legitimate members of both, but largely ignored by the Jewish community.

Dr. Dollinger observed that the next generation of discussion on this topic is already in motion, and Ms. Kaufman is one of the Jewish leaders carrying it forward. Onward!

I recommend this book heartily, and hope that some of my readers will give it a look. Clinging to self-congratulatory fairy tales does not serve us well. If we want to progress, we must continue to pursue the facts where they take us.

Full Disclosure: I serve on a non-profit board with Dr. Marc Dollinger, and consider him a friend.

The Sacred Exchange

I am happy to announce that I am a contributor to The Sacred Exchange: Creating a Jewish Money Ethic, now available for pre-orders from CCAR Press! This anthology creates a rich and varied discussion about the ethics of money. Our use of and relationship with money must reflect our religious values—this resource aims to starts a comprehensive conversation about how Judaism can guide us in this multi-faceted relationship. The book will be published by April 2019.

The book is now available for pre-order. To order, please visit the CCAR Press page online by clicking here. Add the book to your cart and it will be yours before May!

Basic Jewish Book List – 5779 Update!

Image: A wall of books surrounding a blue doorway. (pixabay/ninocare)

Every year I take a hard look at the list of books I recommend to the Intro to the Jewish Experience students. This year’s list omits some oldies and adds a few new books. No one needs to own ALL of these – I offer this list as a browsing list for your next step in growing your interest in specific Jewish topics.

*Books with an asterisk are those I strongly recommend to my Intro students. If I weren’t so concerned about their budgets, I’d require them.

General Introductory Texts on Judaism

*Settings of Silver by Stephen Wylen. (The only text I require for Intro to the Jewish Experience)

What is a Jew? by Morris N. Kertzner. Another good basic text.

Living a Jewish Life by Anita Diamant. 

Jewish Literacy by Joseph Telushkin.

Judaisms: A 21st Century Introduction to Jews and Jewish Identities by Aaron J. Hahn Tapper (A college text, a little more challenging but a truly wonderful book.)

Jewish Bibles

*Every Jewish home should have a Tanakh, a Jewish Bible. Most Reform and Conservative synagogues use a JPS Tanakh. (JPS is the Jewish Publication Society.) 

If you are curious as to how the Jewish Bible is different from the Christian Bible, read Beginners’ Guide to the Jewish Bible. For a discussion of the various translations of the Tanakh available, read Which Bible is Best, Rabbi?

If you would like to own a commentary on the Torah, a book with footnotes that explain things in the text, some of the most popular are:

The Torah: A Modern Commentary, ed. Gunther Plaut (in many Reform synagogues)

Etz Chaim: Torah and Commentary, ed. JPS (in many Conservative synagogues)

The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, ed. Tamara Eskenazi and Rabbi Andrea Weiss

A Torah Commentary for our Times, ed. Harvey J. Fields

About the Bible

What’s In It for Me? Finding Ourselves in Jewish Narratives by Stephen Fuchs  This little book is helpful for those who wonder what a collection of old stories and rules has to say to modern Jews today.

Who Wrote the Bible?, by Richard Elliot Friedman is a basic, readable explanation of the “documentary hypothesis,” the idea that the Torah is a blend of several different voices.

*Haggadah

Every Jewish home should have at least one copy of the haggadah, the script by which we lead the seder every year at Passover.  There are many to choose from, from some rather uninspiring free haggadot to very expensive art books. Some of the best fall in between those two extremes. The best way to find one is to go to a bookstore during the month before Passover and browse them until you find the one that speaks to you. Some households write their own haggadot; that’s a project that’s best done after you’ve been to a few seders.

Jewish Holidays

Seasons of our Joy by Arthur Waskow. 

Guide to the Jewish Seasons editor Peter Knobel. 

*The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel (Specifically has to do with Shabbat.)

Keeping Passover by Ira Steingroot 

The Days of Awe by S.Y. Agnon (High Holy Days)

This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation by Alan Lew (High Holy Days) 

Jewish Home

The Jewish Home: A Guide for Jewish Living (New Edition) by Daniel B. Syme

*On the Doorposts of Your House, CCAR Press (also in .pdf format)

How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household by Blu Greenberg (orthodox practices) 

 

Jewish Lifecycle

Gates of Mitzvah: A Guide to the Jewish Life Cycle by Simeon Maslin

The New Jewish Wedding by Anita Diamant

A Time to Mourn, A Time to Comfort: A Guide to Jewish Bereavement by Dr. Ron Wolfson and David J. Wolpe

Mourning and Mitzvah by Anne Brener (A guide for mourners)

Jewish Parenting

Jewish Spiritual Parenting: Wisdom, Activities, Rituals and Prayers for Raising Children with Spiritual Balance and Emotional Wholeness by Rabbi Paul Kipnes and Michelle November, MSSW

How to Raise a Jewish Child by Anita Diamant

The New Jewish Baby Book by Anita Diamant

Putting God on the Guest List: How to Reclaim the Spiritual Meaning of Your Child’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah by Salkin, Lebeau, and Eisenberg

Conversion to Judaism

Choosing a Jewish Life by Anita Diamant (conversion)

Choosing Judaism by Lydia Kukoff (conversion)

Jewish Thought

*Judaism’s 10 Best Ideas: A Brief Book for Seekers by Rabbi Arthur Green

*Finding God: Selected Responses by Rifat Sonsino and Daniel Syme. Clear and simple approach to the question, What do Jews think about God?

The Book of Jewish Values by Joseph Telushkin

Jewish History

Your choice of history book will depend on how you feel about history. Choose the one that works for you. *Do read at least one of these!

The Story of the Jews by Stan Mack (graphic novel format but quite good, an excellent choice if you are ambivalent about fat volumes.)

Wanderings: Chaim Potok’s History of the Jews by Chaim Potok Potok is a story teller. 

My People: Abba Eban’s History of the Jews by Abba Eban Eban was Israel’s first representative to the United Nations, and he was a major player in the foundation of the State of Israel.

A History of the Jews by Paul Johnson An outsider history of the Jews, very well done. Strikes a balance between scholarship and storytelling.

A Short History of the Jewish People by Raymond Scheindlin A shorter history, good if you want “just the facts, ma’am” history.

Israel

Israel: A History by Martin Gilbert A detailed history of Israel from 1862-1997. Predominantly Zionist in its point of view.

Israel is Real by Rich Cohen Very readable. There are a few minor errors, but it is remarkably clear-eyed about the complexity of Israel and its emotional connection for American Jews.

A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time by Howard M. Sachar A scholarly approach, staunchly Zionist.

The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements 1967-1977 by Gershom Gorenberg. Gorenberg is an Israeli journalist. If you are curious about the roots of the current situation and the occupation of the West Bank, this is a good choice.

The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict, 7th Edition by Walter Laqueur A reader of primary documents. Better if you already know a little bit of the history of Modern Israel.

My Promised Land: The Triumph and the Tragedy of Israel by Ari Shavit. The writer is controversial, but the book is excellent and centrist in stance.

A Course in Basic Judaism!

Image: My first “Intro to the Jewish Experience” class, in 2009. Photo by Scott Wexelberg.

Right after the High Holy Days, I start my “Intro to the Jewish Experience” series over again.

Intro to the Jewish Experience is a course in Basic Judaism offered by Lehrhaus Judaica and taught by Rabbi Ruth Adar – me.
Who takes this class? People who for whatever reason never got a basic Jewish education and want one. They may be born-Jewish, they may be considering conversion, they may be marrying into a Jewish family, or maybe they’ve taken a job at a Jewish institution. This class will give a good foundation in the basics, and also some insights about how Jewish communities actually work.
My goal is to equip all my students for whatever Jewish connections they want in their lives.
Class in the San Francisco East Bay:
Classes will meet at Congregation Beth El in Berkeley on Wednesdays starting October 10 from 7:30 – 9pm. For more information and to register, visit the course’s page in the Lehrhaus Judaica online catalog.
Online Class:
If Wednesday evenings are not convenient, we offer the same course online on Sunday afternoons from 3:30-5pm Pacific Time, starting on October 22. To register, visit the course page in the Lehrhaus Judaica online catalog.
The course takes place in three terms, which may be taken in any order:
  • In the Fall (Oct – Dec) Jewish Holidays & Lifecycle Events.
  • In Winter (Jan – March)  Israel & Texts. (History of Judaism and Jewish Texts)
  • In Spring, (April – May) we learn about the the diversity in world Judaism and the similarities that hold us together, in a class we call Traditions of Judaism.

Information about the class is available at the class website, Jewish Experience Online.

 

Summer Reading List, 2018

Image: Person sitting in a chair looking at an e-reader. (pexels/pixabay)

In the summertime, I catch up on reading. Some of it is professional, and some is just fun. Here’s my list, in no particular order.

 

Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright.

White Like Me: Reflections on Race by a Privileged Son by Tim Wise.

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Thurston

Cultures of the Jews: A New History  ed. David Biale

Hasidism: A New History by David Biale, et al.

Shady Characters & Other Typographical Marks, by Keith Houston.

Prairie Fires: the American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser.

What’s on your summer reading list? Do you plan your reading list, or just read what looks interesting when you are ready for a new book? How do you choose your reading?

 

 

Building Your Jewish Library

Image: Bookshelves of Jewish books, art, and objects. (Ruth Adar, all rights reserved.)

What books should be part of a Jewish household? Beyond that, how does one build a Jewish library?

  1. Every Jewish home should have a Jewish Bible. Not an “Old Testament,” not a “Living Bible,” not the “King James Bible” or any of its descendants – a Jewish Bible. How can you tell if it is a Jewish Bible? There will be no New Testament in there. It may have the word “Tanakh” on the cover. It will be arranged into Torah, Prophets, and Writings. There are several good Jewish Bibles on the market. One excellent option is to get one that comes with a commentary, such as:
    1. The Torah, A Modern Commentary, ed. Plaut.
    2. Etz Hayim, Torah & Commentary, ed. Lieber.
    3. The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, eds Eskenazi, Weiss
  2. For quick answers to Jewish questions, you either need access to some of the excellent Jewish web sites on the Internet, or a good basic reference work.  Jewish Literacy by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin is one excellent choice.  A Guide to Jewish Practice by David A. Teutsch is a three volume set of books that is even more detailed. The text I use for my Introduction to the Jewish Experience class is Settings of Silver, by Stephen Wylen. It is a single volume with a good index.
  3. A Jewish home should have a siddur (Jewish prayer book,) or a book of Jewish prayers for the home, or both. The siddur should be the one you normally use at synagogue (ask your rabbi.)  On the Doorposts of Your House has home rituals of many kinds, from hanging your mezuzah to celebrating the holidays. At a minimum, a card or bentcher with the basic blessings for Shabbat will come in handy.
  4. Every home should have at least one haggadah, the script for the Passover seder. There are a zillion haggadot on the market, ranging from free give-aways to very expensive art books. Which one(s) you choose will depend on your tastes.

Beyond the absolute basics, your interests will shape your Jewish library. For instance, if you are interested in Torah study, you may want to own one or more commentaries. If you are interested in Jewish film, there are a number of good books on those subjects.

For more suggestions of books and topics, see My Basic Jewish Book List.