Provocative Photo Project Goes Viral Among Orthodox Students

‘What I Be’ portrait series makes waves at Yeshiva University

By Hannah Dreyfus for Tablet Magazine

Mati Engel, a student photographer at Yeshiva University’s Stern College, believes staunchly in the power of photography to create change. That’s why Engel contacted Steve Rosenfield, the photographer who created the What I Be photo project in 2010, and asked him to come to Yeshiva University.

“I first met Steve at Princeton University, where he had taken What I Be,” Engel told me. “I was blown away by his photography. I knew that the Orthodox Jewish community could benefit greatly from his work.”

That’s because What I Be is more than an art exhibit—it’s a social experiment. Rosenfield writes bold statements in black ink on his subjects’ face, chest, or arms before taking a straight-on headshot. Next to the photograph reads the statement: “I am not my ______,” filled in by each subject with his or her greatest insecurity or fear.

“There’s so much fear and judgment in our community,” Engel explained. “I thought this project would be a perfect chance to undo some of the stigmas that plague our religious world.”

The project became exactly that. In creating a What I Be series for the “Jews of NYC,” Rosenfield waded through some of the community’s greatest fears and stigmas, one photograph at a time.

“I AM Observant,” were the words Dina Horowitz, a 2011 Stern graduate, chose to have sketched onto her forehead and arm. Next to the photograph she wrote the caption: I am not my pants. Interpreted as a tenet of modesty, many see a woman’s decision of whether or not to wear pants as a litmus test for religiosity.

“People have questioned my observance because of how I dress,” Horowitz told me. “Participating in this project was my way of speaking out against those who judge others on such insignificant details.”

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Promiscuous Daughter

From Ask Emuna from Aish.com

Dear Emuna,
My 19-year-old daughter is away from home in her junior year at a Liberal Arts College. All is going very well in her life, she’s very mature and responsible with her school and work, except for the fact she has chosen to experiment with a promiscuous lifestyle which she informed us about during the holidays. Not only that but she now writes a blog about her escapades for the school paper.

My husband and I expressed our concerns about the negative consequences her choice would bring to her life, while simultaneously demonstrating our unconditional love. We do not judge her or feel embarrassed because of her; we only pray she will change her path sooner rather than later. My mother, on the other hand, has judged her severely and has shunned her from her home, The whole family is torn in half by this: my parents, sisters, cousins, including our two younger daughters (16 and 12). She went back to college after the holidays without any desire to return home although we still speak regularly and remain very close to each other. I don't know how to balance my obligation to honor and love both my mother and daughter unconditionally. This makes me profoundly sad, how should I approach this?

Torn

Dear Torn,

You are choosing the only path a truly loving parent can choose with their child and I respect and admire you for it.

It is not a lack of love or honor for your mother to recognize that she has chosen a destructive path. Judging your daughter and pushing her away from her family will definitely NOT lead to any desire to return on her part. It may even work to push her to pursue this lifestyle more aggressively.

You need to do what’s best for your daughter and maintain an open home and heart. And you need to stand up to your mother, tell her how hurtful her behavior is, and ask her to stop.

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What Yair Netanyahu's Norwegian Dating Game Tells Us

By Emily L. Hauser for The Jewish Daily Forward

It’s easy for liberal Jews to write off the hullabaloo regarding the dating habits of one of Israel’s better known sons as just that: Hullabaloo. Sound and fury signifying nothing, or maybe signifying a prurient interest in famous lives, or possibly signifying a helplessly stultified and hidebound worldview that has nothing to do with us. Or, you know, politics.

But the Sturm und Drang in certain Jewish circles about Yair Netanyahu’s (maybe?) girlfriend is bigger than that – as evidenced by the speed with which his father the Prime Minister has turned around to deny the romance. It goes to the heart of the Jewish experience and the soul of our people. Who are we, how do we define ourselves? Whether or not we realize it, that’s what we’re talking about, and ultimately, these questions go to the heart and soul of how the Jewish faith is conducted everywhere, not least in the Jewish State.

Liberals often forget that for many Jews, the question of one Jew’s dating habits is, genuinely, the business of all Jews. If the younger Netanyahu marries a Gentile, these Jews will (genuinely) feel it to be a catastrophe – a national catastrophe, not just for the State, but for the entire Jewish people. We see more than a little of this fear reflected any time an American Jewish leader starts talking in dire tones about intermarriage.

This is, of course, true as regards any Jew’s decision to marry out, but it’s more powerfully true when the Jew in question is well-known. Marit ayin (appearance) plays a powerful role in how Jewish law is interpreted; minhag k’din (“custom as law”) is no joke. A well-known Jew can lead others astray, new customs can arise, and these will, eventually, change the way that people understand the law.

Which, I tell myself, is fine – those folks can believe whatever they want. I don’t daven with them.

Because even though it warms my heart to see Jews marry each other and raise little Jews, I do (genuinely) believe that people must live lives that provide them with meaning – that an individual’s God-given right to authenticity, respect, and love, wherever it may appear, is more important than the collective’s desire to have more bar mitzvahs. I also have bone-deep faith in the future of the Jewish people and, not incidentally, believe that children born to a Jewish father are Jewish if they are so raised, no matter who their mother is.

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What Are You?

For me, the most daunting part of being Jewish is the beginning. The introduction. The double take. I will always have to repeat my religion twice. I have gotten used to this. Typically, after the initial shock, the questioner will accept my Judaism or admit defeat and give up on their interrogation. Sometimes I am not so lucky. Sometimes – even though I wear my Jewishness around my neck, literally, in the form of the Star of David or a hamsa, depending on the day – I am still required to defend my identity. Amani Hayes-Messinger 

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On Non-Binary Jewish Identities and the Future of Traditional Judaism

by Amram Altzman for newvoices.org

I have a hard time answering the question, “So how do you identify? Like, Jewish-ly?”

On the one hand, I grew up in a Modern Orthodox home and attended Modern Orthodox schools since kindergarten, but, for most of my life so far, was part of a haredi community in southern Brooklyn. On the other hand, I’m studying at the flagship institution of Conservative Judaism in the United States, and, when given the option, often find myself in egalitarian prayer communities as opposed to the traditional, Modern Orthodox communities in which I was raised. And, even if I’m praying in a traditional Conservative community on campus, I am still committed to Modern Orthodoxy as a theology.

So, the short answer is that I don’t have an answer. I am all of those things at the same time, and somehow manage to thrive. The long answer, however, is that I see three different aspects to my identity: my beliefs, my personal practices, and my communal practices. Ultimately, those are the three that are going to inform how I act as a Jew, and each has its own label.

The first is my theology. I identify most closely with Modern Orthodox or Open Orthodox Judaism. I believe in the validity of the Jewish legal, or Halakhic system, but also see a reasonable amount of flexibility to operate and innovate within the given framework of Jewish legal tradition. (For more on this, see Rabbi Avraham Weiss’s essay, “Open Orthodoxy! A Modern Orthodox Rabbi’s Plea.”) Modern Orthodoxy demands a commitment to the Halakhic framework that has been followed by generations of Jews that allows me to see the value in preserving said framework. At the same time, however, it also charges me to innovate within that same framework to create spaces for Jews who previously were excluded from the Orthodox community, either because of their gender or their sexuality, or a number of other reasons.

Indeed, this is possibly because to me, Modern Orthodoxy can only be seen as a belief system, not as a set of practices and rituals. Modern Orthodoxy dictates that we straddle the line between tradition and modernity, and see the spiritual from the mundane. How we do that, however, is up to us to decide, which means that there are so many ways for a Modern Orthodox-identified Jew to exhibit his or her Modern Orthodoxy.

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What Limmud Can Teach Us

A Spirit of Youthful Volunteerism Sorely Lacking in America

By Jane Eisner for The Jewish Daily Forward

The fourth and final night of the massive conference known as Limmud UK coincided with Christmas, but you’d never know it in the auditorium where thousands gathered on the campus of the University of Warwick in Coventry, several hours from London. Instead, the focus was on the two men who oversaw the annual marathon of non-stop classes, lectures, debates, dancing, prayers, performances and late-night sessions at the bar, all in service of self-styled Jewish learning.

Richard Verber and Oliver Marcus stood at a podium and did what co-chairs do: Thanked the very many people who made this Limmud the largest and, observers said, the most successful since the idea was launched in 1980. Two thousand, six hundred participants attended 1,102 sessions offered by 451 presenters from around the globe – an organizational challenge for even the most seasoned conference coordinators.

But Verber is 29 years old. Marcus is 27.

And they chaired Limmud in their spare time.

Limmud is an avowedly volunteer and egalitarian effort, and overwhelmingly young. One of the people in charge of the optional Shabbat weekend before the conference began on December 22 is only 25. One of the people overseeing the massive undertaking of feeding kosher food to thousands three times a day is the same age.

This was my first time at Limmud UK, and I was hugely impressed by the volunteer leadership of the under 30 crowd; I saw the same thing on a smaller scale at Limmud New York last year.

The contrast between this approach and the one taken by so many youth-engagement efforts in the American Jewish community is profound. Here we offer free books to Jewish toddlers even if their parents can afford to buy them; free trips to Israel through Taglit Birthright; free homey meals (and sometimes liquor) at Chabad houses on campuses across the country; thousands of dollars in grants and subsidies to young Jews with the inkling of a novel idea.

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Backlash Against Israel Boycott Throws Academic Association on Defensive

By PETER SCHMIDT | THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION in he New York Times

With its recent vote to boycott Israel’s higher-education institutions to protest the country’s treatment of Palestinians, the American Studies Association has itself become the target of widespread criticism and ostracism. It has gone from relative obscurity to prominence as a pariah of the United States higher-education establishment, its experience serving as a cautionary tale for other scholarly groups that might consider taking a similar stand on the Middle East.

In sharp contrast to the international campaign for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel, which had been slow to gain a foothold in the United States, the campaign to rebuke the American Studies Association has spread rapidly since the group’s mid-December boycott vote. The presidents of more than 80 United States colleges have condemned the vote.

“Such boycotts threaten academic speech and exchange, which it is our solemn duty as academic institutions to protect,” Carolyn A. Martin, president of Amherst College, said in a statement posted on the university’s website. Nearly all of the presidents’ statements have similarly denounced the boycott as impeding the flow of ideas. Several have cited specific collaborations or exchanges with Israeli universities as evidence of their institutional commitment to maintaining strong relations with Israel.

At least five institutions — Bard College, Brandeis University, Indiana University, Kenyon College and Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg — have withdrawn from A.S.A. membership.

As of last week, the boycott also had been denounced by three of the United States’ most prominent higher-education organizations: the American Association of University Professors, the American Council on Education and the Association of American Universities. “Such actions are misguided and greatly troubling, as they strike at the heart of academic freedom,” said the American Council on Education’s president, Molly Corbett Broad.

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