Levi Strauss & Co. on Battery St. in San Francisco
Normally I save my writing about film for the Jewish Film blog, but I want to alert readers to a new film I saw this past week. American Jerusalem tells the story of the first 66 years of Jewish settlement in Northern California, specifically in San Francisco.
The Jewish community is unique in Jewish history, in that nowhere else in the Diaspora were Jews in the majority during the early settlement period of a city. The Jewish community developed differently as a result of this, without the need to buttress itself against anti-Semitism until a much later period. Jewish families were “society” in early San Francisco, and they did not eat or live separately from their gentile neighbors. Even today, Jews in San Francisco have a curious mix of firm Jewish identity with a low rate of synagogue and other Jewish institutional affiliation. While some outsiders look at the demographics and say, “Wow, Judaism is in trouble in San Francisco,” in fact the Jewish community there is vibrant and diverse. It was influential in shaping the past of the city and continues to be engaged with San Francisco’s future.
The filmmakers were extremely selective in their choices, which may leave some old San Franciscan families wondering, “What about my ancestors?” but I think the choices allow viewers to appreciate the forest without losing their way in the trees. Certainly American Jerusalem is a tantalizing springboard from which one can launch into deeper reading (Fred Rosenbaum’s book, Cosmopolitans, a Social and Cultural History of the Jews at the San Francisco Bay Areawould be a great next step.)
Decoration from the Arch of Titus in Rome, with spoils from the Temple in Jerusalem.
Shemayah and Avtalion received the Torah from them. Shemayah said: Love work; hate domination; and do not get too chummy with the government. – Pirkei Avot 1.10
This is a quotation from Pirkei Avot (peer-KAY ah-VOTE), The Verses of the Fathers, a collection of sayings by early rabbinic teachers. Shemayah and Avtalion lived in the first century BCE (Before the Common Era). My friend and colleague Rabbi Amitai Adler teaches that while most translations go heavy on the formal language, these are homespun sayings meant as advice, much of it gained in the school of life. Hence, in my translation, words like “chummy,” and my private name for this document: “Advice from Our Uncles.”
Every now and then I return to Pirkei Avot for inspiration. I love its down-to-earth point of view and its timelessness. For instance, what a commentary on the arguments swirling around 21st century America!
Love work– Contribute to society, for the sake of your own dignity and for the good of society. Don’t live forever on the work of others, whether you are the heir of plutocrats or the recipient of public assistance. Also, love those who work: don’t exploit people who work with their hands. (By the way, under the present laws of the U.S., I am not convinced that anyone is needlessly feeding on the public dole: it is extremely difficult to qualify. I include this here on the chance that a reader personally knows someone who is scamming benefits. I do not know such a person, but I know people who go hungry because they can’t get benefits and haven’t been able to get a job in years.)
Hate domination– Shemaya and Avtalion knew domination: they lived under the domination of the Roman Empire. But it is interesting that they did not limit their hatred to any specific agent of domination. My interpretation? This is both permission to hate something (domination) but a subtle warning that not all domination is from the government. They knew the domination of ideology, also – Jewish society was beginning to splinter into various conflicting ideologies, that ultimately would give rise to sinat chinam, baseless hatred. Sinat chinam would destroy everything: the Temple, the society, local institutions, families, life as they knew it. Demagoguery is as destructive as any tornado.
Don’t get too chummy with the government– I can hear my libertarian friends cheering this one, but notice that it doesn’t say “get rid of the government” (in fact, Pirkei Avot 3.2 warns us to pray for the government, because without it, people would eat one another alive!) This is about putting too much faith in “connections” – thinking that because we “know someone” the things that are wrong in the society can’t touch us. The ancient Sadducees thought that because they were noisy about being “friends of Rome” that the supporters of the Temple party would be safe from Rome. Josephus’ account of the destruction of the Second Temple reminds us just how wrong they were.
Rabbi Meir Tamari wrote that over the centuries, apologists for various economic theories have tried to sell the idea that Torah teaches socialism, or communism, or capitalism, when it fact what it teaches is kindness and moderation in all things.
Love work, hate domination, and don’t get too chummy with the government: words to live by, I think. Work hard, and respect those who work. Love those who want to work, and don’t prevent them from getting decent work, or from getting paid for it. Hate domination in all its forms, and question anyone who wants to distract us and dominate us by pointing to scapegoats. Don’t get too chummy with the government: be skeptical, ask questions, and don’t be afraid to speak truth to power.
Roxie’s Bagel & Lox Open Face Sandwich (Photo credit: GregoryH)
“I’m a cultural Jew.”
People generally say it after they find out I’m a rabbi. I know exactly what’s going on when they say it: they suspect that I will judge them a Bad Jew, because they aren’t “religious.” And either they are cringing at the prospect of judgment or they are angry at the prospect of judgment. Either way, it’s a barrier.
I wish I could convince them that I know enough about Jewish history and Jewish scripture to withhold my judgment. Whatever the ideal of “a good Jew” one may have in mind, history offers a wild diversity of Jewish role models. Secular Jews have been active in many of the great social justice movements of our time. They have been influential philosophers, artists, scientists, musicians, lawyers, actors, writers, and economists. Their Jewish cultural identity has informed their lives and work.
I am much more interested in what you are doing about being Jewish, than that it happens in a way approved by some particular corner of the tribe. There are many ways to be Jewish. Let’s celebrate them all.
Photo of the Kotel in the early 1900’s by one of the American Colony Photographers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“The Kotel” is one of the most famous holy places in the Jewish world.
“Kotel Ha-Ma’aravi” is Hebrew for the “Western Wall,” a retaining wall built by Herod the Great. It is all that is left of the Second Temple, built in 20 BCE (Before the Common Era) and destroyed in 70 CE by the Roman armies of Titus during their sack of Jerusalem.
Among gentiles it has sometimes been known as the “Wailing Wall” but that term has never been in common use among Jews. It got that name from the sound of the prayers of devout Jews who made pilgrimage there during the centuries of Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman rule.
Many visitors to the Kotel write prayers on scraps of paper and press the paper into the crevices in the Wall.
Today the Kotel functions as an open-air synagogue. It has been in the news because of controversy over the norms for prayer at the site. For 25 years, the Women of the Wall have pressed for the right to pray aloud, to read aloud from the Torah, and to wear tallitot (prayer shawls) at the Kotel. Their struggle is ongoing.
When Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party was first exhibited in 1979, I was earning my living as a potter, making dinnerware and other stoneware goods in Tennessee. I remember poring over photographs of it in Ceramics Monthly, and wishing I could travel to see the exhibition. I loved the idea of a cross-time cross-cultural dinner party with all the great women of history sitting together.
Just now, I read a blog that reminded me of that: “Three Dinner Guests List” on the Sojourning with Jews blog. Ruth wrote about a game she plays with her family, from an issue of Bon Appetit: “If you could have dinner with any three people from history, who would they be, and why?”
Of course, part of the game is limiting the list to just three, but as I tried to imagine my own dinner party, I thought about how many wonderful Jewish women I wish I could have met:
Doña Beatriz de Luna, also known as Gracia Nasi would top my list. Her current Wikipedia entry begins: “Doña Gracia Mendes Nasi was one of the wealthiest women of Renaissance Europe,” but there was so much more to her than her wealth! Widowed in her twenties, she was left with an infant daughter and a partnership in the House of Mendes, one of the great banking houses of the time. She and her husband were Conversos, secret Jews, whose families had been forcibly converted to Christianity but who secretly maintained their commitment to Jewish life and tradition. Besides being a businesswoman, Doña Gracia also managed one of the largest refugee operations in European history, moving converso families out of Spain and Portugal into the Ottoman Empire, where they could openly practice their Judaism and where they were no longer under the threat posed by the Inquisition. At the same time, she was a high-profile refugee herself, moving from city to city as politics shifted. She eventually moved to Istanbul where she died in 1569.
Rabbi Regina Jonas, the first woman ordained a rabbi in modern times, lived in Germany as Hitler rose to power. We know tantalizingly little about her, except that she had a huge determination to become a rabbi, and the scholarship to back up her desire. She graduated from the Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums, the Academy for the Science of Judaism, in Berlin. She eventually received a private ordination from Rabbi Max Dienemann, after rejection from other rabbis who deemed her request too controversial. She served small Jewish communities in Germany, taught Torah, and in 1942, at age 40, was sent to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt where she worked alongside Dr. Viktor Frankl helping people cope with their disorientation. She gave lectures at the camp on various topics of Torah. She was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 and was murdered there.
Glückel of Hamelnwrote a memoir, one of our best sources for what Jewish life in Central Europe was like during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. She was a businesswoman, a wife, and a mother of 14 children (and she found time to write!) Her diaries give us information about all sorts of aspects of life, from the markets of Hamburg and Hameln to the hysteria over false messiah Shabbatai Zvi.
Lillian Wald was a social worker, who founded the Henry Street Settlement House. She began work as a nurse, looking to improve the quality of life for immigrants in the tenements of New York City in the early 20th century, but she later worked to convince world leaders that children’s health and the health of nations are inextricably linked.
Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah, was a rabbi’s daughter born in 1860. She was an essayist, translator, and editor, and worked both to build American Jewish culture and to support the ZIonist project. She was the first woman student at the Jewish Theological Institute, but was admitted only after she gave her word not to claim credit for her academic work there. She was a “silent partner” with Louis Ginsberg on his great work, “Legends of the Jews,” a compendium of midrash that has seen multiple editions.
… This is getting too long for a blog post! I’d also like to invite Berurya, Imma Shalom, Emma Goldman, Golda Meir, Judith Resnick… the list goes on. And that’s without getting into a list of wonderful women still living!
