I have to go to a Zoom shiva this week. I know these have been happening for nearly a year, but this will be my first one. What usually happens at these? Is there any etiquette I should know about?
Signed,
Unsure of Shiva
Dear Unsure,
Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a column about bringing a toddler to a shiva house, advice which, almost immediately, became irrelevant. Shiva, the week following a person’s death, when family and friends visit the house to comfort the mourners, is an important Jewish life cycle ritual. It’s often difficult and emotional, but it’s a huge mitzvah to attend. Though the format has changed for now, it’s no less important, and, if anything, providing connection and comfort is more important than ever.
At an in-person shiva, the typical protocol is to enter the house and, if possible, be near the mourner(s) but only to say things that are part of a kind of script. These include, “May his/her memory be for a blessing,” “May God comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem,” or “Blessed be the true judge.” Then, typically, visitors sit and wait and listen to the mourner share stories of the deceased when they feel so inclined. Depending on the time of day, there is also often a short prayer service so that the family can say Mourners’ Kaddish, and visitors are there to help make a minyan (prayer quorum).
On Zoom, it’s actually a little easier to sit back and listen. Without the opportunities to slip into side conversations with other attendees, you can often be more attentive to the mourner’s stories and less distracted by your own discomfort. And because Zoom shiva, even after a year, is still awkward for most people, you’ll know you’re not the only one unsure what to do.
The best thing is to log on, mute yourself and get a feel for the “room.” If you knew the deceased, you may have the chance to share a story. If you didn’t, or if you don’t want to speak, you just listen. Your presence here is truly the thing that matters. A rabbi or another family member may serve as a sort of facilitator, or if there are only a small number of people present, it may be less formal than that with people just unmuting to speak when they have something to share.
Another feature of in-person shiva is that people often bring food. The function is both so that the mourners have something to eat and so they the people attending shiva have refreshments. Before sending food to anyone these days, it’s important to know if they want this. Find out if someone is coordinating a meal train or meal deliveries, but without a house full of people, extra food could end up being a burden rather than a help.
While traditional, in-person opportunities to grieve have been taken away from people this past year, it’s also important to note that the phenomenon of the Zoom shiva has meant that friends and family from around the world have been able to join in these rituals. There is no substitute for in-person comfort and support, but there’s also no substitute for seeing the faces of loved ones who live far away.
I expect a combination of virtual and in-person shiva to be the norm even after the pandemic, so getting familiar with this format now will likely be helpful not just for this particular moment, but long into the future.
Ginger-garlic-sesame bok choy. Photo by Keri White
This recipe is so simple and so delicious. I bought two bunches of bok choy at the farmers market last week, and this ended up being the perfect way to prepare it.
If you don’t have bok choy, this recipe works fine with any green — spinach, pea leaves, kale, mustard greens, escarole, et cetera — just be sure to vary the cooking time depending on the hardiness of the green. Spinach and pea leaves will cook very quickly, while kale will need about 15 minutes.
I served this with a Thai-spiced turkey tenderloin and oven-roasted sweet potatoes, but the greens would complement many dishes.
Ginger-Garlic-Sesame Bok Choy
Serves 4
You can leave the bok choy leaves intact once you remove the bottom core. There’s no need to chop them any smaller.
2 bunches bok choy, rinsed, with bottom root/core removed
1 tablespoon vegetable or canola oil
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Sprinkle of red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon sesame oil
In a large skillet, heat the cooking oil with the ginger, garlic, red pepper and sesame oil to a sizzle, stirring constantly. When fragrant, after about 1 minute, add the greens and stir, turning them over frequently and making sure they are coated with the oil and seasonings until done, about 7 minutes.
An evangelical congregation prays in “‘Til Kingdom Come.” Photo by Abraham Troen
It takes Yael Eckstein three days to get from her home in Israel to Middlesboro, Kentucky, but it’s a journey she is happy to make.
That’s because the city’s residents are staunch supporters of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, one of the largest organizations supporting humanitarian projects in Israel. At the time of filming, Christians had donated $1.4 billions to Israel through the fellowship. It was created by Yael Eckstein’s father, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, who named her as his successor.
Middlesboro’s residents are not wealthy. Their community is blighted by the decline of coal, economic recession and addiction. Yet they pool their small-dollar donations to the fellowship at their church under the guidance of the Bingham family, a local dynasty of pastors who preach that God will bless the nations who support the nation of Israel.
Director Maya Zinshtein zooms in on this relationship between evangelicals and Israel in her documentary “‘Til Kingdom Come,” which screens virtually at the Gershman Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival on Feb. 27 and 28.
Yael Eckstein explains that the fellowship supports programs that offer aid to Israel’s most vulnerable populations, including minorities and Holocaust survivors, but Zinshtein probes the darkness behind the fervor of its donors.
Evangelicals, Pastor Boyd Bingham III says, believe the return of Jews to the biblical land of Israel is crucial to bringing about the rapture, the second coming of Jesus Christ. It’s a period that will be marked by great “tribulations” in the region, including armed conflict, disease and natural disasters, which will culminate in the battle of Armageddon. Two-thirds of Jews will perish, and the other third will be forced to accept Christ as their savior.
“Tribulations” are key. Since the coming of Christ is supposedly heralded by upheaval in Israel, many of the film’s evangelical subjects react to news of violence in the region with eerie excitement.
“As I listen to news reports from Israel, I heard about the bombings and they were bombings even near children. When we see all of these things happening to the nation of Israel, it should give us all hope, that when we hear of these wars, we can look at and say that our redemption will begin,” an evangelical radio host says in an early scene.
The paradox of providing financial support for Israel while preaching the eventual downfall of the Jews clearly makes Zinshtein squirm, and she succeeds in making her audience just as uncomfortable as she is.
Zinshtein interviews Jewish leaders, many of them secular and progressive, who are alarmed by the role of Christianity in Middle East policy and see it as an erosion of the boundary between church and state.
With the election of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in 2016 and the appointment of prominent evangelicals like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Israel journalist Barak Rand tells Zinshtein, evangelicals had the power to combine prophecy and politics. They advocated to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, he says, because they believed it was a step toward the rapture.
“This is political Christianity in which politics is a continuation of a prophetic vision,” said Barak Rand, Israel diplomatic correspondent.
Evangelical involvement in the region also alarms some Palestinian Christians.
“When they look at the future, honestly, they see a horror movie, wars and Armageddon and battles. Their scenario is not one that will help us Palestinians and Israelis coexist,” said Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, who leads a congregation in Bethlehem.
Even Eckstein acknowledges the elephant in the room, although she has no intention of stopping her fundraising work.
“When the Christian community speaks about what they think is going to happen and what they envision, I agree with 99% of it. But the end is different. Only one of us can be right,” she said.
Zinshtein’s research is exhaustive, and the sheer number of perspectives she obtains on the relationship between evangelicals and Jews is both overwhelming and necessary in such a multifaceted story. Keeping track of the major players’ various political and religious motives and anecdotes makes for a dense viewing experience in a 76-minute film.
The director’s greatest strength is her ability to balance tough questions with the humanity of her subjects. From pastor Boyd Bingham IV’s story of how faith helped him overcome a deadly illness to Eckstein’s close relationship with her father and Rev. Isaac’s fear of increasing violence in his region, Zinshtein’s interviews convey that the personal is inseparable from the political, and every dollar donated extracts a hidden cost.
In addition to the Gershman screening, the documentary will be available to view via other theaters. Cleveland Cinemas and Acme Screening Room in Lambertville, New Jersey, will host virtual screenings from Feb. 26 to March 5.
A volley of rockets targeting an airbase in Iraq’s Kurdistan region on Feb. 15 killed a foreign civilian contractor and wounded five others and a US soldier, according the US-led coalition. (Safin Hamed/AFP via Getty Images via JTA.org)
President Joe Biden ordered an airstrike on Iranian-backed militias in Syria, his first military action.
The strike Thursday at a point near Syria’s border with Iraq was in retaliation for a Feb. 15 rocket attack on a U.S.-led military base near Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, that killed a civilian contractor who was not a U.S. citizen and wounded an American serviceperson. Iranian-backed militias are believed responsible for that attack.
Iran helped prop up the Assad regime during Syria’s decade-long civil war and maintains a presence in the country. Israel has said that Iran must leave Syria altogether and sees Iran’s presence north of its border as an inherent threat.
The decision to order the U.S. airstrike, reportedly the smallest target among options the Pentagon presented to Biden, signaled the precariousness of Biden’s mission to contain Iranian adventurism in the region while working to bring Iran back into compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
In 2018, Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, pulled out of the international deal, which traded sanctions relief for a partial rollback of Iran’s nuclear development, and engaged Iranian forces in the region multiple times. Last year he ordered the killing of a top Iranian general believed responsible for deadly attacks on U.S. and Israeli forces.
In retaliation, Iran has abrogated some components of the nuclear deal, which Biden has said he sees returning to as the best means of keeping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Biden also has said he wants to limit Iran’s influence in the region.
“President Biden will act to protect American and Coalition personnel,” John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement about Thursday’s strike. “At the same time, we have acted in a deliberate manner that aims to deescalate the overall situation in both eastern Syria and Iraq.”
The New York Times quoted Kirby as saying that the strike “specifically destroyed multiple facilities located at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed militia troops, including Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada.”
The Washington Post quoted an anonymous U.S. official as saying that the U.S. airstrike killed a “handful” of people.
An excavator digs near a mass grave of Jews in Veliucionys, Lithuania, February 2021. (Ruta Vanagaite via JTA.org)
By Cnaan Liphshiz
Construction was documented near a mass grave of Jewish Lithuanian Holocaust victims on privately owned land that the government had promised to reclaim.
Ruta Vanagaite, a well-known author who has written extensively on the Holocaust, earlier this month filmed heavy machinery digging about 100 yards from the monument erected near or on the mass grave of 1,159 victims buried in Veliucionys, east of Vilnius.
In 2017, Vanagaite discovered that the land was privately owned and for sale. She alerted the Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for maintaining mass graves and Holocaust sites. The ministry said it would block the sale and take over the land.
However, the land was later sold, and then resold, and is now the scene of extensive earthworks, Vanagaite said she discovered during a tour of the place this month with Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania, Yossi Levy.
Digging in mass graves is illegal in Lithuania, where the government has the authority to confiscate such sites from private owners if they refuse to hand over ownership to the state in exchange for compensation.
“There’s no way of actually knowing where the bodies are buried,” Vanagaite told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “What’s certain is that 1,159 bodies could not have fit where they built the small monument. So there are likely human remains spread out over that land.”
She also saw a pit she believes may have been used for burning bodies to destroy the evidence.
The Lithuanian Culture Ministry has not immediately replied to questions on the mass grave.
Jewish women attend a kosher lunch at the Ashkenazi synagogue in Baku. (Larry Luxner via JTA.org)
By Cnaan Liphshiz
Leaders of the Jewish community of Azerbaijan have postponed public celebrations of Purim because the joyous Jewish holiday coincides this year with a national day of mourning.
This is the first time in many years that Purim falls on the anniversary of the Khojaly Massacre, an atrocity that occurred on Feb. 25, 1992, in which Armenian troops killed 613 Azerbaijanis in the city of Khojaly, according to Rabbi Zamir Isayev, chairman of Georgian Jewish community of Azerbaijan.
“This year, we are observing all the commandments of Purim indoors, but we’ve moved public displays to Feb. 28,” he said.
On Purim, Jews are commanded to drink alcohol, and it is customary to dress up, pull pranks and give out sweets and other gifts.
This “wouldn’t be appropriate on the memorial anniversary of Khojaly,” the rabbi said.
The anniversary is a solemn affair in which schools teach about Khojaly and television channels air only documentary and memorial programs.
Children attending the two Jewish schools and the Jewish kindergarten of Baku, where most of Azerbaijan’s some 8,000 Jews live, asked students not to come wearing costumes, as they normally do on Purim, Isayev said.
“They will dress up on Sunday,” he said.
Rabbi Shneur Segal, the rabbi of Baku’s Ashkenazi community and the top emissary of Chabad to Azerbaijan, said: “We are citizens of this multinational state, and as such, the Khojaly Massacre is also our tragedy. We mourn the loss of those peaceful Azerbaijanis who were cruelly murdered.”
This essay originally appeared on Alma, 70 Faces Media’s feminist Jewish culture site.
By Jillian Axelrod
At 10 years old, I decided it was time for me to start fasting on Yom Kippur. While most people don’t start fasting until age 13, I had a craving for spirituality and wanted to do whatever I could to get closer to God. Based on what I’d heard from adults, fasting seemed to be the most extreme, most valuable way that I could connect to God and Judaism.
For a few years I felt the intended effects. During those 25 hours of fasting, I was hyper-aware of my humanity, my fragile mortality and how thin the strings were that tied me (and all of us) to the physical world. Fasting prompted immense gratitude for everything that I had and all of my bodily needs that are fulfilled on other days. My grumbling stomach spurred visceral empathy within me, making me want to take action for those who feel that emptiness on a regular basis. Finally, I felt that fasting was an act of devotion, of depriving myself, in the name of a higher power.
I didn’t look forward to fasting, but I found it to be an incredibly meaningful religious experience that was an integral part of the yearly holiday cycle. But as the day came to a close, I happily broke my fast and moved on with life by the next morning.
But when I was 17 years old, all of that changed. Thanks to the power of diet culture and “fitspo” Instagram, my lifetime love of sports and outdoor activities evolved into an unhealthy interest in “fitness” and “wellness,” code words for compulsive exercise and food restriction. I worked out for hours each day, counted calories and cut out whole food groups. Those mentally and physically dangerous behaviors are not only accepted but condoned by our society. We live in a diet culture that is obsessed with thinness and weight loss, perpetuated by a $72 billion diet industry (in the U.S. alone) that manages to always find new ways for us to hate our bodies.
Recently, a friend sent me an article about Taanit Esther (the Fast of Esther), which directly precedes Purim. This fast honors the three-day fast that Esther and the Jews of Shushan engaged in to prepare for her approaching the king to thwart Haman’s evil plans. However, instead of engaging with the Book of Esther and the bravery of the story’s heroine, this article used Taanit Esther as a segue into promoting the supposed benefits of intermittent fasting. It encouraged readers to learn from Esther’s “wellness secrets” in order to lose weight and “detox the body” all year round. Reading that article made me think about how diet culture has permeated even our most sacred moments.
But I could not blame the author because I spent years believing those very same things.
The peak of my disordered relationship with food came about during my senior year of high school, when I embarked on what would be a three-year stint with intermittent fasting. I did the 16-8 model, where I would allow myself to eat during eight hours of the day while consuming absolutely no calories for the other 16. This program affected everything about my life: meals and social events, my ability to focus, my mental health. Most of all, it led to a daily cycle of restricting and bingeing.
It was around that time in my life that fasting became easier than eating. I looked forward to fasting holidays because they gave me a communally praised excuse to refrain from eating. I could justify what I was already doing: consuming as little as possible to shrink my body to the “ideal” size.
For the first time, I partook in Judaism’s minor fast days, Wikipedia-ing holidays I had never heard of, telling myself that the stories were important enough to me to forego food in their honor. While fasting, I silently felt a sense of accomplishment. I was acutely aware of the grumble in my stomach, and it felt good. My brain focused more on the shrinking of my stomach than the gratitude, the mortality, the connection to God or the words in the siddur (prayer book).
Only looking back am I able to notice what was happening — at the time I believed I was fasting with the same intentions I had as a child. But the practice was tainted by the role of food restriction, negative body image and diet culture in my life.
Years later I discovered the body positivity/body acceptance movement and learned about intuitive eating: a weight-neutral “personal process of honoring health by listening and responding to the direct messages of the body in order to meet your physical and psychological needs.” For the past three years I have been recovering from the restriction mentality and learning to listen to my body’s hunger and fullness cues, living a life in which all foods fit and in which the weight of my body is no longer a concern. I’ve revamped my social media feeds to be only filled with unedited bodies of all shapes and sizes, smashed my scale and read scientific studies debunking diet culture.
I thought I was finally in a good place with food and body image, but then another fast holiday came around. I tried to fast, but found my brain transported back to old, disturbing thoughts that I’d hoped I had left behind long ago. Diet culture had sucked the spirituality out of fasting. I made the decision to break the fast because I could sense my brain spiraling back into an unhealthy place. I was disappointed with myself, but soon learned that I was not alone.
The Facebook group “Intuitive Eating & Body Positivity For Jewish Women” has been a space that I’ve returned to for support. Many of the women there, especially those recovering from eating disorders, acknowledged that diet culture has made fasting dangerous for them. One woman wrote that “it doesn’t feel at all spiritual, it feels like I’m punishing my body.” Others said that fasts trigger other disordered behaviors or thoughts. And all of this was not just internal. Diet talk, the group members explained, is pervasive.
“During the fasts next to chaggim [holidays], you always hear people say ‘good thing we have this to make up for the Yom Tov meals,’” wrote one member. Others noted the fatphobic nature of conversations surrounding fasts. Given all this, it is not surprising that some appropriate religious fasts as a way to initiate others into intermittent fasting or “detoxing.” But the blame is bigger than individuals, who are themselves victims of the diet industry. Ultimately, Jewish communities, just like any other, can perpetuate the dangers of diet culture and eating disorders.
I still wonder: Is it possible to disentangle fasting from the connotations of weight loss and dieting, and maintain its religious value? In the Facebook group, one woman wondered the same thing: “I find that I cannot fast at this time without separating the two [diet culture and spirituality],” she wrote. “I do hope that someday I can.” She went on to say that she’s engaging with the question as part of her healing: “Even when I come to the point where I can safely fast for religious purposes, I know that there may be some times where I need to go back to not fasting.”
I, too, hope to get to that point, but until then I am comfortable with the knowledge that choosing not to fast is the best decision for my wellbeing. And in the meantime, I hope that our Jewish communities acknowledge and work to end the damaging ways in which diet culture permeates our most sacred practices. A whole lot of people would be grateful for that.
Jillian Axelrod is an educator and writer who is passionate about body acceptance, LGBTQ+ rights, and education equity. She recently graduated from Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, where she majored in Sociology and Jewish Thought.
Debating whether matzah tastes more like cardboard or drywall is one of the few permissable seder topics._Shtandel iStock / Getty Images Plus
Uncontroversial Seder Conversation Topics Narrowed Once More
By Vilde Chaya
On Feb. 19, the Jewish Federations of North America released its annual list of approved conversation topics for the upcoming Pesach celebrations. For the 5781th consecutive year, according to the report, the list of acceptable topics has been significantly reduced.
“Tie-dye! You really would’ve expected that tie-dye would remain more or less uncontroversial,” CEO Jacob Netanyachoo wrote in a press release. “But that’s the way of the world these days.”
Discouraged topics now include snowmen and snow globes, any sort of flickering lights (especially strobes), the Main Line, the R5, prior attempts to shuck and/or jive, Flat Stanley, Stan Lee, “Thor: Ragnarok,” Gamestop (the store or its stock), chicken cooked in schmaltz, any SUNY school besides New Paltz, the last time you saw “The Last Waltz” and the collected works of Adin Steinsaltz.
Additionally, families sitting down for seder are advised to avoid any discussion of crank calls, pratfalls, foul balls, symmetrical rhyming schemes, the Art Museum steps, the Eurasian Steppe, Ciara’s “1, 2 Step,” Sepp Blatter, rickety ladders, anything that matters, “The Call of the Wild,” whether your expense report was filed, calling JFK “Idlewild,” small magazines, German submarines, deviation from the mean and the Tammany Hall political machine.
You tell her she’s wrong. Juan_Algar iStock / Getty Images Plus
Bubbe Convinced ‘This Could’ve Been Avoided if You’d Just Worn a Coat!’
By Ima Alterkocker
Lenora Unpronouncskiwitcz, 84, cited a trip you took to the grocery store in February of 2020 as the indisputable beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“No coat, no gloves, no scarf, no matter what I told you,” Unpronouncskiwitcz said. “You’re surprised you got a cold, and then everyone did?”
Unpronouncskiwitcz, playing on your guilt for calling a little less than you should, reports that the weather that day was “yucky,” and “cold enough to catch your death.” Ignoring her, deciding that you were old enough to make your own decisions about your fitness for the weather, you stepped outside to find that it was indeed a little cold. But you’d be damned before you’d go back inside to prove
her right.
In a finding that could radically alter our understanding of the pandemic’s genesis, Unpronouncskiwitcz has pegged its inception to the moment you decided to just turn your car’s heat way up instead.
Though Unpronouncskiwitcz has no background in epidemiology, no special feel for virology, and only the broadest understanding of the human respiratory system, she is certain that this whole mess would’ve never happened if someone learned to respect their elders.
“But what do I know,” she said.
The indoor garden at Congregation Beth Stoner Kimberly Delaney iStock / Getty Images Plus
Temple Beth Stoner: Wait, There’s a Pandemic?
By Mary Juana
Rabbi Thomas Chongstein of Congregation Beth Stoner in Center City came to a startling conclusion the other day.
“Man, there must be something going on because the only people showing up for services were Cantor Snoop Doggberg and one congregant, Richard Marin-Cohen, who we call Cheech because he looks like a kosher pork rind,” Chongstein said. “But I was walking around outside and saw some dudes wearing masks and asked them what was happening.”
“It blew my mind when those dudes said there was a pandemic or something going on. No wonder nobody was showing up!”
Chongstein described the pandemic as a real bummer, but saw the positives in it, too.
“The Man [the police] has stopped hassling us and our indoor garden is growing better than ever. Our Maiu Wowie, Acapulco Gold and Thai Stick plants look especially far out and solid,” he said.
As part of a charitable effort and a way to share the bumper crop, Congregation Beth Stoner announced a “Marijuana for Masks” program debuting on Feb. 31. Anyone bringing in new masks to be distributed to the poor will receive an ounce of their favorite weed.
PBryaydyyn Wasserman is pretty smug after setting a new world’s record — or is that just gas? Nattakorn Maneerat iStock / Getty Images Plus
Infant Sets Record for Number of Ys in First Name
By Inloco Parentis
Center City resident Bryaydyyn Wasserman landed in the “Guinness Book of World Records” a mere eight days after his birth for an unusual accomplishment: having four Ys in his first name.
“We had no idea he was so unique,” mother Rebecca Wasserman said. “We just liked the name.”
Father Adam Wasserman said he and his wife named their new son after his late grandfather, Bernard, but “Bernie” felt too old-fashioned. They wanted something a little more modern, something with pizazz.
“Plus we didn’t want people thinking we named him after Bernie Sanders,” he said.
They narrowed it down to Bryan and Braydyyn and decided to combine the two in a new name that would symbolize the spirit of compromise.
The extraordinary infant, whose other talents include drooling and napping, toppled the previous world record of three Ys in a first name, which was held by Cyyynthia Green of Minneapolis. Green did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
Bryaydyyn’s middle name is Samuel, after his late grandmother Samantha, and his Hebrew name is Boaz.
Lucky the Jewish cat’s cuteness goes sadly unheralded. Photo by Andy Gotlieb
Jewish Cat Owners Protest Caturday
By Kit E. Corner
Jewish pet owners are speaking out against the popular Saturday social media trend called “Caturday,” when people take to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter to post photos and videos of their beloved felines.
“I just think it’s really unfair,” said Susan Tenkin, who lives with her Tonkinese, Allan, in Center City. “Allan has all kinds of funny things he does — he responds to me when I talk to him, he fetches, and he wears a bow tie and footie pajamas every day.” Tenkin, who observes Shabbat and therefore does not go online on Saturdays, feels she and Allan are missing out on many messages of approval from strangers.
“My friends and family all know Allan and see him on my feeds all the time,” she said. “But if this didn’t take place on Shabbat, he could be the next GrumpyCat, with a book deal, a stuffy — the sky’s the limit.”
She does post Allan’s photos on Saturday night after sundown, “but by then the damage has already been done,” she said. “And Caternight is not a thing.”
Tenkin and other frustrated photo-taking cat owners are trying to change Caturday observance to Sunday, but have found themselves stymied by the lack of a catchy hashtag.
They tried “SundayforMyOne andOnly,” but it was quickly co-opted by dog owners, who posted soulful cheek-to-cheek pics with their obscenely affectionate pit bulls.
“The dog people are just outrageous,” Tenkin said.
“They’re so superior. Did you know that cats can communicate with those buttons even better than dogs? And they’re not just saying ‘feed me’ all the time.
“Caturday is the only thing cat people have to themselves, and it’s awful that it’s not more inclusive.”
To quote from “Mr. Mom,” “You’re doing it wrong!” AndreyPopov iStock / Getty Images Plus
Study: There’s a 65% Chance You’re on Mute Right Now
By Sy Lence
Experts at Heck University have published a study that shows almost no one is using Zoom’s mute button correctly.
“The findings were definitely surprising,” said Dana Goldfarb, professor in the Department of Sociology. “When lots of people have to learn how to use technology in a short period of time, there’s bound to be some hiccups, but our research shows there’s a 75% chance you’ve been on mute while trying to impress your boss with an important PowerPoint.”
The study showed there was a 37% chance you’ve been on mute while talking about David Foster Wallace on a virtual date, a 68% chance you’ve been on mute during a meeting that could have been an email and an 80% chance you’ve been on mute while trying to discuss anything but politics during a virtual Shabbat dinner with your Aunt Sharon.
“Our data indicates that there’s also a 55% chance you’ve ruined a public Zoom event by neglecting to mute yourself while your cat knocks a stack of dishes off the counter and your four dogs bark in the background,” Goldfarb added.
The first time I heard the name of Abraham Twerski was at a seder in Milwaukee in 1958. One of my first jobs when I graduated from college was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and living in the Midwest was new to me. A local family did not want me to be alone on Passover and insisted that I go with them to a relative’s seder in Milwaukee. The seder had almost 40 people — relatives, friends and strangers who were far from home.
During the seder, the locals were talking about an Orthodox medical student who was so smart and brilliant that he was astounding the faculty at the medical school — Abraham Twerski. Reading the op-ed in the Exponent by Rabbi Zvi Gluck (“Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski Made Jewish Addiction Work Possible,” Feb. 11) is a reminder of my own experience, and filled in more information about the life and work of Abraham Twerski.
Jerome Leventhal | Silver Spring, Maryland
Democrats Do Support Israel
Lisa Sandler’s letter (“Lifelong Democrat Shares Concerns,” Feb. 11) claims that “Democrats are no supporters of Israel … ” I have no idea how she comes to this gross generalization, but I am a lifelong Democrat, have been a Lower Merion Democratic committeeman, am a founder of Democratic Jewish Outreach PA, a federal PAC, and I am and have been my entire life a strong supporter of the state of Israel. I have purchased Israel bonds, visited relatives in Israel many times, and I’ve raised campaign funds for Sen. Bob Casey and other strong supporters of Israel. Casey, a Democrat, has voted for every military and other aid bill in support of Israel in Congress.
So, Democrats are supporters of Israel, contrary to Sandler’s misguided letter.
David Broida | Bryn Mawr
It Feels Like Proof
“Finding God in Nature After My Dog’s Death” (Feb. 11) was a magnificent piece of writing that brought me to tears. It totally expresses my feelings about how nature is absolute proof there must be some kind of God. l
I am late to Yom Kippur – which isn’t a problem except I’m leading services. My flight to Rochester was canceled, and my father, who is also a rabbi, is now standing in for me until I arrive. I get to the building, and services have started when I peer into the sanctuary, and I see my father killing it from the bimah.
My heart sinks, and I almost don’t go in. Imagine Rabbi Bernstein Sr. — suit, salt-and-pepper beard and a James Earl Jones baritone voice. Then there is me — an ill-fitting suit, mezzo-soprano voice and racking insecurities.
Whether it is rational or not, I feel like an impostor and know they will see right through me.
I spent many years working through the feeling that I would never be enough. I both fiercely defended my right to be a rabbi and also secretly felt fearful that I wasn’t the expert that they needed me to be. To some degree, everyone feels that way when they enter a new position, yet for some, that feeling lingers. One fear is that the quirk we think is so unprofessional may undermine our leadership, and the “impostor” within it wants to run and hide.
One issue I have with using the phrase “imposter syndrome” is that people often just stop there. We sit in the uncomfortable space of not feeling like we are enough, and because this space feels so familiar, we accept that feeling like an impostor will just have to be the cost of being a leader. We get stuck looking at those who seem so confident and think, “If only I could be more like them.”
So we contort and spend our energy trying to be something we are not. It’s a cycle, and it has to end for you to feel the freedom and power you are looking for. Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ They will ask me, ‘Why were you not Zusya?”’
Mic drop.
Martin Buber shared Rabbi Zusya’s gut-punching message long before anyone was talking about “impostor syndrome.” Despite powerful teachings like this, we still fear leading the Jewish community we love so much. When questions that might change the way “things were done” come our way, even if we have innovative ideas, many of us hear this subversive voice that screams, “You’re going to mess it up” or “They won’t respect you if … ”
That voice is a nasty gremlin planted in our minds many years ago to protect us and keep us small, yet it rears its ugly head when the moment calls us to lead in a big way. Interestingly, the fear is twofold: both that we are too weak to make a difference and that we are so powerful that we can corrupt this vast and long-lasting tradition with just one decision.
It is a communal imperative to lead as ourselves. If we want our institutions and this beautiful tradition to flourish, then leaders and communities need to be courageous enough to embody today’s diverse voices. I guarantee you that if it is your truth, it is someone else’s truth, too.
And we cannot risk losing any member of our precious tribe because of our insecurities.
After all, the amount of energy it takes to try to be someone we are not can be spent in more productive ways. We are leaking energy that could be better used in the service of our greater values and our institution’s missions. So what if I told you that not only could you be yourself, but you could be precisely what your boss, your co-workers and the Jewish people need? It’s real, and it’s simple, and the first step is to accept that you don’t need all of the answers right now to be powerful.
Your intuition — combined with logic and emotional awareness — will help you locate the resources you need. Accepting yourself is not the same thing as “letting yourself off the hook.” Self-acceptance is the key to leadership.
Consider what Rabbi Nahman of Bretslov said: “When you were born, the Universe decided it could not live without you.”
You are — and always have been — enough. l
Dahlia Bernstein is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Ohr in Bellmore, New York. This piece was first published by eJewishPhilanthropy.
