Ketubbah presentation

Something that I found absolutely fascinating during this portion of the semester was the Ketubbah artist who visited class. Because my parents were married by a Justice of the Peace and removed all religious aspects from their wedding ceremony, I was unfamiliar with the what a Ketubbah was and its importance to a Jewish couple.

I was intrigued by how the Ketubbah artwork evolved over time. The intricate and elaborate designs that decorated each Ketubbah of early European Jews were extremely beautiful. The details of each piece were unique and different for each of the couples. Although the early Ketubbah designs were lavish and brilliant in many ways, I found myself attracted to the samples of Ketubbah artwork the presenter had made previously. I really enjoyed seeing what designs each couple came up with so that their Ketubbah expressed their interests as well as their relationship and the start of their lives together. Although some of them were a little strange and untraditional, I liked the concept of designing your own Ketubbah so that it would be personal and particularly meaningful for the couple. I found myself thinking of what designs or details I would include in my own Ketubbah!

It was also a nice change of pace seeing this presentation as a supplement to the reading we had done prior to class. It brought a very realistic and practical application of the topic being studied which made learning more interesting. Overall I took a great deal of information away from this class and truly enjoyed learning about this great marriage tradition.

It was very interesting to hear what people had to say in class today about the Holocaust. I was surprised at how in-depths some people’s knowledge of the subject was. I only learned about the Holocaust through European history. Outside of that, I have not thought about it as much as I should have. It was interesting to read and discuss the mythic qualities that the holocaust has for some people. I feel that the museum in Washington is probably more effective by mysticizing the holocaust a little.
In 8th grade, during a trip to Washington D.C., my class visited the Holocaust Museum. From what I remember about it, it revolved around the history of the Jews that were lost there. I remember there being shoes, the image of the gates at Auschwitz, and personal articles that were relatable to stir emotions. I also remember a large meditation room where we all sat around in silence. No one was in the mood to say anything. The meditation room was secular to my memory. While I was very moved at the time, I honestly have not thought much about the Holocaust since that trip.
I decided after class to look at the website for the museum down in D.C. It is called the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The website is available in 11 different languages. They say that 90% of their visitors are not Jewish. They express a very broad message about checking hatred to prevent genocide. All over their website is information about genocide prevention, which I do not remember when I was a child. This has probably changed due to more Western knowledge of the atrocities that happen in lesser-known areas like Darfur. In terms of the Holocaust information on the website, they emphasize mostly the Jewish struggles in the Holocaust.
The website and museum in a way probably mysticize the Holocaust. They present the images, artifacts, and stories that will most likely stir up the audiences and leave an impression. By capitalizing on this, they look to make an impact on its visitors and send them away with a message, that being “Never again”. While I know the idea of attributing mythic qualities to the Holocaust could be dangerous and controversial, it has a powerful effect on the viewers.

The class topic on amulets and the idea of what makes something Jewish was brought back to my attention over thanksgiving break. My Aunt and Uncle came over for the usual “catch up” chat. My Uncle was upset because my aunt was about to take a cruise without him. He wasn’t sure what he would eat in the two weeks she was gone. This was the usual catch up chat, but the talk of travel led us in to a discussion about amulets, one in particular, the hand of god.

As we were on the topic of travel I was telling my Aunt about last holiday break. I had decided that I would take a road trip to visit a friend in Georgia. As I live in Philadelphia this was going to be a fairly long drive, about 800 miles. Reasons for such a trip? I wanted to go somewhere different for New Years and thought it would be a typical college road trip. Of course my mother and father weren’t at all pleased with the decision. They were worried about the long drive, potential creepers out on the road, and any accidents.

When my Aunt and Uncle went to Israel they bought my mother and my father a hand of god keychain. It was my Aunt and Uncle’s opinion that it could serve as a protector and good luck. The designs of the actual keychain are colorfully detailed with symbols representing good luck. There is also an eye in the center to protect against the evil eye. They thought it would be an appropriate keychain because cars can be dangerous. (my aunt has had numerous, non-serious, car accidents)

So when it came time to leave for my trip my father insisted on putting this keychain on my key holder. He went rummaging through his drawer to find it. (Interesting that he himself never put it on his key chain, but nevertheless had it) Apparently as the conversation went on with my aunt and uncle, we have actually since lost one of the two key chains that was given to us. At first I thought it was just some weird “Jewish” thing that my dad had. The trip went quite well, no speeding tickets, accidents and only a few creepy people. It has been on my key holder since last holiday break and I refused to give it back to him after the trip. I felt that it did protect me and it did give me good luck. I have a strange attachment to this key chain…! Then it came to my attention over thanksgiving break that it is from Israel. I’m not sure but that makes it even more important. The article we read had amulets that were for birth and other occasions and I can see reasons for people’s attachment or maybe the word is obsession with a type of good luck or protection like an amulet. The hand of god for my father, aunt and uncle is not at all “weird,” it is something they feel they can connect to that will bring them luck and protection. In the end the question that I am left with is what makes the hand of god Jewish? Is the hand of god Jewish because it is from Israel and was given to me by my Jewish aunt and father? I feel it is Jewish because it has some type of Hebrew on the drawing itself and it is an amulet that has meaning, which other Jewish people can identify with. I suppose this is open for other opinions!

The video clip that was shown in class about the Women of the Wall provoked quite a reaction in me. Having been raised and educated with a “modern” and “western” perspective, it’s hard to process the dichotomy of patriarchal scripture and women’s rights. While I understand that I will never understand the passion with which some of the men at The Wall oppose these women, I was intriguied to know that their movement is not confined solely to “Americanized” Jews, but rather consists of members from reform, conservative, and even orthodox sects.

Their existence raised an interesting question to me. While I’ve considered it before in regard to the historical ordainments of Christian women into different sects of Christianity (not to mention female rabbis as well…), the casual “everydayness” of their message really pushed the issue for me: where is the line draw between political correctness in religion, and when does it become a social issue rather than a message of devotion? Naturally many of the verses /commandments in both testaments of the Bible can be considered archaic; after all, it is an archaic piece of literature.

I’m curious, though, as to whether humanity will be capable of evolving religion, in particular toward the equality of men and women, both spiritually and practically. In my opinion, the “creation” of religion arose from humanity’s need for guidance, for understanding, and for personal comfort. Those reasons remain true today, though in addition to them is a history of religion being used to manipulate certain hierarchies, whether it be dominance of land and power in Europe during the crusades, or, dare I say, reinforcing limiting gender roles.

What the Women of the Wall have created is a physical illustration of that question. Their success, and the success of their followers will be the answer. While already there have been changes in religions to accommodate women’s rights, this movement can literally in interpreted as taking place in the heart of religion itself. Personally, I wish them luck.

As I was doing some research for my final paper on brisket, I ran across a cookbook that used a metaphor that I never thought to apply to Jewishness.  In Arthur Schwartz’s Jewish Home Cooking, he explains, “as in any American home, a huge hunk of meat represents attainment of the American Dream.  That’s probably why brisket, the most impressive and, at one time, the most succulent kosher cut of beef, became idolized.”  I’m very familiar with the concept of symbols for the American Dream, such as big cars and houses, and even within the food spectrum of the large turkey for Thanksgiving.  Yet, that notion never crossed my mind.

Brisket symbolizing the American Dream is a perfect example of Judaizing a cultural concept.  On the one hand, we have the American Dream as the rags to riches story, where people come to the country poor but are able to work their way into wealth and they show that by buying large, extravagant things.  On the other hand, we have a largely poor immigrant population looking to have a better standard of living and quality of life.  What better way to show that they gained some sort of status in the new country than by purchasing the biggest, best cut of beef possible, something they only had on a rare occasion in their old country only if they could afford it.  Now, brisket is used in the Jewish home to designate any special occasion from Jewish holidays like Passover to birthdays and anniversaries.

Brisket Judaized the American Dream by taking something that is commonly agreed upon as Jewish and applying it to the basic framework.  I look at it almost as a way the new immigrants pronounced that they were just as American as anyone else, but they still have a strong sense of their Jewish identity that they will not let go.

So, that got me thinking about other ways that the American Dream has been Judaized.  I feel like one can argue that the monstrous sandwiches from Jewish New York delis are another symbol.  This is because in these delis Jews are the business owners, another aspect of the American Dream, and they can show just how well their business is doing by serving such large quantities of meat on a sandwich.  I am sure that one can find many other examples, however I cannot think of anything else so exemplary of the concept.  Or maybe my mind is just hooked on food.

Over the years, I have had many conversations with my Jewish friends about the holiday season, which have made me realize how the contrast between Jewish culture and the majority Christian population of America becomes much more distinct during this time.  Although Christians obviously don’t suddenly abandon their Jewish friends or vice versa, there is still an element of separation that really cannot be avoided.  There are many more times that the two are physically separated, because both parties want to be spending their own holidays with those who also celebrate them.  Because those who celebrate Christmas are in the majority in America and because Hanukkah is not as important a holiday for Judaism as Christmas is for Christianity, Christmas is certainly more in-your-face than Hanukkah is.  As a result, the divide has more impact on everyday life during this time.  Visually, it is immediately apparent who is Jewish and who is not.  This difference in decorations during the holiday season in particular is what has caused an ongoing argument with one of my Jewish friends and me.

We refer to this argument as the “Hanukkah wreath” argument, and though it is just a light-hearted disagreement we like to play around with, I think that the discussion reveals a lot about the boundary making between Jewish culture and American culture, especially during this time of year.  The basis of the argument is the idea of whether it is necessarily fair to say that certain holiday decorations associated with Christmas, such as the wreath, is exclusively Christmas-related.  It started out because I wondered out loud if there could be such thing as a Hanukkah wreath, but my friend adamantly opposed the idea.  She said that she doesn’t think that Jews should ever have Hanukkah wreaths because the wreath is a Christmas decoration.  However, as far as I’m concerned, there is nothing specifically symbolic of Christianity inherent in the wreath.  We casually looked it up at one point and it seems that though there is one interpretation of a wreath as symbolizing “the never-ending love of Christ”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wreath), the concept of wreath actually began in Roman and Greek times and had absolutely nothing to do with Christianity.  In fact, I know many households that keep seasonal wreaths up that have no religious connotation at all.  I do agree that perhaps now the “winter wreath,” made with pine needles and pine cones and ribbons (even those ribbons that colors other than red) are associated with Christmas, but I can’t help but wonder why this means that Jews should not be able to decorate a wreath in a Hanukkah style.  Like Christy questioned in her previous blog, I too wonder how different the holiday season would be if Jews were in the majority in America.  Would this type of evergreen wreath, made with supplies commonly found in winter, be associated with Hanukkah more than with Christmas? Would Christians be less inclined to put up wreaths with Christmas decorations on them if they were perceived as strictly Hanukkah decorations? As we discussed after reading Jonathan Webber’s “Lest We Forget!” people as a whole take elements of their culture, even grief, and become fiercely protective of it; in order to remain fiercely protective, there must be something else to protect against, to push away.  So by pushing away anything that is even vaguely associated with the culture in question, one feels as if they are being more loyal to their own culture.

Yesterday in class we were talking about the Holocaust and it reminded me of an incident that happened when I was at Seeds of Peace in 2007. This day was the first day there that I cried. At Seeds, there is an hour and a half designated to dialogue sessions between the Palestinians and the Israelis where they are able to share their stories with the “enemy”. I remember walking into the dining hall for lunch where my friends Maor and Sapir, both Israeli, were waiting for me at our table. Maor pulled me aside and asked if I had heard what happened in one of the dialogue sessions that day, I told him I hadn’t. “Someone drew the swastika on the floor of one of the dialogue huts in permanent marker and said it was the best thing that had ever happened,” he said. Hearing that someone believed that the Holocaust was the best thing to happen in history was not only shocking, but rather painful. I later broke down and cried to my bunk counselor because that comment made me feel as though that Palestinian child was spitting on my father’s grave. After that comment, the Jews banded together and only talked to other Jews. Despite the forced integrated seating, the tables in the dining hall divided into Arabs and Jews, and it remained this way for a few days. As it turned out, the situation was that one of the discussion leaders drew the swastika on a piece of paper, passed it around the circle and asked each person what was the first thing that came to mind. However, one of the Palestinian kids stated that he believed that it was the best thing that had ever happened.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend of mine about the Holocaust and she pointed out to me that we really only learn about the Holocaust from the Jewish perspective and that often we forget that it also happened to 5 million people who weren’t Jewish…gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally and physically disabled were all persecuted as well. It seems that the Jews are trying to claim it as their own personal experience when it in a way happened to everyone. In class, we talked about how there are slogans about the holocaust like “never again”, and as we pointed out in class, “never again” to whom? “Never again” to the Jews? I’ve been studying the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for the last few years and Gaza and the West Bank look a lot like the concentration camps…now obviously there are not mass genocides or people being forced to work and being starved to death. However, Israel has restricted 1.2 million Palestinians to the Gaza Strip which is 28 miles long by 4 miles wide. They live in refugee camps, and are not permitted to leave, and then the Israeli government wonders why the intifada’s happen…I’m not trying to be anti-Semitic, it just seems hypocritical.

I’ve been thinking about boundaries a lot lately. Specifically how people define themselves by using labels while simultaneously creating boundaries within their own communities. There are many examples of this, such as Christians segregating themselves as Catholics, Methodists, and Baptists, and Jews as Orthodox, secular, Conservative, etc. Lately I’ve understood these labels as not for the purpose of explaining oneself for the outsider by rather for the insider. In other words, labeling yourself as a specific type of Jew allows others in the Jewish community to understand you in relation to their own identity. While I can understand the reasoning behind the labeling, I feel that for the most part it causes conflicts. In my first post I write that one thing that I find most interesting about Judaism is its fluidity though I’ve come to realize that Jewish identity is a lot more complicated and less “smooth” than my last description implies. One conflict that I am most curious about is the relationship between Messianic Judaism and the rest of the Jewish community.

Messianic Judaism is essentially another label that defines a Jew who religiously identifies as Christian. There exist many other Jews within the spectrum that do not necessarily share religious Jewish beliefs by identifying themselves according to another religion or even as completely secular. However the acceptance and attitude that Messianic Jews experience within the Jewish community is different to when pertaining to other Jews in the spectrum. In fact Messianic Judaism’s legitimacy was questioned by Israel and thus those using this label do not receive automatic citizenship. I believe that there are many underlying reasons of why Messianic Jews conflict so much with the Jewish community as a whole, one of which may be the turbulent historical relationship between Christianity and Judaism. However, conflict always arises when there is a search for legitimacy, a search for the ultimate truth. As impossible as it may seem, perhaps the eradication of these labels which over simplify Jewish identity within the Jewish community may soften the situation. Though, of course, differences and dichotomies within Judaism will not completely disappear along with those labels.

            This time of year is my favorite. Every Friday after Thanksgiving, my mother emerges out of the basement with our infinite amount of Christmas decorations with which we transform our house into a Winter Wonderland filled with Santa Clauses, angels, holly, snowmen, and lights. We put away our white plates and instead use the Christmas-themed lenox plates and mugs. We decorate the Christmas tree and Christmas music is playing from the moment the first Arndt wakes up until the last one goes to sleep. From the outsiders’ perspective, it literally looks like a Christmas bomb exploded in our house or they just happened to discover Santa’s Workshop in Boyds, Maryland. However, as I go through the newspapers clipping coupons for the Holiday sales or open another Holiday card, I can’t help but wonder what about those who don’t celebrate Christmas.

              As described in Eli Yassif’s essay title “Introduction: Modern Jewish Culture as a System of Myths,” Christmas is a key event in the American calendar. He states:

“Preparations for Christmas begin weeks before the actual festival – the buying of the Christmas trees, their ornamentation, the long preoccupation with personal gifts and preparations for the holiday meals and vacations, constitute a peak in the annual cultural cycle in the United States. On the face of it, the American Jews have no place in this central component of the American culture. This is why Hanukkah has become one of the most important Jewish holidays in the United States” (p. 9).

But what if the tables were turned? As much as stores try to incorporate Hanukkah into their decorations and promote “Holiday” sales, “Holiday” events, etc instead of promoting solely “Christmas,” from my experience, this time of year primarily focuses on Christmas. So what if the majority of the American population was Jewish and not Christian? What would happen then? When I open up “Holiday” cards, will the color-theme be silver and blue instead of greens and reds? When I walk into a coffee shop, will two-thirds of the cookies be dreidels and menorahs instead of Christmas trees and Santa Clauses? When I turn on the television, will the majority of the Holiday specials be movies about the “spirit” of Hanukkah? Will workers have eight days off to observe Hanukkah instead of the two to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? Would Christians eat Chinese food and go to the movies on these eight days because there is little else to do?

            Then I think back to my days in elementary school when I wanted to be like everyone else. We mentioned in class, Hanukkah is a way for Jewish families to reinforce the celebration of their religion while so many others are celebrating Christmas. During the days leading up to Christmas, my Jewish classmates would tell me how jealous they were that I got a Christmas tree and that Santa Claus visited my house. My response would be something along the lines of “but you get EIGHT days of presents!” but again what if the tables were turned. As a kid it is hard to compete my one day of presents to my friends’ eight days (even if presents aren’t the purpose of these holidays, as a kid what else is cooler than getting presents). Would I feel left out of the celebrations at this time of the year?

            As I write this blog, one large question has slowly formed. Yassif said that Hanukkah has become one of the most important holidays for Jews in American in part due to its “calendar proximity… to Christmas” (p. 9). If the American population was predominately Jewish, would Hanukkah have the same significance in the United States as it does today or would the other High Holidays have more significance in terms of observation amongst the community, such as stores closing? Would people recognize the significance of Christmas for the Christian Community as it does today or would it lose its large presence in terms of the decorations, the Christmas messages in the media, etc? Obviously, this time of year would be drastically different if this were the case, but to what extent?

Talking about marriage in this class brought up a number of personal feelings for me. I have discussed Jewish marriage in the classroom often before, but only ever as a discussion of the halacha surrounding the wedding and ensuing marriage. I have never actually been to a Jewish wedding so it has always been a topic that fascinates me, but for some reason in the conversations in this particular class I realized I had never asked my own parents about their wedding.
My mother is Jewish. My father is the son of a Methodist minister and had no desire to convert to Judaism. As a result the wedding was obviously not of a tradition Jewish nature. Judaism and tradition have always been fairly important to my mother though her biggest connection to Judaism, her father, was not present at this important event. I knew that the officiant had been my Aunt who is a Methodist minister and had seen that there was a chuppah and that many of the men (but not my father) wore kippot during the ceremony. But that was about all I knew.
After the class session where we talked about the Ketubot I called my mother and asked her what the wedding had been like. Apparently it had been important for her to include Jewish elements such as the chuppah and at the end of the ceremony my father broke a glass. In addition her uncle read “something in Hebrew about love, maybe a Psalm,” according to my mother. She also recalls something about the number seven, possibly walking around the table seven times together. This is also a traditional part of the Jewish wedding in which the bride walks seven times around the groom. It is interesting that for her 20 years later the importance of these acts was not the details but rather that they were traditionally Jewish and that gave them meaning for her.
This brought up the idea also of Goldberg’s discussion of the breaking of the glass. I did not ask my mother why exactly she picked this custom, especially as it is something that involves only my father, the non-Jewish participant, to be the one Jewish ritual that represented the most for her (as it is the only one that she actually recalls in detail). After reading Goldberg my guess is that it’s gaining significance as a cultural symbol of a Jewish wedding played a large role in the inclusion of this tradition in my parents wedding.
Today, with more and more non-traditional couples marrying and wanting some aspect of a tradition Jewish wedding it is truly fascinating to see what is kept and what is discarded. I found he Ketubah written for the two men to be a wonderful example of something that is so traditional but that, in this particular instance has no traditional standing, yet is still something of great importance to those involved.