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Nikole Hannah-Jones • Leon Botstein Erica Brown • Pano Kanelos Rebecca Newberger Goldstein Bob Mankoff & others

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SPRING FORWARD WITH BOOKS FROM MOMENT

THEODORE BIKEL’S THE CITY OF LIGHT

The story of Bikel’s Vienna childhood and what happened to the Jews when the Nazis took power. By Aimee Ginsburg Bikel Illustrations: Noah Phillips

ELIE WIESEL: AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE AND LEGACY

36 reflections from people who knew Wiesel, plus a visual history of his life. Editor: Nadine Epstein Foreword: Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Afterword: Ted Koppel

RBG’S BRAVE AND BRILLIANT WOMEN: 33 JEWISH WOMEN TO INSPIRE EVERYONE

CAN ROBOTS BE JEWISH? AND OTHER PRESSING QUESTIONS OF MODERN LIFE

HAVE I GOT A CARTOON FOR YOU!: THE MOMENT MAGAZINE BOOK OF JEWISH CARTOONS

Intergenerational short biographies about trailblazing women. By Nadine Epstein Introduction: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Illustrations: Bee Johnson

Moment’s “Ask the Rabbis” rabbis share their opinions. Editor: Amy E. Schwartz Foreword: Rabbi Yitz Greenberg Afterword: Rabbi Shira Stutman

Cartoonist and former New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff presents his collection of favorite Jewish cartoons. Foreword: Roz Chast

LEONARD FEIN: VISION AND PASSION

NINE LIVES: FAVORITE PROFILES OF FAMOUS PEOPLE

Moment founding editor’s writings about American Jews, Israel, racism and more. Editors: Liat Deener-Chodirker, Nadine Epstein, Ann F. Lewis, Eileen Lavine Foreword: Nadine Epstein

Features Jon Stewart, Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Walter Mosley, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Oliver Sacks and others. Foreword: Sidney Offit Afterword: Gloria Steinem

SPIRITUAL BATHING: THE ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO SPIRITUAL WATER RITUALS

Water-based traditions from around the world with detailed instructions to create restorative spiritual baths. By Nadine Epstein and Rosita Arvigo

These books and others are available through MomentBooks at momentmag.com/shop

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Moment Magazine is known for its award-winning journalism, first-rate cultural and literary criticism and signature “Big Questions”—all from an independent Jewish perspective. Founded by Leonard Fein and Elie Wiesel in 1975, it has been led by Nadine Epstein since 2004. Moment is published under the auspices of the nonprofit Center for Creative Change and is home to projects such as the Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative, the Moment Magazine-Karma Foundation Short Fiction Contest and the MomentBooks imprint. To learn more about Moment and its work, visit momentmag.com.

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27 features

departments

PROFILE

Susannah Heschel: The Rabbi’s Daughter Following in the footsteps of her father, Abraham Joshua Heschel, the biblical scholar is at the forefront of the march toward social justice and reframing Judaism in the tradition of the prophets. by Manya Brachear Pashman

BIG QUESTION

What Is the One Thing Students Should Leave College Knowing? Moment speaks with a diverse group of educators and thinkers including Leon Botstein, Erica Brown, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Bob Mankoff and others. More at momentmag.com/college. interviews by Moment staff

M O M E N T- K A R M A F I C T I O N

Why Is There a Buddhist at This Seder? Every year it was the same. Their mother spent days preparing the dinner and her brother wouldn’t eat it. The seder went downhill from there. by Anne Schott

HIGHER

LEARNING GUIDE SPRING 2022 EDITION

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The Conversation Opinions

The many shofars of January 6 by Sarah Posner Ukraine exposes Israel’s fault lines by Fania Oz-Salzberger Can Israel absorb Ukrainians? by Shmuel Rosner Kati Marton takes on Orbán interview by Amy E. Schwartz

Moment Debate

Should the Supreme Court outlaw affirmative action in admissions? Curt Levey vs. Valerie Strauss interviews by Amy E. Schwartz

Antisemitism Project

Poem

Visual Moment

Talk of the Table

Literary Moment

Trayon White Sr. is running for mayor of DC. Can the city forget that he blamed a snowstorm on the Rothschilds?

“Ketubah” by Jason Schneiderman

Synagogue architectural gems by Diane M. Bolz

Adventures with gefilte fish by Dan Freedman

What Makes an Apple? Six Conversations about Writing, Love, Guilt, and Other Pleasures review by Robert Siegel

How is Judaism different after half a century of female clergy?

Night of Beginnings: A Passover Haggadah review by Rachel Barenblat

Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955 review by Carlin Romano

Ask the Rabbis

Jewish Word

Why “Next Year in Jerusalem”? by George E. Johnson

Caption Contest

Spice Box

Cartoon by Ben Schwartz

SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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From the Editor

A Passover call for empathy by Sarah Breger

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from the editor

A PASSOVER CALL FOR EMPATHY

COURTESY OF SARAH BREGER

t is hard to believe we are about to celebrate our third COVID Passover. But there is a lot to be hopeful about: Vaccines are widely available, the Omicron wave seems to have abated and many of us will be having Passover seders in person with family and friends. Of course, COVID has not gone away. An average of 1,000 Americans are dying from it every day and, as I write, there are reports of new virus variants—including a subvariant of Omicron—on the way. But COVID in spring 2022 looks very different from COVID in spring 2020. And yet as mask mandates and restrictions have eased (most likely temporarily), people do not seem kinder—especially online. Influenced by social media platforms that profit when we act aggressively, people have become more strident. Every morning I steel myself before logging on to my social media accounts (whether I should be going on social media every day is another question) and scrolling through my feeds. Maybe I am naive, but I can’t get over the constant meanness. A Facebook post lamenting the difficulties faced by a disabled child when everything is virtual is met with derision and accusations of being an anti-vax conspiracy theorist. A tweet begging people to continue taking precautions for the sake of the immunocompromised is mocked as the rantings of a hysterical 4

hypochondriac set on keeping us trapped in the pandemic forever. And all sides are accused of being anti-science. The number of armchair epidemiologists able to bandy studies about is remarkable. Over and over again I am struck by how almost no one is able to offer an ounce of empathy for a viewpoint that doesn’t coincide with their own. It’s as if any consideration for someone else’s opinion is equivalent to invalidating one’s own. This is not limited to COVID debates. In fact, it reminds me of the way so many people approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—a zero-sum game, where acknowledging suffering on either side is viewed as weakness. This lack of empathy has not served anyone in the Middle East well, and it won’t help lessen the damage of COVID today. Of course, some beliefs expressed or argued online are vile and beyond the pale, but calling for empathy—recognizing that the party on the other end of a post is a real person— doesn’t necessarily require us to hold back from forceful argument, be overly polite, or treat hate speech as valid. Have we all “hardened our hearts” à la Pharaoh in Egypt? Can we see thinking about other people’s plight as anything but a vulnerability? Some recent studies show that empathy is inherited and that there may be an “empathy gene,” but it is also a skill that can be developed over time. Passover gives us clues on how to start that process. Throughout the seder, we are called to remember the suffering of both our ancestors and their enemies. As we list the ten plagues, we dip our fingers in red wine as a way to show that while we celebrate being free, our joy is diminished because of the suffering of our enemies. We are told that “in every generation, we are obligated to see ourselves as though we personally came out of Egypt.” And most importantly, we are reminded over and over again that we were once slaves in Egypt. One contemporary Jewish thinker, Rabbi Shai Held, views this as a radical notion: “The Torah could have responded quite differently to the experience of oppression in Egypt. It could have said, ‘Since you were tyrannized and exploited and no one did anything to help you, you don’t owe anything to anyone; how dare anyone ask anything of you?’ But it

BY SARAH BREGER chooses the opposite path: ‘Since you were exploited and oppressed, you must never be among the exploiters and degraders. You must remember what it feels like to be a stranger. Empathy must animate and intensify your commitment to the dignity and well-being of the weak and vulnerable.’” The Passover content in this issue reflects these values. In “Jewish Word,” senior editor George E. Johnson explains how the phrase “Next year in Jerusalem” was added to the Haggadah text in the medieval period and quickly became a way to express not only messianic yearning, but a desire for a better, brighter world. The fiction story, winner of our 2021 Moment Magazine-Karma Foundation Fiction Contest, explores what happens when family members with clashing beliefs sit down to celebrate a seder together. Do you know the origin story of the orange on the seder plate? Turns out you probably don’t know the real one. Susannah Heschel, a noted academic and a pioneering Jewish feminist, originated that custom, and our profile of her examines how the myth around it developed, as well as the misconceptions about the life and legacy of her father, philosopher and civil rights icon Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Susannah Heschel, “the rabbi’s daughter,” has become a force in her own right and is outspoken on both feminist and racial justice issues. Of course, we have more than Passover pieces. In “Perspectives,” Shmuel Rosner and Fania Oz-Salzberger tackle the UkraineRussia crisis as it has played out in Israel. Opinion editor Amy E. Schwartz interviews Kati Marton on her attempt to organize Hungarian expatriates to fight for democracy. Sarah Posner explains how shofars have become popular among evangelical Christians and played a prominent role in the January 6th insurrection. Our “Big Question” asks: What should students leave college knowing? The answers from Nikole Hannah-Jones, founder of the 1619 Project, Bob Mankoff, former cartoon editor of The New Yorker, Sarah Otto, an evolutionary biologist, and many others will surprise you. We also ask the rabbis: How has Judaism changed since the first female rabbi was ordained in the United States 50 years ago? “Visual Moment” takes readers on a world tour of stunning architecturally

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notable synagogues. And senior editor Dan Freedman goes on a quest to make gefilte fish as good as his grandmother’s. Things are developing in the world faster than I can type. The best way to get up-todate coverage and reporting from Moment is to regularly check momentmag.com. Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we have been publishing nuanced content not found anywhere else. This includes analysis from experts such as Polish journalist and Moment contributor Konstanty Gebert, Ukrainian-born refusenik Natan Sharansky and former ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder. We are also publishing a war diary from a Jewish woman in Ukraine, a fashion executive who chose to stay in Kyiv despite the danger. On one of our recent Zooms, she reported it was a good day because food was back in stock and the electricity was working. “We have Netflix and we have eggs, what more could we ask for?” Wishing you and your family a happy, healthy and safe Passover.

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the conversation HOLOCAUST EDUCATION

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WHEN STUDENTS LEARN ABOUT THE CAUSES OF PREJUDICE—AND HOW SUCH ATTITUDES CAN LEAD TO GENOCIDAL BEHAVIOR—MANY SHED THEIR OWN PREJUDICES.

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WE NEED MORE TEACHERS Thank you for this excellent article (“The State of Holocaust Education in America,” Winter 2022). It is 50 years since Holocaust education was established. Society was ready to ask: How did this happen? Why did it happen? When survivors like me come to schools to tell our courageous stories of survival, students are deeply touched. With the loss of survivors, teachers can still show films of testimony. And fortunately, there are family members of survivors who speak about their parents, using memorabilia, film and interviews. But teachers are overwhelmed with responsibilities. They are asked to teach required subjects but also to mold character and citizenship, stop hate and help students develop empathy. The act of legislating Holocaust education doesn’t mean that it will be taught well or correctly. There are plenty of examples of ignorance by administrators, members of Boards of Education and teachers. The teachers who choose to study and teach about the Holocaust are very much needed, especially at this challenging time in history. A special thanks for your hard work to make this a better world for our children and future generations. Peppy Margolis Galloway, NJ CHALLENGES WE FACE An important aspect of Dan Freedman’s excellent article is its recognition and concern regarding the difficulty of measuring the degree of learning that occurs as a result of Holocaust education in our schools. The development of effective and reliable methods and instruments to assess what students are learning is complex because of numerous factors: the wide disparity between what different schools teach; how much time is devoted to instruction on the

Holocaust and the lacking knowledge base of teachers who have not studied this subject thoroughly themselves. Compounding the challenge is the unintended impact of state testing, which for several decades has placed greater emphasis on reading, writing and mathematics. In many schools, this has resulted in less time and fewer resources devoted to the teaching of social studies, where lessons on the Holocaust are normally taught. Since formal education must play a key role in assuring that future generations attain knowledge of the Holocaust and keep its memory alive, we must continue to build upon the impressive foundation that has been established. Richard Flaim The Villages, FL LESSONS LEARNED The extensiveness of this article, buttressed by its in-depth research, will make it a fascinating piece for quite some time to come. I was one of many involved in the development of California’s Holocaust education curriculum. It was well over ten years between the legislative approval of California’s mandate in 1985 and the start of widespread teaching about the Holocaust in classrooms. The lesson we learned is that without a legion of educators and advocates devoted to this subject, the words of any state’s mandates are meaningless. I hope that our experience truly will help state leaders and teachers devise meaningful Holocaust teaching mandates. These are a few issues we struggled with in California: • How best to determine “age-appropriate” instruction. • How best to integrate within schools’ curricula—within specific subjects or, perhaps, even across core subjects. • How (if at all) to fund teacher trainings, including in-person

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and/or electronic—and whether via colleges, Holocaust centers/ museums, professional subject-matter organizations or by other means. • How to teach about the Holocaust in a world in which we continue to struggle with threats and acts of genocide. • How to align a state’s mandate with the federal Never Again Education Act, approved by Congress in 2020. Perhaps most importantly, states and schools must learn how best to utilize the expansive educational resources at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. William Younglove Lakewood, CA “IT” CAN HAPPEN HERE I appreciate Dan Freedman’s very thorough article. When my colleagues and I developed one of the first instructional units on Holocaust education for high school students back in 1972—which Freedman cites—we were anxious to see this vital subject taught in high schools all over the country. Yet, despite the fact that events—both here and abroad—continue to make it strikingly clear that “it” can happen here, I fear that far too many high school students still don’t have the opportunity to learn about the subject. My research on teaching about the Holocaust has revealed that when students learn about the causes of prejudice—and how such attitudes can lead to genocidal behavior—many shed their own prejudices. Put simply, Holocaust education can open young minds. Roselle Kline Chartock Great Barrington, MA

FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF A NORTH STAR Nadine Epstein’s beautiful and deeply moving essay (“Elie Wiesel and Two Girls He Never Met,” Winter 2022) has an important message. It reminds us all how crucial it is to remember and share the horrific and unthinkable history of

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MOMENT DEBATE ABORTION IS A RELIGIOUS ISSUE I just finished reading your debate on whether or not banning abortion would curtail Jews’ religious freedom (“Would a Ban on Abortion Curtail Jews’ Religious Freedom?” Winter 2022). Rabbi Shlomo Brody tries to prove that abortion “shouldn’t be framed as a religion-and-state issue,” but I strongly disagree. How could it not be when different religions have different definitions of when life begins? Catholicism says it begins at conception and Judaism says it begins when most of the body has emerged from the womb at birth. So if that’s defined by religion, so is abortion. Nita Polay Levin Edison, NJ A DISGRACEFUL DISCUSSION The title of the discussion is as ridiculous as some of the answers. Danya Ruttenberg assumes that having an abortion is always an intrinsic right in Judaism and that “… abortion may be acceptable ‘even for a slim reason, such

as to prevent disgrace.’” Any reasonable person would agree that having an abortion is an important decision and should not be done for a “slim reason.” The real disgrace is that “this has been mainstream halacha for a long time.” Similarly, Ruttenberg seems to think that the only way to create “…a world where every child who is born is supported and cared for” is to abort the child rather than change how we as a society raise our children. That is also a disgrace. I have never heard of the term “abortion justice,” but I do not think that the women who were never born would think they were treated with justice. However, they are not around to make their case. Deborah Prigal Washington, DC

THE CONVERSATION LEARN ARAMAIC Moment’s winter edition was worth waiting for. The letters section (“The Conversation,” Winter 2022) provided a lively discussion of issues, but I am puzzled

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MOMENT BRAND STUDIO creates powerful content for clients. To learn more, email Ellen Meltzer at emeltzer@momentmag.com. by a sentence in Maggie Anton’s letter where she writes [discussing the Talmud and barriers to its study]: “...and the latter [progressive Jews] by the barrier of not understanding Aramaic.” Any literature is best understood in the original language. However, between the Steinsaltz and Sefaria (the latter is free) translations, the language barrier is no longer an excuse. In addition, who’s stopping progressives from learning Aramaic? Susanna Levin New Rochelle, NY

in memoriam: faye moskowitz (1930-2022)

JEWISH REVIEW BOOKS JRB is celebrating 12 years! In February we lost Faye Moskowitz, Moment’s longtime poetry editor, who stepped down two years ago after losing her sight. She was a revered writer whose work, including her memoir A Leak in the Heart, inspired generations of writers and was published in Moment, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Faye served as chair of the English Department at George Washington University, where she established and taught the popular Jewish Literature Live! course, which was cited by Time as one of “the hottest seats in class.” A feminist with four children, she shared a warm, welcoming DC home with her husband, Jack. Her big heart enfolded many and showed everyone that there’s always love to share.—Nadine Epstein Visit momentmag.com/faye-moskowitz

From fiction to philosophy, and from ancient history to the latest show (or Supreme Court decision), the JRB brings you great writers who review the Jewish world with deep knowledge and ready wit.

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SPONSORED CONTENT

80 Years On: The Wannsee Conference’s meaning and relevance today by Dr. Matthias Haß, Deputy Director, House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Educational Site

Villa Marlier, site of the Wannsee Conference, Berlin

On January 20, 1942, a meeting took place in a villa on Lake Wannsee in Berlin. Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office, had invited 15 officials from the police and the SS, the administration of the occupied territories in Eastern Europe, the Party chancellery and various ministries to the building that was used as a guest house of the SS. There was only one topic to be discussed during the following 90 minutes: The “Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe,” the euphemistic code used for what is known today as the plan for deliberately and systematically murdering 11 million European Jews. Half a year earlier, on July 31st, 1941, Heydrich had been duly authorized by a directive, signed by Hermann Göring, to carry out all material and logistical measures to this end. His objective for the meeting was to assert his leading role in the organization of the genocide, to ensure the cooperation of the other participants and to reiterate what “Final Solution” meant: mass murder.

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The Protocol The protocol of the meeting at Wannsee is a key document in the history of the Holocaust and evidence for the participation of the entire German administration in these crimes. The 15 pages signify the willingness of German state agencies to cooperate in the Holocaust. The participants became accessories to and perpetrators of the

genocide, with several agencies and hundreds of thousands of civil servants and police participating in its exact execution. Adolf Eichmann, responsible for “Jewish Affairs” within Heydrich’s Reich Security Main Office, authored the protocol of the meeting and used coded language to summarize its results, only vaguely outlining the extermination

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plans. On page 5, for example, the protocol states:

methods for those who survive forced labor.

“With appropriate prior authorisation from the Führer, emigration has now been replaced by evacuation of the Jews to the East as another possible solution. However, these operations should be regarded only as provisional options, though they are already supplying practical experience of vital importance in view of the coming final solution of the Jewish question.”

Page 6 of the protocol contains a population statistic adding up to an estimated 11 million Jews living in Europe at this time, broken down by countries and territories, making it quite clear what the term “Final Solution” really meant: the planned murder of all European Jews.

Throughout the document, just like the term “Final Solution”, euphemisms are used to describe the horrific acts those words really imply. The term “evacuation” used here, evades the mention of deportations. The “practical experiences of vital importance” refer to prior operational experiences gained from the mass murder of people with disabilities and the murder of more than 500,000 Jews, including women and children, through the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads). Pages 7 and 8 of the minutes are crucial in the comprehension of the protocol, as well: “In the course of the final solution, and under appropriate supervision, the Jews are to be utilised for work in the East in a suitable manner. In large labour columns, separated by sex, the Jews capable of working will be dispatched to these regions to build roads. In the process, a large portion will undoubtedly drop out through natural reduction.

The conference’s achieved objects Within only 90 minutes, Heydrich easily reached two of his three objectives for summoning the Wannsee meeting: His authority had been widely accepted, and he successfully conveyed the true meaning of the term “Final Solution”. Even his third objective - asking for seamless cooperation for a program of mass murder - was not too difficult to attain. The protocol refers to a so-called “Parallelisierung der Linienführung”, i.e. parallelizing of the (planned) procedures, safeguarding the cooperation Heydrich required for the success of the operation of the Europe-wide deportations to death camps in occupied Eastern Europe. The main takeaway of the meeting at Wannsee is the participants’ willingness to partake and cooperate in their murderous project. None of them objected or tried to dodge. The perpetrators who gathered at Wannsee merged their Nazi convictions,

rooted in racial antisemitism, with a sober and objective understanding of their bureaucratic profession to create an effective plan for the genocide of the European Jews. Their only concern was to make sure that their respective fields of work in their organization or department were not negatively affected.

The significance of the Wannsee Conference today In looking at the specific setting of the meeting at Wannsee in its larger historical context and the attempts to evaluate its significance today, it is helpful to consider a few guiding principles: One of them is to avoid the reproduction of the perspective of the perpetrators when talking about the Wannsee conference. Ultimately, its significance may only be understood by reflecting upon the Jewish perspective. In addition, it is crucial to use diverse sources that provide a comprehensive understanding of history, including official Nazi documents like the Wannsee protocol, as well as egodocuments of victims and perpetrators like letters, diaries and reports and thereby reflect upon the question of whose history it is. Lastly, the meaning and relevance we give to the meeting at Wannsee today – and thus the meaning we give to the Holocaust in general –

Those who ultimately should possibly get by will have to be given suitable treatment because they unquestionable represent the most resistant part and therefore constitute a natural selection that, if released, become the germ cell of renewed Jewish revival.” Throughout these paragraphs, the outline of the program of murder is clearly being sketched out: killing through hard labor and other “suitable”

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Original documents from the Wannsee Conference exhibit: Invitation to the meeting (left) and an estimate of the Jewish population within Europe in 1942. Courtesy PAAA (Archive of the Federal Foreign Office), Berlin

3/25/22 7:39 PM

million Soviet prisoners of war had died in German captivity by January 1942. From June 1941 to January 1942, more than 500,000 Jews in the Soviet Union had been shot. Victims’ reports provide additional evidence for the systematic killings before January 20th, 1942: Szlama Photos on this page: Exhibits at the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Education Site. GHWK Berlin, Thomas Bruns. Ber Winer was forced to help unload bodies from is shaped not only by January 20th, trucks that were being used to gas 1942 and the historic context of the people at the killing center in Chelmno Holocaust, but also by the way postwar (Kulmhof ) in December and January societies have dealt with and tried to 1942. Escaping from the camp on give meaning to this specific history of January 19th, 1942, he made his way to unprecedented crimes in the decades the Warsaw Ghetto and reported to the members of the Oyneg Shabes, following the war. or the Ringelblum Archive. It is Wannsee as the place of decision the first account of mass killings by poison gas that we possess. making? Many believe that the conference at Wannsee was pivotal to the final decision to kill all European Jews. This is by no means true. That belief is likely derived from a desire to trace the horrific crimes back to a singular time and place, to hierarchical decision-making structures, particular individuals and identifiable actions. The meeting, however, served as a coordinating panel by leading bureaucrats debating how to carry out the genocide, including the pan-European deportations of Jews that were a central part of their planned murder. Historians still debate whether there is a specific date for the decision to murder all European Jews, considering there is no key document signed by Hitler that provides evidence. Nonetheless, evidence can be gathered from a series of meetings and speeches confirming that mid-December 1941 was probably the time when Hitler, in consultation with Heinrich Himmler and others, made this decision. At this time, however, the systematic murder was already underway, well before the participants of the Wannsee Conference convened on January 20th, 1942. After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, tens of thousands of members of the Polish elite had been killed and more than 90,000 people classified as sick or disabled had already been murdered in the Nazi euthanasia program “Aktion T4”. More than two

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German historians only began addressing the history of National Socialism much later. In addition, historiography often analysed the structure and the system of National Socialism, and had less of a focus on the social history of the people, Jews and (non-Jewish) Germans alike. On the level of institutionalized memory, it is worth mentioning that the House of the Wannsee Conference only became a Memorial and Educational Site in 1992, even though the building played such a pivotal role in the crimes of the perpetrators and was an important place in the history of the Holocaust. For a long time, it seemed that documenting this history and marking it as a disturbing example of the involvement of the

The plan to commit mass murder, orchestrated at the Wannsee conference, was the mere culmination of radicalized persecution. It was the result of central planning and regional initiatives, involving hundreds of thousands of members of the administration, SS, police and Wehrmacht.

Whom does the history of the Holocaust belong to? Another key question worth considering is who writes history, and who is willing to integrate the history of the Holocaust into their own historical narrative? Jews started to record Nazi crimes and Jewish responses during the first years of persecution. By collecting and preserving reports, documents and images, they hoped to counter the National Socialist rendering of history in which Jewish perspectives were completely annihilated. Reports by members of various archives, such as the Ringelblum archive in the Warsaw ghetto, along with testimonies recorded after the liberation and documentary collections compiled by survivors, laid the foundation for the historiography of the Holocaust. In post-war Germany, however, the society of perpetrators expressed little interest in addressing their own responsibility and guilt.

whole German administration in the unprecedented crime of the Holocaust was not worth the effort. Including the post-war chapters of dealing with the Wannsee Conference in remembrance culture enables us to better understand its meaning and relevance today. Today, 80 years later, the House of the Wannsee Conference serves as a reminder of what human beings are capable of. A vigorous remembrance culture demands a permanent reflection on the relevance of the history of the Holocaust. In light of rising antisemitism and other forms of discrimination it is obvious that we have not come to an endpoint in dealing with this history. Visit www.ghwk.de/en for more information.

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perspectives OPINION SARAH POSNER

LOOK WHO’S BLOWING SHOFARS Evangelical and far-right circles are engaging in ‘spiritual warfare.’

s the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 attack gears up to hold televised hearings this spring, lawmakers probably won’t devote much airtime to religion’s role in the assault on our democracy. But white Christian nationalism continues to play a central role in perpetuating Donald Trump’s stolen election lie, so understanding its continued threat and its sometimes peculiar symbols is crucial. One such symbol, the blowing of shofars as a gesture of pro-Trump Christian triumphalism, is a troubling example of how many in the movement have arrogated Jewish ritual as a weapon for their nationalistic ends. White Christian nationalism was the most visible religious affiliation on display in the January 6 riots. Participants marched with signs proclaiming “Trump is President, Christ is King,” one held a Bible in the air while a mob overran police to charge into the Capitol building, and another shouted, “Here we are in the name of Jesus!” Even the so-called QAnon shaman prayed in Jesus’ name in the ransacked Senate chamber. There was also the incongruous sight of Israeli flags, a sign of how potent Christian Zionism is among many Trump supporters—even as one rioter wore a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt and another, currently under criminal indictment, is a Hitler admirer who federal prosecutors say “took the time to make what is likely a Nazi gesture towards the Capitol after violently assaulting and confronting law enforcement.” And then there were the shofars. In covering Christian nationalism and Messianic Judaism for nearly two decades, I have seen the increasing use of shofars at church services, prayer rallies and political events. But shofars’ deployment in the service of the January 6 rioters marked a new and bi-

zarre twist in this phenomenon—one that centers Donald Trump as a salvific figure in an ultimate victory over liberal democracy. The shofar blowers were likely not Jewish, writes Sarah Imhoff at “Uncivil Religion,” a digital resource documenting religion and January 6, a joint project of the University of Alabama and the Smithsonian. Evangelicals increasingly use shofars as a tool of “spiritual warfare,” says Imhoff, a religion scholar at Indiana University, to show that “the world is moving toward the end times...war on earth, culminating in the battle of Armageddon, and God’s participation in this final battle against evil.” “Uncivil Religion” documents other shofar-blowing moments on January 6, including video of a rioter blowing a shofar atop the scaffolding that insurrectionists seized outside the Capitol. Haaretz reported video of a woman blowing a shofar into a shattered Capitol window. The New York Times documents a man blowing a shofar as the mob rampages on the Capitol grounds. The January 6 shofars did not come out of nowhere. At the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in 2016, I covered a far-right rally featuring conspiracist Alex Jones and dirty trickster Roger Stone, later two prominent January 6 promoters. I interviewed a Christian prayer warrior from Michigan who told me Trump was “God’s man.” He and his friends enthusiastically blew their shofars as Jones repeated the antisemitic trope so popular on the Trumpist right about defeating the “globalists.” I had forgotten about this moment until more recently, when I was writing about the Jericho March, a series of prayer rallies organized in advance of January 6 to mobilize pro-Trump Christians and restore Trump to power. At the December 12, 2020 Jericho March rally on the National Mall, attendees repeatedly used shofars to

punctuate the testimonies of Trump loyalists such as Stone and Michael Flynn, Trump’s disgraced National Security Advisor. Flynn told the crowd that just as the walls of Jericho fell before Joshua’s army, this new Trumpist army could bring down the “deep state.” Jones was there, too, invoking the end times and vowing that Biden “will be removed, one way or another.” Sixty percent of white evangelicals still believe the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump—that’s more than any other religious demographic, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. Twenty-six percent of white evangelicals told PRRI that “true American patriots” might have to resort to violence to save the country. Not all evangelicals blow shofars, and not all endorse violence, but examining the conjunction of the two on January 6 shows just how the Christian nationalist rhetoric of spiritual warfare can spill into actual violence. In the past, watching shofars being blown as symbols of Christian spiritual warfare, I found it merely a sacrilegious annoyance. Now, the evidence shows, it is something more serious, a permanent part of the record of an assault that sought to bring American democracy to its knees. Sarah Posner is the author of Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind. SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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3/24/22 8:31 PM

PERSPECTIVES OPINION FANIA OZ-SALZBERGER

AN ISRAELI PM STEPS UP TO DIPLOMACY The war in Ukraine realigns Israel’s internal political alliances.

WIKIMEDIA

hen Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, an interesting overlap emerged in Israeli public discourse. Some of the major voices opposing Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid’s government, from both the radical left and the nationalist right, began attacking Ukraine as well. To be clear, a strong majority of social media participants and professional commentators sided with the victims. In the first few weeks of the war, most Israelis shared the pain of Ukrainian citizens, heaped solidarity upon the refugees and displayed admiration for Volodymyr Zelensky’s stout heroism. And yet, mirroring the recent Israeli election campaigns, two extremist currents crisscrossed the majority opinion. On the far left, some voices insisted on blaming the war on NATO, the United States and “Western soft imperialism” for provoking the Russian bear. Disregarding the wishes and hopes of the majority of Ukrainians, such far-left critics accused the West of encouraging the Ukrainians to dream of Westernizing. By contrast, the mainstream left, including civic liberals and social democrats, voiced heartfelt solidarity with the suffering populace and especially the refugees. Likewise, the moderate right agreed with Bennett and Lapid on the moral necessity for Israel to denounce Putin’s war of conquest, while keeping a sensitive eye on its vital security interests vis-à-vis Syria, Lebanon and, especially, Iran. This alignment of moderation, realpolitik and humanism left Benjamin Netanyahu and his immediate circle looking increasingly out of touch with history. The ousted prime minister himself said very little, but among his leading mouthpieces and electoral base the new theme quickly emerged: If you are anti-Bennett, come join us in an anti-Zelensky, anti-Ukrainian campaign. Soon, many of those who had been busy beating up on Bennett and Lapid ever since June 2021, when they created a government, now began blam14

ing the Ukrainians for their forebears’ sins. Their most successful move was, of course, to invoke the Holocaust. For days, debate raged in almost every major media outlet about the extent and significance of pre-Nazi, collaborator and post-Nazi Ukrainian antisemitism. In this instantly heated arena, into which some respected historians were dragged willy-nilly, few stopped to ask themselves whether Ukrainians living today ought to pay for their grandparents’ sins with their lives and their country’s independence. In fact, the argument had less to do with history than with domestic political frustration. More than one-third of Israelis voted for Netanyahu, and their disillusion following his ousting is growing stronger. The Bennett-Lapid government did not fall within a couple of months, as Bibi’s cronies had prophesied; instead, it pulled off several important tasks during its first ten months in power. Its right-center-leftArab coalition government is surprisingly stable. A budget finally passed after almost three years of Netanhayu-era stalling. Both Bennett and Lapid have kept their political language subdued and polite, putting a long-overdue stop to Netanyahu-style tirades. A new political conversation has begun to emerge, led especially by Lapid, who carries the triple flag of liberalism, Jewish national identity and cultural inclusiveness. Netanyahu, whose trial is crawling at a snail’s pace, was forced to withdraw to his villa in Caesarea while his base opposed anything Bennett favored. Hence the anti-Ukrainian hullabaloo. But it hasn’t gone well. When Bennett unexpectedly jetted to Moscow and Berlin, Netanyahu’s son Yair barely managed to tweet his venom for the “scoundrel, photo-op seeking” prime minister before it became known that Bennett had the blessing of both Putin and Zelensky, as well as the major Western powers. Globe-trotting statesmanship had been a cherished Net-

Naftali Bennett

anyahu specialty; competition from Bennett on this front was an unwelcome surprise. In the short run, against a grim horizon for Ukraine and world stability, Israel stands to lose like any other member of the international community. But Bennett’s diplomatic mission, regardless of its outcome, at least means Israel is now able to act as a top-league mediator in other people’s wars. It compensates, somewhat, for our need to tread softly with Russia. With the current Israeli prime minister as a globally respected would-be peacemaker, a broader moral change may be at hand. Even if a person is the great-grandchild of a persecutor, and even if their last name is Khmelnitsky or Demjanjuk, they do not deserve to have their country conquered, their children bombed and their asylum applications rejected out of hand. The anti-Ukrainian buzz on the right-wing fringes of Israeli social networks in 2022 should be seen for what it is: contempt for human life, disrespect for the principle of liberty and, yes, cheap manipulation of the Holocaust. If the Bennett-Lapid government survives and flourishes, I believe that their leadership could help weaken both nationalist extremism and abuse of the historical past. More fundamentally, it could allow the State of the Jews to treat its own Jewish identity more liberally and more generously. Fania Oz-Salzberger is an Israeli historian and essayist and a professor at the University of Haifa.

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3/24/22 8:31 PM

OPINION SHMUEL ROSNER

HOW MANY UKRAINIANS CAN ISRAEL ABSORB? The answer depends, as always, on global vs. Jewish priorities.

srael’s immigration policy is a constant minefield in the public discourse. There’s been ongoing controversy, for instance, about whether to reinstate the Citizenship Law that prevents Palestinians from becoming Israeli citizens by marrying Arab Israelis. Should Palestinians be able to become Israeli through marriage? One camp says such absorption is dangerous for Israel because these Palestinians are often a security risk and pose a demographic challenge to the Jewish majority. The second camp says preventing such marriages is discriminatory and even racist. Why would we let a Swede who marries an Israeli become a citizen, but not someone from Ramallah? The recent debate over Israel’s absorption of refugees from Ukraine, though it’s a reaction to unique circumstances, is similar in principle. When the war began, refugees poured into Israel, some eligible for citizenship, some not. Immediately, a passionate debate broke out: Should Israel absorb only the Jewish refugees, or should it take in refugees regardless of whether they are Jewish? Even if it’s resolved, this debate is of interest for those wanting to understand Israel. That’s because, much like the debate on Palestinians marrying Arab Israelis, the argument over Ukrainian refugee policy brings important values into conflict. The root question in both controversies is the same: To what extent do we want to ensure that a Jewish majority is maintained in Israel, and by what means? For those who consider the Jewish majority crucially important, the path is clear; for others to whom the Jewish majority is not important, Israeli policies protecting it seem like a medieval remnant of racist malice. Then there are the rest of us, in the middle, with our many shades of gray. We could say: I want to maintain a Jewish majority, but a few more brides from the

Palestinian territories do not endanger it. But then, what does “a few” mean, what if they become many, and how many is “many,” anyway? We wish to have a Jewish state; we also wish to be moral. So too with Ukrainian refugees. The desire to sustain Israel as a Jewish state might argue for accepting mainly Jews as refugees. But there is also the desire to act in the world as a moral agent, a country that, when there are refugees to save, works to save them along with the rest of the international community. How do you reconcile these conflicting values? Compromise is the accepted way in politics. In the Ukrainian case, it could come in several forms. One option: Absorb only Jews. By doing this, Israel could take in a significant number of refugees and thus fulfill its part in the extensive rescue effort. What’s the problem with this option? Mainly one of appearance. The citizens of the West expect that in wartime, countries will come to the rescue with no consideration of religion, culture or nationality. Another option: Absorb both Jewish and non-Jewish refugees. Israel is home to more than a million immigrants from the former Soviet Union, many of whom aren’t Jewish, who have made aliyah since the early 1990s under the Law of Return, which in 1970 was amended to allow immigrants to settle in Israel if at least one grandparent was Jewish. The nation absorbed the Jews and the non-Jews and adapted. In the present crisis, though, however large the overall number, the fundamental problem would remain: Israel would absorb an unlimited number of Jews and add a limited quota of nonJews. That is to say, Israel would still be looking at religion, culture and nationality as criteria for rescue. In a rational world, Israel should receive commendation for pursuing the second option—taking in at least as

many refugees as any other country, plus a large number of Jewish refugees. Alas, the world is irrational. There will always be those who emphasize not the large number of refugees that Israel receives, but the gap in quotas between different types. Instead of commendation, Israel will be marked for derision. To staunch opponents of non-Jewish absorption, the crisis in Ukraine provides some rhetorical ammunition. Look at what is happening, they might say, in a place where Russian and Ukrainian populations are mixed, with no national or cultural coherence. On the other hand, those opposed to admitting only Jews might say: Look what happens when a nationalist culture takes precedence over human rights, when the strong ignore the wishes and interests of the weak. Both sides are right, neither entirely so. One camp must remember that a “Jewish state” does not mean “a state without non-Jews.” The other side should keep in mind that simply having an immigration policy does not equate to discrimination and racism. No reasonable country opens its gates indiscriminately. No reasonable country shuts its ears to the cry of refugees. Israel should be a reasonable country. And in case of doubt, it had better err by being a little too generous than by being a little too strict. Shmuel Rosner is a Tel Aviv-based editor and columnist and a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute. SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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3/23/22 5:59 PM

PERSPECTIVES OPINION INTERVIEW KATI MARTON

‘WE HAVE TO STOP ORBÁN’ Journalist Kati Marton ﬁghts for democracy in her native Hungary.

ati Marton doesn’t think of herself as a political activist. A veteran journalist for ABC News and NPR, she is the author of nine books, most recently The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel. Marton’s unusual background has shaped her work: Born in Communist Hungary, she escaped in 1957 with her parents, also journalists, who had been jailed by the regime and whose story she tells in her 2009 book Enemies of the People. Lately, though, Marton’s past has been motivating her in a different way. The erosion of democracy in Europe, particularly in her native Hungary, spurred her to launch a project called Action for Democracy, aimed at raising awareness among Hungarian expatriates and dissidents to influence Hungarian politics. Its first goal—to improve the chances of a challenger to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in elections April 3—was at press time unresolved. But with Vladimir Putin’s march into Ukraine and autocrats tightening restrictions on speech and dissent all over the world, Marton sees tasks beyond the election and beyond Hungary. “I don’t consider it politicking,” she says. “I’m campaigning for values.”

WIKIMEDIA

What prompted you to get involved in Hungarian politics? I lost my homeland once, and now I’m fighting not to lose it a second time. We have to stop Orbán. He has actually become a bit more popular since the Ukraine war started. I never expected the country of my birth to regress to such an extent. In advance of the April 3 elections, all six opposition parties united behind one candidate. What accounted for such a strong political challenge to Orbán this year? It was probably born of desperation, the sense that Orbán was tightening his grip and Hungary was becoming a European pariah. The European Union was 16

finally starting to crack down on Hungary’s defiance of EU values, on immigration, on the rule of law and on safeguarding independent media. All these are baked into the EU, and he has flagrantly abused them. Now Orbán is in a tough spot, because his buddy and co-conspirator Putin is doing to Ukraine precisely what prior Russian leadership did to Hungary in 1956. If they put a puppet government in Kyiv, then Hungary, which is a member of NATO, would be a nation with an active armed border. It’s a nightmare for Orbán, but deservedly. He made a pact with the devil. He was in Moscow right before the war, and he’s cozied up to Putin for many years.

“

WE’RE SAYING HUNGARY CANNOT BE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY YET AGAIN. Do you remember fleeing Hungary as a child? Tanks are among my earliest memories. We lived on a hilltop in Buda, and the tanks appeared in the square at the bottom of our hill where we used to do our shopping. To see all that replaying itself in 2022 reawakens a lot of emotions. We all recognize ourselves in those images of the refugees. My parents and I left with four suitcases, and it was the end of everything familiar to me as a little kid. My friends, my pet, my neighborhood. And it worked out all right, but nobody should be forced to leave their home. It’s just not a normal state of affairs. We were very fortunate because my parents had reputations as

brave reporters, so we were well treated. But everything was strange, and I didn’t speak any English. The wound of leaving everything familiar is a wound that never heals. And it’s happening to so many people right now. This is why I’m fighting to get through to my fellow Hungarians. Just as Putin controls information, Orbán does too, so they’re getting a different version of what’s going on in Ukraine. We’re bombarding the Hungarian internet with information about what’s going on in Ukraine and what this means for Hungary, saying that Hungary cannot be on the wrong side of history yet again. When did you conclude that Orbán is on the wrong side of history? Probably when he evicted the Central European University from Hungary in 2018. I was a trustee, and I was so proud to be part of that community. The university was a vital part of the city and a great meeting place of more than 100 nations, which is exactly how I imagined that Hungary would evolve, as an open, tolerant country, the way it briefly was before World War II. There was a huge flowering of talent in science, art and music before darkness fell with the rule of Miklós Horthy and the antisemitic laws of the 1930s. That was when my parents were young. And that flowering happened again after 1989. Do you think Hungary can be that again? Of course it can. It’s such a talented country. It’s just been very, very unfortunate in its leaders, and the population has been reluctant to confront its own

SPRING ISSUE 2022

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3/24/22 7:37 PM

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history. Orbán paints Hungary as history’s victim. That’s not necessarily true—ask my grandparents. Unfortunately, they’re not here to tell their tale, but they were proud Hungarians, and from one day to the next, they were not deemed fit to be Hungarian, because of their bloodlines. And Hungary has not really assimilated that history. It’s a virus that runs deep in all of Europe. Some countries have done better than others. I’m in awe of how well Germany has done. How big a factor is antisemitism in Hungary right now? It’s mostly focused on George Soros. Soros was the perfect scapegoat, because he combined a Western capitalist persona with his Jewish history. He was just custom-made for Orbán to exploit. But Orbán is an absolute opportunist. I don’t think he’s a man of any convictions. You don’t think he’s even really an antisemite? I don’t. It’s a convenient weapon for him, but he will use anything. He’s anti-gay, and he’s no feminist, God knows. But is he anti-modern in a fundamental way, as those Republicans going to see him seem

to think? I don’t think so. He’s about maintaining power, and he’s identified certain tropes that pay off for him. I don’t think it’s a matter of deep conviction, because in the early years, we were friendly, and he was in my home for dinner. Orbán’s been at your house for dinner? Yes, in New York. He and George Soros have actually been together at the same table in my apartment. Orbán was the prime minister then, but he was still a normal human being. When my husband [Richard Holbrooke] and I went to Budapest, Orbán and his wife would take us to the opera. It was when he was defeated at the polls in 2002 that he decided that he would go all in with the anti-Soros campaign. It was such a narcissistic wound for him to be defeated that he just decided, “Never again.” And it’s worked well for him. Have you seen any other leader go through such a dramatic transition? Well, Putin didn’t start out in his present mode either. He was also rather modest and well-spoken and said all the right

things in the early days to Bush and to Clinton: “We’re part of Europe. We’re going to play nice.” Unlike Orbán, Putin has never been defeated in an election. But he had an encounter with humiliation early on, in 1989, when he was with the KGB in Dresden and faced demonstrators. Moscow, famously, was silent, and he drove back, tail between his legs, in a junky Trabant with an old washing machine in the back. He never got over that. If the April elections don’t go the way you hope, is there still a role for the Hungarian diaspora? Absolutely. We’re not going to fold up our tent. There are other elections coming up in other places, and we’re developing relationships and a network. The focus now is Hungary, but our ultimate focus is rescuing democracy, which has proven to be a much more fragile creature than we assumed. We kind of thought we’d gotten it done. And it turned out that that is never the case, anywhere. INTERVIEW BY AMY E. SCHWARTZ SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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3/25/22 3:13 PM

moment debate

YES

Should the Supreme Court outlaw affirmative action in college admissions? Yes, if what you mean is outright racial preferences, that is, bonus points for being a certain race. In Grutter v. Bollinger, in 2003, the Supreme Court said it was constitutionally permissible for schools to use race as one of many factors to achieve a broadly diverse student body. It’s when you look for what proponents would call a critical mass, but what is essentially a quota, that you run into trouble. Justice William Rehnquist’s dissenting opinion in Grutter noted that the percentage of Black, Hispanic and Native American students admitted by the University of Michigan Law School each year just happened to mirror their proportions in the applicant pool. In a lot of people’s minds, that’s a quota. Sometimes people use “affirmative action” more broadly to mean combating elitism. It’s true, the best professional schools like to take graduates from the best colleges, and the best colleges like to take from the best high schools, and that practice can have the unintended consequence of suppressing minority representation. If you’re just trying to counter that effect with broader outreach, I don’t know who would object. And schools do that to some degree. But using racial preferences is easier. It doesn’t take extra money or effort to add bonus points for someone based on skin color. The Supreme Court in previous cases gave schools multiple chances to comply with the spirit of viewing race as one factor among many. But they haven’t. The Supreme Court this fall will hear two cases alleging discrimination in admissions practices at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. 18

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If there are performance gaps, race-based college admissions just papers over the problem. CURT LEVEY What do you think will happen? I don’t think it’ll be the end of racial diversity in education, but I think the court will create more of a bright-line rule saying you can’t explicitly use race. Harvard and UNC don’t deny that they use racial preferences along with other factors, so they’ll have to change what they’re doing. The pressure of political correctness on universities to have a racially balanced student body is so great that most of us on my side suspect they’ll find a way to achieve it. Are the goals of affirmative action still pressing? The top colleges and professional schools remain quite elitist, so you could say there’s still a pressing need to make them less so. Neither of my parents went to college, and I could argue that that’s a bigger disadvantage than being a minority. In that sense racial preferences actually allow schools to be more elitist, because they can say they’re diverse without being diverse in any deep way. Not that they don’t take broad diversity into account at all, but the minority students they take tend to come from professional and affluent families similar to those of the white students. Are affirmative action’s goals in conflict with other values? Of course. On the one hand we have the Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which on their face seem to forbid race-based admissions; on the other hand, our society has a big focus on racial diversity. How do we square these two goals? The Supreme Court has repeatedly found that the educational benefits of diversity are the only constitutionally compelling rationale for race-based admissions. Most people don’t believe that’s the actual rationale—they believe it’s to remedy historic injustice— but we’re stuck with it.

I benefited from going to a diverse college. But is that value enough to throw away one of the most important principles in our law, which is that people should be treated the same regardless of race? In a legal system where we apply the highest level of scrutiny to racial discrimination, that standard is not met by the educational benefit of diversity. Have your views evolved over time? I once saw a presentation showing that when affirmative action was first instituted, minority scores on standardized tests differed from those of non-minorities by a full standard deviation. By the 1980s that difference had narrowed to .6—evidence that affirmative action was functioning as a counterweight to disadvantage and racial preferences were working to level the playing field. But as the playing field leveled out, so did the narrowing. Why the gap persists is a big mystery, but it has to be addressed before students are 18. Racebased college admissions just papers over the problem. Is the history of quotas used against Jews a factor in your views of affirmative action? That “diversity” arguments were used to limit Jewish enrollment 100 years ago is a very good reminder of how cynical the diversity rationale is and how malleable and frankly racist it can be. There’s so little difference between saying we have to have more Black and Hispanic students and saying we have to have fewer Jewish or Asian students. And yet one is seen as noble and one as racist. Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, is a constitutional lawyer who has worked on several landmark affirmative action cases.

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Should the Supreme Court Outlaw Affirmative Action?

Should the Supreme Court outlaw affirmative action in college admissions? No—not if you want to maintain a key mechanism for achieving a diverse student body. Definitive research over the years shows affirmative action is not just good for higher education, it’s good for American society. It gives people who have suffered disadvantage a chance to contribute in a way they wouldn’t otherwise. And a diverse college population benefits the broader society. Research shows a long list of societal and cognitive benefits: People who go to more integrated schools are more likely to live in integrated communities later on, to have friends of different groups and to look more broadly at issues. In the K-12 sphere, students at more integrated schools generally do better on test scores, if you think that’s an important metric, and are more likely to go to college. If the goal is to have a diverse society, and to right the historical wrongs of institutional racism, then affirmative action is essential. And that goal is intrinsic to the view America has had of itself, or at least has wanted to have, since its founding. The Supreme Court this fall will hear two cases alleging discrimination in admissions practices at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. What do you think will happen? My guess is that this court will completely get rid of the diversity standard [the principle established in 2003 that race can be considered among a number of factors if the goal is to create a diverse educational experience for all students]. I will be very surprised if it doesn’t happen. I don’t know if schools will find some other way to foster diversity. Maybe there are ways, especially if more schools make standardized testing

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Not if you want to maintain a key mechanism for achieving a diverse student body. VALERIE STRAUSS optional. But right-wing legal groups will be bird-dogging and challenging everything that happens, and people will pull back because they don’t want some parent group to sue them. The deterrent factor is huge. Admissions officers will say, “We can’t take this person, someone will challenge us.” And it’ll be awful. It’s heartbreaking what America’s done to itself across the board on racial issues. I worry that America is shortchanging its fundamental vision of itself. We’ve seen resegregation of communities, of public education, a movement to privatize K-12 education, which inevitably helps further the cause of segregation. I’m concerned as to how America can achieve the kind of society it wants. Are the goals of affirmative action still pressing? The goal of diversity is as pressing as it’s ever been. And more specifically, though there are broader views of affirmative action that take in all groups of underrepresented students, its focus is still Black Americans, who still suffer from deeply embedded generational disadvantage in the United States in a way other groups don’t. Affirmative action is one way of helping to remedy those setbacks, even though the courts have slowly peeled back the ways you can do it. Are affirmative action’s goals in conflict with other values? You mean, does it conflict with the goal of meritocracy? It’s a myth that colleges are meritocracies. There are no meritocracies in America. There’s always someone who comes from a more privileged background, has more money, is a legacy or who can afford SAT tutoring. The idea that you can actually treat everyone as equal is a dream. I don’t think people appreciate how colleges work.

They’re not picking people willy-nilly because of their skin color. You look for all kinds of qualities in human beings when you put together well-rounded groups. Because some people might do better on test scores or grades doesn’t mean that those are the only people you want. Am I saying reverse discrimination never happens? It might. But it’s not the problem in America. America’s problem is the continuing effects of past and current racist practices. It’s important for societies to try to fix their fundamental flaws. Have your views evolved over time? If anything, seeing how nothing changes makes my views stronger. I’ve been covering education for 30 years. Looking at the demographics and dynamics of where people live, how they live and what jobs they get, I believe more than ever that this country will lose itself if it gives up on the idea of a diverse society with equity. In Sandra Day O’Connor’s 2003 opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, she said affirmative action was still needed but probably wouldn’t be in 25 years. Wrong. It would have been nice if that were true. But America hasn’t made much progress in that time in remedying the effects of racism. Is the history of quotas used against Jews a factor in your views of affirmative action? The history of Jews in higher education and in admissions, the years of quotas restricting Jewish admission, always informs in my head the debate about who gets in and who doesn’t, and the question of how to structure admissions programs to get diverse groups while avoiding prejudice. Valerie Strauss has covered education for The Washington Post for more than 25 years. SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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ask the rabbis

How Is Judaism Different After Half a Century of Female Clergy? Fifty years ago, Sally Priesand was ordained as a Reform rabbi, the ﬁrst female clergy member in American Jewish history. To mark this anniversary, we asked rabbis, male and female, to reﬂect.

NOACH PHILLIPS

HUMANIST In 1969, I asked a rabbinical school to send me an application and quickly discovered that women were not eligible to be rabbis. Who knew? My innocence, ignorance and timing delayed my goal to become a rabbi, but I was not dissuaded. With gratitude to Sally Priesand for being a pioneer, I could be—and was—ordained 20 years ago as a Secular Humanistic rabbi. Ordaining women rabbis opened a manythousands-year-old closed door in Judaism, helping to clear the way for others who had been denied leadership roles. Making Jewish leadership available to women made it more accessible to LGBTQ+ individuals, Jews of color, Jews of patrilineal descent, Jews by choice and, in time, secular and Humanistic Jews and ultimately intermarried Jews. I fall into three of those groups. From the moment women were accepted into the rabbinate, Judaism became more inclusive and welcoming in every way. When Jewish clergy are diverse, those who have been marginalized feel represented by Jewish leadership. Jews who saw no place for themselves in the Jewish community can now look around 20

and recognize that they are home. Rabbi Miriam Jerris Society for Humanistic Judaism Farmington Hills, MI

INDEPENDENT In the past 50 years, women began to count—literally. From the inception of rabbinic Judaism centuries ago, men became obligated to engage in tefillah, prayer. Replacing the sacrificial system, it became the way of coming close to God, but also of communing with fellow Jews. Women could sometimes opt into this system in varying ways, but they never became obligated as men were. More recently, opt-in for women has shifted to a culture of opt-in for all. For most liberal Jews, men or women, religious obligation is not a substantial or actualized piece of one’s relationship with Judaism. As in the rest of our society, we rely less on community and conform less. This presents both a danger and an opportunity for the future of Judaism. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (z’’l) wrote: “When it comes to making a contribution, numbers do not count.” He understood that immense contributions

can be made by few people. Though it took a monumental change for women to count— and then lead—in a minyan, counting in a minyan may no longer be how we measure religious fulfillment. Instead, each of us can connect a personalized Judaism and a personal faith and practice to a greater whole. Rabbi Elyssa Joy Austerklein Ivrim—Jews Without Borders Akron, OH

RENEWAL Can anyone doubt that Judaism is a profoundly different and more just institution now that half of our people are represented in public worship and leadership? We owe so much to our female clergy and male allies, to our pioneers and those who came after, to the rabbis and cantors who fought to secure a place on the bimah, garner respect in the community and lift up their voices to God. When you look at our sacred texts, it is clear that part of their richness comes from the multiple modalities they employ—stories, spiritual encounters, laws and legal analysis, speeches, poetry and more. And yet, in our rabbinic discourse of the last

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1,500 years, one modality came to dominate—halacha, or Jewish law. Female Jewish clergy have helped bring about a great rebalancing of religious energies, making Judaism more relational, more inclusive, more attuned to the wisdom of personal narratives and more likely to view the divine not as the hierarchical, gendered King of Kings but—in Rabbi Stephanie Crawley’s words—“the God who sits beside me and weeps with me.” Some markers of progress are in danger of getting rolled back even after 50 years. Thankfully, not this one. Rabbi Gilah Langner Congregation Kol Ami Arlington, VA

RECONSTRUCTIONIST Women’s leadership, including as rabbis, has changed and enriched Judaism enormously. In fact, I think it has contributed significantly to a renewal of Judaism in North American Jewish communities. It has changed the way we read Torah, transforming, for example, the way we understand the biblical stories of Miriam, Sarah, Tamar, Dinah and so many others. It has enriched the cultural life of the Jewish community, reviving attention to the work of Yiddish poets such as Kadia Molodowsky, Celia Dropkin and Anna Margolin. It has inspired a new generation of women writers, filmmakers and musicians. In the congregation, women rabbis have challenged the conventional styles of leadership, making room for a range of leadership styles that root authority in caring, compassion and accessibility. Having women rabbis has meant so much to women in the congregation seeking pastoral counseling on issues unique to women, and it has created new role models for young Jewish girls. It has brought more Jewish women to Jewish learning and text study and broadened and deepened Jewish engagement. The success of this virtual revolution in Jewish life has made clear the imperative to work for full inclusion of all Jews who have historically experienced marginalization in Jewish communities. There is still so much to do. But the past 50 years of transforma-

tion can be a source of hope and strength for the journey. Rabbi Caryn Broitman Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Congregation Vineyard Haven, MA

REFORM Thirty years ago, in a Back to the Future-type moment, Rabbi Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, in an essay entitled “A Visit to the Future,” imagined how women in the rabbinate would impact our Jewish community. In several ways, her predictions have been realized. Judaism and our world are better for it. “In the future,” she wrote, “the Jewish past will look different.” While we cannot change the past, the stories we tell about the past and the perspectives we bring to thinking and learning about the past have surely changed. In the future, she thought, we would have more inclusive communities, spaces of belonging for Jews of all orientations, genders, abilities, racial and cultural backgrounds. There is much work still to be done in this regard, but indeed progress has been made. In the future, she imagined, women rabbis will have “helped the Jewish community see its history of pain as a window into the pain of others.” Women’s empathy will have “cracked open Jewish particularism… and turned [the community] outward to the world” to help heal the injustices we see around us each and every day. In this regard, our world may be that much more just and whole because women are teaching, leading and inspiring. Rabbi Dr. Laura Novak Winer Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Fresno, CA

CONSERVATIVE Since women first entered the American rabbinate, Jewish communities have benefited from an enlarged and diversified talent pool. Women clergy have made their mark on the Jewish world in their scholarship, teaching and preaching.

By definition, women and men are different. Our life experiences and understandings have yielded different lessons and caused us to ask different questions. These differences add texture and depth to the Jewish world, with new interpretations of sacred texts, traditional ceremonies, customs and rituals. Women lead differently from men. Research has shown that women tend to have a more cooperative, participatory leadership style. They are more likely to ask for advice and be thought of as good listeners. The lives that women bring to the liberal (meaning non-Orthodox) rabbinate have also helped change the shape of rabbinic careers and the career expectations of both men and women. Many women clergy had to balance the demands of career advancement and motherhood. This new balancing act has both introduced a new kind of role model to the rabbinate and changed its trajectory. A successful rabbinate is no longer defined by the size of a congregation. Women have introduced, or worked to find, many different career choices within the rabbinate and have used relationships cultivated and lives touched as a meaningful metric of their career. Rabbi Amy S. Wallk Temple Beth El Springfield, MA

OPEN ORTHODOX Women represent 50 percent of the population, so their religious leadership helps connect the community to its spiritual leaders. Women have certainly added our perspective on interpreting Torah and bringing our female voice and perspective into Jewish law. But women are also continuing the evolution of the rabbinate in general. In 1900, the rabbi was male, and the emphasis was on his intellect and Jewish knowledge. Then with the Reform movement, the ideal rabbi had to have a PhD and engage with the secular world. More recently, a rabbi had to be a CEO, a fundraiser and a program director who could manage the organization. Having more women is helping to expand what it means to have a pulpit. A pulpit can impact people through hospitals, SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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schools or university campuses. I’m hoping to see the profession look a little more family-centric, so the rabbi doesn’t have to be available 24/7 to the community. Within the Orthodox movement the emphasis has been on rabbis’ halachic knowledge, but even Orthodox rabbis are now directors of pastoral care and of schools and are available all the time. Even though personally my rabbinate has been one of complete availability, I think it’s OK to have some separation, and it would use the skills of women who desperately want to serve. Rabba Sara Hurwitz Yeshivat Maharat Bronx, NY

and indeed prohibit, women clergy? In the words of Blu Greenberg, “Fifty years is like the blink of an eye in the 4,000 years of Jewish tradition.” During this half-century, Orthodox women have been admitted to full learning of rabbinic and halachic literature. They have developed spiritually through women’s prayer groups and partnership minyanim. Hundreds have received ordination or the title of Maharat [manhigah hilchatit ruhanit toranit = halachic spiritual Torah leader]. I believe that this feminine flowering is the wave of the future for Orthodoxy as well. Full equality may not happen in my lifetime, but remember: You heard it here first.

modern orthodox

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg J.J. Greenberg Institute for the Advancement of Jewish Life/Hadar Riverdale, NY

The admission of women into the rabbinate and religious leadership was a historic achievement of the 20th century. But if people expected it to resolve the crisis of the synagogue in American life, they were disappointed. Women are only human. They were invited in as full partners in a time when the synagogue was losing its centrality. As in any human cohort, some women are extraordinary spiritual leaders and community builders, and their communities have become religious powerhouses and nuclei of religious and ethical vitality. Others are idealistic, devoted and doing their best with a shrinking synagogue base. Still, the inclusion of women is a major step toward realizing Judaism’s prophetic/ messianic vision, in which all women attain equality and full dignity. “On that [messianic] day,” says Hosea, “you [= women] will call me ishi [=my husband/man/God] and not anymore baali [=my husband/master]” (Hosea 2:18). The Torah’s core vision is that God created the human being in the image of God (Genesis 1:26), endowing each one with three intrinsic dignities: infinite value, equality and uniqueness (Sanhedrin 37A). Women clergy and leaders are an important aspect of the ethical/ social upgrade of society. How can I, a Modern Orthodox rabbi, write the above knowing that the Haredi Orthodox totally reject, and the Modern Orthodox religious establishment oppose 22

orthodox The entrance of women into the non-Orthodox rabbinate posed a challenge to the Orthodox community. It reacted in two ways. Watching from the sidelines, the Orthodox community found greater confidence in what it had: a rabbinate focused on the spiritual leader’s erudition in Torah texts. Traditionally, a rabbi was first and foremost a Torah teacher. Although the pastoral role of rabbis has grown even in the Orthodox world, pastoral duties—counseling, administration, running schools and projects— had for long been an accepted province of women. What women weren’t doing was deciding halachic issues, which requires, in our belief, many years of immersive training in Torah. Given a chance to reflect, the Orthodox community reasserted its confidence in the traditional roles and rejected the model of the non-Orthodox rabbinate for both men and women. Women’s expanded role as spiritual leaders outside of Orthodoxy also prompted Orthodox communities to ask: “Are there new roles for women that we can and should consider? How far are we going to go? Where are the boundaries?” The resounding vote of the mainstream Orthodox community, both clergy and lay people, has been not to change our attitude toward granting

women smicha, rabbinic ordination, but to see expanded roles in other ways. There are now very well-formulated programs of deeper and higher learning for women on both sides of the Atlantic, owed partly to the challenge posed by the opening up of the non-Orthodox rabbinate to women. Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein Cross-Currents Los Angeles, CA

neo-sephardic The National Geographic documentary Women of Impact: Changing the World tells the story of female pioneers in science and exploration. One of its most memorable and recurring themes is visibility. Many of the trailblazing women who started their work in the 1950s and 1960s said that, when they were growing up, the explorers they saw on TV and even the narrators of nature and science shows were always white men. It was courageous women such as Mary Leakey, Jane Goodall and Sylvia Earle who made women part of the picture. They inspired the next generation of women explorers and scientists, and their numbers and influence keep growing. Similarly, in the world of Jewish clergy, each new generation sees more amazing and inspiring women in the role of rabbis, cantors and chaplains. Female clergy are now a reality, and women are visible, but we still have a long way ahead of us. This revolution must reach all corners of the Jewish world. My grandfather used to proudly tell me how his sister defied their father, Hakaham Yehudah Fetaya of Baghdad, who told her in the 1930s that Talmud was not for women to study. That teenage girl, my great-aunt Lulu, made a deal with one of her father’s students. She taught him the Book of Daniel, and he introduced her to Talmud. It is painful to think of all the wisdom lost in thousands of years of exclusion. How much better could we have been, as a nation, without it? I have the deepest appreciation and gratitude for the female clergy of today, and I hope that their numbers will increase rapidly. Rabbi Haim Ovadia Torah veAhava Potomac, MD

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jewish word Why We Say ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’

prominent Jewish sages of the 11th and 12th centuries such as Rashi and Rabbenu Tam. But its popularity grew in the next century and might reflect the pain of the Crusader massacres and the longing for Jerusalem in that era. One of the oldest surviving Haggadahs containing “Next year in Jerusalem” is the famous Birds’ Head Haggadah from early 14th-century Rhineland, which, Gribetz says, was a region that had been devastated by the Crusades several decades earlier. The 1370 Barcelona Haggadah devotes a full, ornate page to “Next Year in Jerusalem,” and by the 15th century, it was already a common practice for Ashkenazi Jews to conclude their seders with the phrase, according to the medieval scholar Isaac Tyrnau. Although the phrase dates back only to the Middle Ages, the physical desire to return to Jerusalem and a yearning for a messianic redemption goes back thousands of years. It “rests on a vast and deep sea of memory, hope and longing that runs throughout Jewish tradition,” says Michael Swirsky, an educator and founder of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. The implied meaning of “Next year in Jerusalem” as a metaphor for the coming of the messianic age is an important theme in contemporary Jewish rituals. These include the Jewish wedding ceremony (“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem” from Psalm 137), the blessings after meals

(“rebuild Jerusalem . . . speedily in our days”) and the Israeli national anthem “Hatikvah” (“. . .the hope of two thousand years, to be a free nation in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem”). There have been times when the phrase’s use in the Haggadah has been challenged. Some early Reform Jews, for example, omitted or changed the phrase because of debates about Zionism and the relationship between Judaism and Jerusalem. In the years before the State of Israel was established, early Zionists, already living in the land, often left out “Next year in Jerusalem”—likely because they had already returned, says Gribetz. This ultimately led to amending the phrase to “Next year in a rebuilt Jerusalem,” a revision that is found in many Israeli Haggadahs today. And, of course, over the past 50 years, the expression has often been reshaped or reinterpreted to reflect universal, rather than particularistic, themes. The Freedom Seder by Arthur I. Waskow, from the tumultuous late 1960s, turns “Next year in Jerusalem” into “Liberation Now! Next year in a world of freedom.” The 2017 HIAS Haggadah explains that the phrase recognizes that “for the world’s more than 65 million displaced people and refugees, these words can be a literal message of hope that they will be able to rebuild their lives in a safe place.” Ever adaptable, in the era of Zoom seders it was “Next Year in Jerusalem, Next Year in Person!” The New American Haggadah, edited in 2012 by Jonathan Safran Foer, notes that “exile” is another word for “brokenness” and that “Jerusalem”—whose root is “shalem”— denotes wholeness and peace. It suggests that when Jews declare “Next year in Jerusalem” at the seder’s conclusion, they are really asking to find wholeness in their brokenness. It’s an especially apt sentiment in a year when wholeness and peace seem more elusive than ever. BY GEORGE E. JOHNSON SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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WIKIMEDIA

eders all over the world this Passover will end with the words L’Shanah Ha Ba’ah b’Yerushalayim—“Next year in Jerusalem.” The meaning of this expression differs from seder table to seder table. “It is a coded phrase,” says Sarah Bunin Benor, professor of contemporary Jewish studies at Hebrew Union College and an expert in sociolinguistics. It can be interpreted literally; spiritually, as in “May the Messiah come soon”; metaphorically, as an expression of hope for a better world; concretely, as an expression of political Zionism; or as something else entirely. Whatever its meaning, most of us associate saying “Next year in Jerusalem” with Passover. Yet the phrase was in use years before it came to conclude the seder. An 11th-century French rabbi, Joseph Bonfils, composed a poem to be recited on the Shabbat before Passover whose penultimate verse proclaims, “May a wondrous hand be raised to give joy to an oppressed people in Jerusalem, next year.” The full expression “Next year in Jerusalem!” appears in a poem by 12th-century Spanish poet Yehudah Halevi that he wrote for the conclusion of the Yom Kippur service, asking God to end Israel’s suffering. (Today, “Next year in Jerusalem” remains the final declaration of the traditional Neilah service that ends Yom Kippur.) Halevi also used it as a salutation in a letter discovered in the Cairo Geniza detailing his arrival in Alexandria on his way to Jerusalem in 1141. “‘Next year in Jerusalem’ was a phrase used in the popular culture of the time,” says Sarit Kattan Gribetz, associate professor of theology at Fordham University. The phrase only starts appearing in Haggadahs a few centuries later. It “certainly was a medieval addition,” says Gribetz, adding that its inclusion depended on local tradition. Notably, it doesn’t appear in the Haggadahs of

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The Antisemitism Project THE ANTISEMITISM MONITOR MAP Moment’s digital map highlights antisemitic incidents around the world that have been identiﬁed and veriﬁed by Moment Insitute Fellow Ira N. Forman. To view the map, which is updated on a regular basis, visit momentmag.com/ antisemitism

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ANTISEMITISM Highlights from the MomentLive! antisemitism series

HENRY FORD AND AMERICAN ANTISEMITISM Historians Pamela Nadell and Daniel Greene explore the period between World War I and World War II when American society became increasingly xenophobic and prejudiced against minorities. One man, Henry Ford, perhaps more than any other, played an outsized role in disseminating antisemitism in an era that holds important lessons for today. Watch the program at momentmag. com/zoominars

TRAYON WHITE IS RUNNING FOR MAYOR: DO WASHINGTON VOTERS CARE ABOUT HIS PAST ANTISEMITIC COMMENTS?

ou may remember Trayon White Sr., the Washington, DC councilmember who famously said back in 2018 that a Jewish banking family controls the weather. Now, four years later, he is running for a new political office: DC mayor. White, 37, has been a popular member of the DC city council since 2017. He represents Ward 8, a predominantly Black area that is home to some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. When he first took office, he was known as the youngest member of the council, sitting in the seat once held by former mayor Marion Barry. But he wasn’t known outside of the city until 2018, when his comments became an international story. “Man, it just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man,” White said in a Facebook video on March 16. “Y’all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation. And DC keep talking about, ‘We a resilient city.’ And that’s a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful.” The Rothschild family is a European banking dynasty that made its fortune in the 18th century. The family, which is Jewish, has long been the target of antisemitic conspiracy theories. Most of these revolve around the idea that the family is secretly manipulating world events in bizarre ways—directing the economy, assassinating presidents, founding Israel. In his 2018 video, White was referring to a related conspiracy theory claiming that the Rothschilds control the climate for their own profit. And it soon surfaced that White had made similar comments just a month before: “There’s this whole concept with the Rothschilds, [they] control the World Bank, as we all know, infusing dollars into major cities,” White had said at a February gathering of city officials, according to WAMU, a public radio station in DC. The Washington Post quickly published a story on the video. When it first went live, it appeared that White did not understand how his comments were related to antisemitism. But several hours later, White sent The Post an apology: “I did not intend to be antisemitic, and I see I should not have said that after learning from my colleagues,” he wrote. He added that the progressive group Jews United for Justice, with which he has a long-standing relation-

Moment’s Antisemitism Project monitors global incidents and provides articles, interviews and resources for understanding and combating antisemitism. To learn more, visit momentmag.com/antisemitism

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at Moment Magazine

Trayon White speaking at a groundbreaking for a bridge in 2018.

ty than for his legislative record. He is always a visible presence in his community, dutifully showing up to neighborhood events and performing acts of public service. “Trayon is not a politician who relies on typical rhetoric; rather, he speaks very directly and very passionately,” says Chuck Thies, a longtime DC political strategist. “He’s done a good job advocating for the residents he represents and expressing their concerns in a manner that is outspoken and quite clear.” In 2020, White ran for reelection to the council, winning the Democratic primary—the decisive race in an overwhelmingly Democratic city—with 58.2 percent of the vote. “In his ward he’s quite popular,” says Philip Pannell, executive director of the Anacostia Coordinating Council, who also lives in Ward 8. Still, “I think his popularity in his ward will not necessarily translate into a viable candidacy for mayor.” Thies thinks the city has largely moved past White’s comments. “It’s not like there has been a subsequent incident,” he says. “I think people understand that Trayon was genuinely apologetic and probably didn’t understand the sensitivity of the issues he was weighing in on.” Pannell says he realizes that White apologized, but “I do think that his unfortunate comments back in 2018 will be an issue in certain parts of the city,” he says. “Even in the face of the sincerest apologies, people may forgive, but they’re not going to forget.” This winter, when Washington saw its first big snowfall of the season, White kept his comments simple. In his newsletter to Ward 8 residents, he wrote: “New year, fresh snow, fresh beginnings.” —Ellen Wexler This story is part of an ongoing feature called “In Context,” which looks at antisemitic incidences reported in the media and in Moment’s Antisemitism Monitor in order to explore their long-term consequences and provide perspective.

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CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM VIA FLICKR / CC BY-NC 2.0

ship, was helping him “to understand the history of comments made against Jews.” Later that month, White attended a bagels-and-lox breakfast, organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, where lawmakers and local Jewish leaders took turns speaking about combating antisemitism. “Growing up as a young man in Ward 8, I had no idea what antisemitism was. Really,” White said at the breakfast. “As a leader, I should be held accountable.” Thrown into the limelight, White continued to express regret. But the story continued making international headlines for several months, growing ever more vociferous. That’s because the following month, White made a visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where he was accompanied by Rabbi Batya Glazer of the Jewish Community Relations Council. But he left mid-tour, embarrassed by the unexpected presence of reporters, prompting another round of criticism. Around the same time, reports surfaced that White had made a $500 donation to a Chicago event where Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said that “powerful Jews are my enemy.” Alongside his other apologies, White personally repaid the $500 to his constituent services fund, which he had used to make the donation. Among the city’s Jewish communities, there is no consensus on whether the situation is resolved and was handled well, and whether White should be forgiven. In May 2018, Shmuel Herzfeld, then the rabbi of a DC Orthodox synagogue, interrupted a city council meeting, yelling “Shame on you!” and criticizing councilmembers for not censuring White. Now, four years later, Herzfeld’s feelings have not changed. “I think there’s still a lot of pain in the Jewish community about White’s comments,” he says. On the other hand, Rabbi Daniel Zemel, who attended the bagels-and-lox breakfast, came away disappointed, calling Jewish leaders’ public-facing approach “a theatrical display.” “I believe in patience and wisdom and getting to know someone,” says Zemel, the senior rabbi at DC’s Temple Micah, a Reform congregation. “It’s not having two or three meetings, and all of a sudden antisemitism education’s achieved.” Over the last four years, White has maintained his popularity in Ward 8. It’s where he grew up, and he is intimately acquainted with the challenges its residents face. His family was very poor; he has said that sometimes they couldn’t go outside because of nearby violence. As a young teenager, he stole cars and got into trouble with the police, before ultimately resolving to turn his life around, according to The Washington Post. He beat the odds when he graduated from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in 2006. As a councilmember, White has made gun violence one of his priorities. But White is known more for his force of personali-

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POEM JASON SCHNEIDERMAN

ADDITIONAL ANTISEMITISM PROGRAMS ON MOMENTLIVE! How to Stay Safe in America During a Time of Increased Antisemitism with David Delew, Eva Fogelman, Richard Priem and Ira N. Forman

The ketubah, a Jewish marriage contract that dates back to Talmudic times, is an object of ritual beauty. For many couples, it represents the promise and obligations of a shared life, even as it provides for the contingency of divorce. But what does it become when that shared life is over? Jason Schneiderman’s “Ketubah” weds two partial texts to create something whole out of estrangement itself. —Jody Bolz, poetry editor

KETUBAH

QAnon’s Antisemitic Roots with Mia Bloom, Sophia Moskalenko and Sarah Posner How Should We Define Antisemitism and Who Should Define It? with Dina Porat, Mark Weitzman, Malcolm Hoenlein, Willaim Daroff and Ira N. Forman

though I’m the one who picked it out according to the law of Moses and Israel its greens and reds inspired by Rothko in the month of _ in the year of _

The State of Antisemitism in Germany Today with Ambassador Emily Haber and Robert Siegel The Rise of Antisemitism in France with Marc Weitzmann and Robert Siegel The Holocaust and Antisemitism in Latin America with Ilan Stavans and Andrés Spokoiny

a modern touch in our Jewish home measured since the creation of the world that now is gone or is yours without me I offer two hundred zuzim and even the shirt off my back

Blood Libel: An Investigation into the Origins of a Virulent and Enduring Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory with E.M. Rose

we married on the fourth day it was legal for two men I was brought from my father’s house

What to Do About Antisemitism and Racism with Eric K. Ward and Nadine Epstein A Conversation on Antisemitism with Deborah Lipstadt and Robert Siegel

to marry in this country to live with you as husband and husband I’m glad you kept it

The Growing Threat from Domestic Antisemitism with Holly Huffnagle and Ira N. Forman The Unfortunate Convergence of Antisemitism and COVID-19 with Ira N. Forman and Nadine Epstein

I can’t remember what ours said on this day of joy and celebration

this ancient text rewritten for us not an agreement without consideration Jason Schneiderman is the author of four books of poetry—most recently, Hold Me Tight—and editor of the Oxford University Press anthology Queer: A Reader for Writers.

or a mere formula of a document but something to prove how much we loved.

Watch at momentmag.com/ zoominars

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visual moment

IMAGES COURTESY OF SYNAGOGUES: MARVELS OF JUDAISM, BY LEYLA ULUHANLI © RIZZOLI NEW YORK, 2021; © AMIT GERON; © AGA KHAN TRUST FOR CULTURE

The spiral-shaped exterior of the Scroll of Light Synagogue in Caesarea features controlled fissures that allow for interior illumination and encourage meditation on the role of light and the progression of time. The synagogue was built in the town of Caesarea on Israel’s Mediterranean coast in 2007.

A number of Jewish merchants and leather artisans migrated from the Near East along the Silk Road, arriving in Afghanistan as early as the 7th century CE. The Yu Aw Synagogue in Herat was built in 1393 and restored in 2007. The main sanctuary centers on a chahartaq (four-arch) structure with painted floral medallions reminiscent of Safavid dynasty design (1501-1736). The mihrab-shaped niches and low bimah are traditional to the region, as are the rugs, which serve as seating. The design reflects the lives of Jews in a non-Jewish world. Local Islamic law prevented construction of new synagogues without the permission of local leaders, who wanted to ensure they didn’t compete with local mosques in size or ornamentation. SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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The Synagogue, a Symbol of Endurance BY DIANE M.BOLZ

Make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them. —Exodus 25:8

The intricately painted and gilded plaster Torah ark, which dates from 1936, is the centerpiece of the Great Synagogue of Wlodawa, Poland. Built in 1771, the synagogue was likely designed by Italian architect Paolo Antonio Fontano, who favored a grandiose Baroque style. By the mid-18th century, the prosperous Wlodawa Jewish community of 2,000 could afford this impressive structure. The building was restored in the 1970s-’80s. The interior of the dome (detail) of the Tempio Maggiore Israelitico in Florence reflects a taste for Moorish ornamentation. Illuminated by a ring of cylindrical windows, the dome’s rich geometry and arabesque designs are interwoven with Jewish symbols and inscriptions. Built from 1874 to 1882, the eclectic building was a collaboration of three Florentine architects and takes its inspiration from Byzantine and Ottoman architecture. The tall dome pays homage to Filippo Brunelleschi’s and the city‘s famed 15th-century Duomo. The interior follows the Greek Cross plan, with four equal arms and an elevated dome.

he earliest Jewish tribes, inhabitants of the arid lands of Canaan, Phoenicia and Palestine, developed the first known Jewish prayer space, the tentlike tabernacle. A rectangular area with the holy scrolls of the Torah at its center, the tabernacle became, over centuries, a prototype for later Jewish holy spaces. The Greeks called these places sunagoge, or “an assembly.” Similarly, the Hebrew name, beit ha-knesset, means “house of assembly.” Foremost a place of worship, the synagogue is also a destination where generations of Jews gather to study, socialize and celebrate the rites of passage that have sustained them over the generations. As physical structures, synagogues also express a desire for permanence. According to 20th-century architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the function of religious buildings is to convert visitors into worshippers. It is the essence of architecture— space, light and materials—that nurtures that conversion. Ever since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Jews have found themselves spread throughout the globe. This diaspora led to new cultural and architectural forms as Jews interacted with their local communities. An impressive new volume pictures the architectural and historical evolution of more than 60 iconic synagogues around the world, from the most ancient to the most contemporary, the most modest to the most imposing. Published by Rizzoli New York, Synagogues: Marvels of Judaism, by Leyla Uluhanli, captures the richness and diversity of these structures across time and geography. SPRING ISSUE 2022

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Set in a grove of indigenous trees and flooded with light, The Jewish Center of the Hamptons in East Hampton, New York was designed by architect Norman Jaffe in 1989. The angling of the woodwork into a series of bent forms was designed to evoke the profile of a worshiper bowing in prayer. The use of wood refers to the great wooden synagogues of Eastern Europe. In a departure from Reform Judaism, the bimah projects into the congregation to encourage a more participatory version of worship, a design typical of early Sephardi synagogues.

Inspired by Rome’s Pantheon and a blend of Romanesque and Art Deco styles, Los Angeles’s Wilshire Boulevard Temple was designed by Abram M. Edelman, S. Tilden Norton and David C. Allison in 1929. The synagogue’s symphony of colors and textures and its hundred-foothigh, sumptuously decorated, coffered dome echoes the opulent movie palaces of the 1920s. Black marble columns, bronze chandeliers and golden ark fixtures further enrich the interior. The temple is noted for its controversial reintroduction of extensive figurative art into synagogue decoration. Artist and silent film director Hugo Ballin painted the sanctuary murals. SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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SUSANNAH HESCHEL:

THE RABBI’S DAUGHTER

BY MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN

s many Jewish families set their seder tables this year, they will place an orange next to the parsley, egg and shank bone—a contemporary ritual invented by Susannah Heschel, the biblical scholar, Jewish feminist and daughter of the late Jewish philosopher and civil rights icon Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Legend has it that the custom came about after an Orthodox Jewish heckler interrupted one of Susannah Heschel’s lectures on feminism, shouting, “A woman belongs on the bimah as much as an orange belongs on the seder plate!” But if you ask Heschel, she will tell you a different story: how the rapid spread of AIDS in the 1980s both terrified and alienated her friends in the gay community. Cruel messages from some in the Jew30

ish community did not help, including a rabbi’s wife who famously pronounced there was as much room for lesbians in Judaism as there was for a crust of bread on the seder plate. During a trip to Oberlin College, Heschel discovered a feminist Haggadah that proposed just that—placing a crust of bread on the seder table as an act of solidarity. Inspired, Heschel sought to create her own symbolic gesture. Since Jewish law does not permit leavened bread in a home during Passover, she peeled a mandarin orange for her seder guests. The segments were bound together in a single sphere, just as, she explained, all Jews and all of humanity should be. She invited everyone to take a segment of the orange, make the blessing over the fruit, and eat it to show solidarity with lesbians, gay men and others on the margins of the Jewish community.

Heschel is not surprised that the fable of the heckler endures. It echoes a familiar pattern: It transfers credit for a woman’s vision to a man. For the last 50 years, Susannah Heschel has been trying to set a place at the table for female scholars like herself. Just as her father fought alongside Blacks in their struggle for a place at the table during the civil rights movement. Just as Jews have been fighting for their place in this world for thousands of years. As the only child of a Jewish legend, Susannah Heschel, a professor whose expertise includes the history of biblical scholarship, antisemitism and Jewish scholarship on Islam, also has spent considerable time and energy guarding her father’s legacy and correcting the multitude of misconceptions that have grown up around him. Scores of biographies,

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From right: Susannah Heschel, Martin Luther King III, Arndrea Waters King and Bernice King on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in March 2022. ALL PHOTOS: COURTESY OF SUSANNAH HESCHEL

Following in the footsteps of her father, Abraham Joshua Heschel, the biblical scholar is at the forefront of the march toward social justice and reframing Judaism in the tradition of the prophets. SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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articles and dissertations have been penned about Rabbi Heschel since his death nearly a half century ago. But very few get everything right, his daughter says. Most recently, Yale University Press released a volume on Abraham Joshua Heschel as part of its Jewish Lives series that included a well-worn myth that it presented as fact—about the night the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. rang the doorbell of the Heschel home right before Havdalah. To mark the end of Shabbat, the story goes, the men lit the Havdalah candle and smoked cigars—a portrait of camaraderie and friendship that writers like to include in their hagiographies about Rabbi Heschel. But Martin Luther King Jr. never came to their house, Susannah Heschel says. She has told authors that time and again. But no one ever takes her word for it. “I just get discounted on these things,” says Heschel, now the chair of the Jewish Studies Program at Dartmouth College. “What is that about?” After all, Heschel is not only a noted scholar, she is the rabbi’s daughter and lived with him during that historic era. Her years of studying feminist theory, working in a male-dominated profession and worshiping in a male-dominated faith have led her to wonder if perhaps therein lies the problem: She’s not the rabbi’s son.

Above: Susannah Heschel and Abraham Joshua Heschel. Below: Susannah Heschel and her parents at her bat mitzvah.

I first met Susannah Heschel in person as she prepared a Shabbat meal for guests in the kitchen of her Newton, Massachusetts home. Dressed for comfort and cooking, she nonetheless looked glamorous, with her trademark turquoise eyeshadow, stylish spectacles and aquamarine collar necklace. A glass baking dish piled high with chicken, fennel and clementines was ready to slide into the oven, but she was in a panic. She had just learned there were more vegetarians than expected, and she

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didn’t want them to go hungry or feel excluded. She chopped broccoli while dictating replies to a constant stream of text messages. Soon, her phone started chiming a countdown to candle-lighting time. After kindling the flames, Heschel disappeared briefly, then descended the stairs wearing a regal purple velvet coat with pink flowers that she had bought at a favorite boutique outside Zurich, where she had recently received an honorary doctorate. She selected a widebrimmed hat from the stack she keeps by the piano in the living room before setting off for shul, one of the three Orthodox synagogues within walking distance of her home. Heschel embodies many contradictions and embraces them because they’re honest parts of who she is, past and present. She is committed to carrying on her family’s legacy and she sees nothing incongruous about her feminism and choosing to pray at an Orthodox shul where she sits separately from the men. “I don’t think the separation of men and women is the foundation stone of sexism,” she says. “I’ve seen plenty of sexism where men and women sit together, even sexism in synagogues where the rabbi is a woman.” Her father similarly eschewed labels and expectations. Born in 1907 and raised in a Hasidic enclave of Warsaw, Poland, Abraham Joshua Heschel grew up immersed in Torah, Talmud and classical Hasidic teachings. Founded by Jewish mystics, Hasidism is a movement within Orthodox Judaism that recognizes the miracle of God’s presence in everything, everyone, everywhere; Heschel, who was descended from Polish Hasidic dynasties on both his mother’s and his father’s sides, soon sought to inject that sense of wonder and abiding awareness of God into the modern world. At 20, already an ordained rabbi, he left Poland to attend the University of Berlin, where he studied in both traditional Orthodox and liberal Jewish circles. He was drawn to the poetic witness and timeless wisdom of the biblical prophets. In December 1932, weeks before the dawn

of the Third Reich, he completed his doctoral dissertation, which was essentially a critique and course correction of Protestant Christian scholarship on the prophets. As part of a broader attack on Jews and their influence in German culture, prominent Protestant scholars had dismissed the passion and fervor of the prophets as madness. Heschel’s scholarship aimed to redeem them by casting them in a novel light: He saw the prophets as direct messengers of God, bewailing society’s ills and calling on humanity to rectify injustice. With Hitler in power, the situation for Jews in Europe deteriorated. Heschel took a job at a Jewish institute in Frankfurt, where he succeeded the world-renowned Austrian Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. But two weeks before Kristallnacht, Gestapo agents arrested him in his home and deported him to the German-Polish border. Six weeks before the Nazi invasion of Poland, the president of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati was able to secure visas for some Jewish scholars, including Heschel, to leave Europe. The young rabbi had no choice but to leave his mother and siblings behind. Some brothers would get out, but the Nazis would murder his mother and three sisters. (He had lost his father at the age of nine to influenza.) When Heschel arrived in the United States, he was appalled by the indifference toward Hitler and Nazism. “I was a stranger in this country,” he later said. “My words had no power. When I did speak, they shouted me down. They called me a mystic, unrealistic. I had no influence on leaders of American Jewry.” That apathy would have a profound effect on his activism and his writing, in which he tried to wake up complacent American Jews to their responsibility. The books he went on to write illuminated the partnership between God and human beings and explored how to tap into what God asks of us, often employing poetic language to get his point across. “Wonder alone is the compass that may direct us to the pole of meaning,” he wrote in Man Is Not Alone, pub-

Abraham Joshua and Susannah Heschel.

lished in 1951. That same year he would also capture public imagination with his book The Sabbath, describing the day of rest as “a palace in time with a kingdom for all.” The “Sabbath is the presence of God in the world, open to the soul of man,” he wrote. Along the way he met and married Sylvia Straus, a concert pianist and music teacher. Susannah Heschel notes that many books about her father leave out her mother’s essential supporting role and the fact that the early years of their marriage were his most prolific. Straus, who died in 2007, first met Heschel in Cincinnati when he was at Hebrew Union College. They reconnected years later in New York after he became a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). Instead of an engagement ring, the rabbi gave his fiancée the grand piano that sits today in their daughter’s living room. Straus would play the piano for hours while her husband, ensconced in his study, pored over his books. Susannah Heschel was born in the early 1950s (following her mother’s example, she never reveals her precise age) and remembers her father’s unbridled en-

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thusiasm and support. When she walked into the room, he would drop his pen for a game or a hug. Raised in a high-rise apartment on New York City’s Upper West Side, Susannah read The New York Times every morning over breakfast with her father before heading east to Ramaz, a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school, and later Dalton, a progressive private school, both on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The bedtime stories her father told her were from the Torah and the midrash. Later, when she heard them again at school, she couldn’t understand why the other students sat in suspense, since she had heard them all before. Occasionally, when her father returned home from teaching ethics and mysticism at JTS, she would surprise him in the coat closet, and they would play hide-and-seek. He also taught her how to play chess and Chinese checkers. On her days off from school, she often met him for lunch at the cafeteria inside the seminary, or outside in the late afternoons to keep him company on his walk home. He was always there for help with history homework and for comfort. “He was the person I would turn to if I had an argument with a friend and I was upset,” she recalls. “I didn’t want to wear glasses, so he said, ‘I will buy you contact lenses.’ He was always sympathetic. He also understood me.” Kindling the lights for Shabbat was always a highlight of the week. Heschel recalls how after her father would bless her, they would sit in the living room and watch the sun slowly descend over the Hudson River. Classic Hasidic teaching infused her childhood. She remembers once, when she was young, her father pointed to a shelf full of Hasidic texts, and told her it was her inheritance. The civil rights era infused her adolescence. She was 12 when her father kissed her goodbye and flew to Selma to march with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. She worried he would not survive, after previous marches had led to bloodshed, but he returned unharmed. Her teen years were imbued with the teachings of the Hebrew Bible. She continued to develop an apprecia-

tion for how it spoke to the moral issues of the time. During her freshman year at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, she enrolled in a seminar on the Hebrew Bible and spent hours preparing for each class, devouring the texts. She recalls weeping over the passage in Deuteronomy where Moses dies. “My heart and my mind were both in that class,” she says. Like her father, she could not understand why biblical scholars attributed repetition and unusual turns of phrase to just scribal errors and nonsense. “They were missing the beauty of the text, the aesthetics. They were missing the literary quality, the metaphors, and the question of why this book has inspired billions of people,” she says.

On December 23, 1972, Heschel was home on winter break when she woke to her mother’s screams. Rabbi Heschel had died in his sleep at age 65. With her father gone, she continued her studies at Harvard Divinity School and the University of Pennsylvania and set out to answer the question that had perplexed them both—why did so many scholars slight the value of the Bible’s prose and underrate the power of its poetry? Her quest led her back to 19th-century Germany, where biblical scholarship had developed against a backdrop of rising antisemitism and the institutional exclusion of Jews. Heschel discovered instances where Protestant Christian scholars had twisted the words of the Talmud and Hebrew Bible to denigrate Jews—a foundation of contempt that made claims of scribal errors and gibberish seem minor. Her doctoral dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, completed in 1989, examined the German rabbi Abraham Geiger’s efforts to change this. Geiger, best known as a founder of Reform

Judaism, initially tried to convince Protestant biblical scholars to consider the role of Judaism in the development of Christianity and study the Hebrew Bible in that larger context. But Jews had no standing in European academia. Antisemitism kept Geiger out of theological journals and professorships just because he was Jewish. Heschel’s own challenges as one of very few women in religious studies at that time, coupled with her knowledge of feminist theory and the power of patriarchy, helped her grasp the weight of Christian hegemony on German academia of his era and the courage required to confront it. She combed through Geiger’s letters to friends, in which he expressed both sadness and optimism that theologians some day would see the errors in their interpretation and come to appreciate what Judaism offered to the world. That emotional and spiritual strength was something Heschel could not ignore. “That touched my heart, because it’s so easy to despair and get frustrated or angry, and yet Geiger was calm and assured,” she says. “I learned from him not only academic things. I learned from him something about menschlichkeit, how to be a person in this world.” She adds with a chuckle: “He was, of course, completely sexist. I think if I had lived in his day we would not have gotten along too well.” Heschel landed her first teaching post in 1988, at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. After three years, she left for Case Western Reserve University in her mother’s hometown of Cleveland, “the greatest Jewish community I’ve ever experienced in my life,” she says. She fondly recalls the kosher butcher, a former teacher at a Jewish day school, who taught customers a piece of Torah while wrapping their poultry. She can still taste the challah from Unger’s Kosher Bakery and Food and misses shopping in Simcha’s Spectacular, a boutique that specializes in tzniut clothing, the modest attire that Jewish law prescribes for Orthodox women. But her most indelible memory is of the tiny Hasidic storefront

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Abraham Joshua Heschel (second from right) in the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery. Martin Luther King Jr. is fourth from right.

asks them, ‘Who are these Jews? What is Jewish?’…This is it.” In 1992, Heschel was invited to speak at a United Nations Parliamentary Earth Summit in Brazil alongside other religious leaders, including the Dalai Lama. (Unable to resist, she slipped His Holiness a note asking when he would be reincarnated as a woman. In due time, he told her.) She returned to Cleveland ready to offer a course on religion and the environment. Colleagues pointed her to James Aronson, an acclaimed geologist from Texas best known for being the first to calculate the age of the oldest known human ancestor, a 3.2-million-

year-old skeletal fossil nicknamed Lucy. When they finally met, Aronson, an intrepid world explorer, was enamored. A short time later, he came by her office to share one of his favorite quotations about religion and the environment. He had no idea it was a quote from her father. By the time the religion scholar and the earth scientist married in 1995—“A union of heaven and earth,” Aronson recounts with a smile—he understood he was becoming part of the Heschel dynasty. He offered to take her name, but she declined. The fact that he offered was enough to show her she had chosen well. They now have two college-age

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WIKIPEDIA

shul around the corner from her home. Run by Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union, the two-room shul, which doubled as a kosher food pantry, would dole out plastic bowls of cholent ladled from a Crock-Pot after Shabbat services. “To me, it was the quintessence of Judaism,” she says. “It’s the modesty, the devotion, the care for other people, the piety, the delicacy. This is what you do. You get up from davening and you do a mitzvah for somebody.” She continued: “I have 350 students taking modern Jewish history— students from all over the world. When they go home to wherever they live— China, Brazil, Vietnam—and someone

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COLLECTION OF THE SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE

Martin Luther King Jr. with Abraham Joshua Heschel during the Selma March in 1965.

daughters, Avigael Natania Mira, named for Heschel’s and Aronson’s fathers and a cousin, and Gittel Esther Devorah, named for her father’s three sisters murdered in the Holocaust. Heschel’s and Aronson’s wedding, held in New York, recreated a Hasidic celebration in Poland at the turn of the century. Musicians played only music composed at that time and men and women sat separately. Instead of flowers, the bride carried a book from the Apter Rav, the founder of the Hasidic dynasty from which all Heschels descend. Aronson wore her father’s black hat. Relatives led a kel maleh rachamim, or funeral prayer, in honor of the bride and groom’s fathers. Her cousins sang a nigun, a mystical musical prayer passed down from the Apter Rav. The ceremony was meaningful, modest, and members of her family who would not have attended a Reform wedding made a point of being there. “People who write about my father don’t understand how close he was, and I am, to our Hasidic family. They don’t want to know,” Heschel says. She believes

scholars often ignore how much a person’s family and home life shape his or her contributions to the world. “People are enmeshed in their families,” she says. “You carry your parents with you, in your mind, in your dreams, in your heart, in your feelings and your day-to-day living.” Heschel’s most significant critique of scholarship on her father’s legacy, however, is that Black theologians are largely left out of it. He was close to King as well as to other Black clergymen such as Andrew Young, Bayard Rustin and C.T. Vivian. In fact, she says, there was a symbiotic relationship between her father and King, and the two men inspired each other. Stirred by the nascent civil rights movement around him, her father returned to his 30-year-old dissertation about the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, revised and expanded it, and turned it into a book. In the volume, published in 1962 as The Prophets, he argued that Isaiah’s verse about beating swords into plowshares offers a timeless denunciation of man’s romance with war. “The sword is not only the source of security,”

he wrote, “it is also the symbol of honor and glory; it is bliss and song.” And he affirmed Habakkuk’s warnings that war is futile. “What is the ultimate profit of all the arms, alliances, and victories? Destruction, agony, death.” He pointed out the prophets’ persistent warnings about the dangers of authority. “The hunger of the powerful knows no satiety; the appetite grows on what it feeds. Power exalts itself and is incapable of yielding to any transcendent judgment,” Heschel wrote. What is often overlooked, his daughter says, is how her father’s innovative understanding of the Hebrew prophets enhanced Martin Luther King Jr.’s calls for justice. King’s copy of the book, civil rights leaders have told her, was well-worn and replete with underlined passages, and King spoke as if he had memorized every word. Other civil rights leaders have confided that they kept paperback copies of The Prophets in their back pockets. “To omit entirely Black theologians who were in exactly the same position, speaking from the margins, and also imbued with the prophetic spirit, for whom the prophets are central, then what does that mean?” Heschel asks. “My father’s biographers are putting him in the wrong framework, and they’re neglecting what is an important framework.” In fact, she says, her father felt an affinity with his African American Protestant colleagues that he shared with very few white Protestant or even white Jewish colleagues, some of whom considered him a poet rather than a serious scholar. Her father would say that if there is any hope for institutional Judaism in America, it could be found in the African-American church. There, he encountered a level of piety and religiosity that reminded him of the intense spiritual experience he had growing up in Warsaw, a level of piety he found missing in most synagogues. Rabbi Heschel’s exegesis of the prophets endures in Black Protestant theology today. When asked at a recent lecture if anyone among evangelical Christians embodies the prophetic tradition, Susannah Heschel immediately pointed to the

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work of the Reverend Esau McCaulley, an assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College in Illinois. In his book Reading While Black, McCaulley advocates for what he calls “Black ecclesial interpretation,” a way to find hope by reading the Bible through the lens of the Black experience. “Jesus saw his ministry as a part of a tradition of Israel’s prophets who told the truth about unfaithfulness to God that manifested itself in the oppression of the disinherited,” McCaulley writes. “Jesus drew on the prophets as he spoke truth to power. Therefore, those Black Christians who see in those same prophets the warrant for their own public ministry have Jesus as their support.” Heschel says there’s no question that her father felt the same way. Speaking truth to power was what he did, whether at a civil rights march or a dinner hosted by the Jewish Federation. To him, Judaism was a religion of dissent, grounded in the prophetic tradition. The margins were his home. Believing that American Jewry had lost its way, he wasn’t afraid to say so. That rebel spirit and penchant for ruffling feathers in his own community has been lost in the scholarship about him. “My father was a person who said what nobody else was saying and startled people because he was so different,” Heschel says. “And yet, what’s written about my father is very conventional, very ordinary. There’s nothing startling.”

Even as a father, Rabbi Heschel straddled conservative and progressive ideals; he held contradictory points of view, especially when it came to the role of women. Heschel recalls standing as a teenager on the sidelines of a Simchat Torah celebration where only men were dancing and singing with the Torah. When it was her father’s turn with the scrolls, he brought them to the edge and danced with her. At her request, her father arranged for a bat mitzvah, which was un-

heard of in Orthodox circles. For her 16th birthday, she asked for an aliyah, an opportunity to recite a blessing before the reading of the Torah, and her father found a Reconstructionist synagogue nearly 30 blocks away that would permit it. It was a long walk that Saturday. Sensing change on the horizon, Rabbi Heschel even encouraged his daughter to become a rabbi, going so far as to introduce her to the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1972. Despite the introduction, the seminary rejected her request for an application. It did not ordain a woman until 13 years later. But he also told his daughter she would be a fantastic teacher. Not a scholar. A teacher. “I think he expected me to be a mommy. I would get married and have children and that’s it. I wasn’t supposed to be this,” she says. “I wasn’t supposed to be a professor or give public lectures or publish books. At most I was supposed to get a master’s degree to have something to fall back upon.” Before I met her in person and welcomed Shabbat in her home, I had met Heschel on a screen last spring while I was moderating one of the pandemic’s many virtual events—a conversation about her father’s legacy, a new compendium of his writings and a new documentary about his life. The other panelists, both men, invited me to call them by their first names. She asked to be called Dr. Heschel. “What is an issue for me is making sure that all women receive the credit and honor that men also receive,” she told me later. “If not more so, because it’s important for us to accept and acknowledge publicly what it has taken for us to reach this point.” Heschel is referring to a culture that she says still pervades even the most progressive houses of worship and academic circles. Too many scholars and religious leaders who embrace gender equality fail to look beyond structures and policies, she says. They neglect to take note when the rabbi calls up a man to recite kiddush and asks the woman to light the Sabbath candles. They overlook when male scholars are addressed by their

If religious leaders really want to effect change and move forward together, they would be wise to step aside and let modern-day prophets on the margins lead the charge. honorifics but the female scholar in the same room is called Susannah. She calls this culture of unspoken expectation an “invisible mechitza,” referring to the partition used to separate men and women in Orthodox synagogues. At the same time she was writing her dissertation and peeling oranges to revolutionize seders, Heschel was also editing an anthology called On Being a Jewish Feminist. Published in 1983, during what historians call the second wave of the feminist movement, it included essays by Jewish women on matters rarely, if ever, discussed in those days—domestic violence in the Jewish community, God as a she and Jewish lesbians. Author Laura Levitt, a professor of religion, Jewish studies and gender at Temple University, considers Heschel’s anthology “an early intervention” for women struggling to find their way in academia. “When we think of Jewish feminist studies in academia—important and iconic Jewish feminist thinkers—Susannah is one who has really built on some of the early work she’s done,” Levitt says, referring to the glass ceilings that Heschel has scratched, cracked and inspired others to shatter. The book led Heschel to become a mentor for dozens of women the world over, Jewish and otherwise, who call and email her for career advice or simply to thank her for pushing them to ignore the voices—both masculine and feminine—that hold them back. “She rode that second Continued on page 61

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Interviews by Diane M. Bolz, Suzanne Borden, Sarah Breger,

Dan Freedman, George E. Johnson, Noach Phillips, Amy E. Schwartz, Francie Weinman Schwartz, Ellen Wexler & Laurence Wolff

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A MOMENT BIG QUESTION

What is the one thing students should leave College KNowing? featuring

Eric Adler, Dean Bell, Leon Botstein, Erica Brown, Nadine Epstein, Michael Feuer, Julia Fisher, Evan Goldstein, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Pano Kanelos, David Kertzer, Meira Levinson, Nate Looney, Bob Mankoff, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein & Sarah Otto. More responses at momentmag.com

Pano Kanelos

ishing, like all great human questions, is one in which we’re never going to find a final answer. A truly profound education, a liberal education, is one that points students in that direction. They’re seeking the meaning of human flourishing. And, in seeking human flourishing, we flourish. So that’s what we want to propel our graduates into the world with—that momentum toward the highest and best things. I’m with Aristotle. I think that wisdom begins with wonder. If what college graduates have learned during their college experience is that the world and being human beings in this world are wondrous things, awesome things, and that we should approach all of this, the world, our lives and one another, with a sense of being awestruck in wonder, that, to me, is the beginning of wisdom. Pano Kanelos is founding president of the new University of Austin and former president of St. John’s College in Annapolis. A Shakespeare scholar, he was the first member of his family to attend college. SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF PARTICIPANTS

I would say the one thing that students leaving college should know is that they actually don’t know very much at all. The purpose of looking and thinking about the world critically is to take nothing for granted, to try to understand things in the most complex and nuanced way that we can. But to do that, we have to understand ourselves, because we’re depositories of our own biases. The mirror of human nature is rather cloudy. Understanding ourselves critically allows us to understand the world clearly and obviates the impulse that we might have simply to deconstruct or tear things down. If the purpose of society is to support human flourishing, then a healthy society is one in which human beings are trending toward happiness—happiness in the Aristotelian sense, when human beings feel that their activity in the world, their relationships, accord with what the highest order of those things

might be. So a society that’s healthy is one where we feel that we’re given that opportunity to lead ourselves toward the best possible lives. Education up through high school is meant to give young people the tools, the skills, to understand the raw material of the world, such as mathematics, biology and history. It’s a very skill-andcontent-based education. What makes higher education “higher” is that at that stage in life, we’re ready to become fully critical human beings, to turn the mirror back upon everything we’ve learned and begin to question and analyze and understand things in a more complex way. It’s during those years after high school and in college, when we’ve reached a level of maturation—intellectual, moral and otherwise—that we’re ready for those questions. I think part of the foundation of human flourishing in the aggregate is the ability for us to have common and civil conversations with each other, where we can exchange ideas and learn from one another. The question of human flour-

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Nikole HannahJones Every college graduate needs to have an extreme skepticism of power and institutions. If you come away from your college education with a historical narrative that’s not actually reflective of how our society works or how power works, you won’t be able to defend democracy in this country, or anywhere else in the world. If I could wave a magic wand, every student would graduate with some depth of study in history—specifically, a history that allows us to question the way our institutions have been set up and how they operate. Now, not everyone’s going to study history. And, of course, the study of history at the university level also is narrow. You don’t study all of history, you study a narrow slice of it. But it takes just a class or two for you to become aware that you have been taught a narrative. For instance, many of us were taught in school that this country is one of the oldest continuing democracies in the world, but that’s not true. We were an ethnocracy until 1965 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act. We know that Black people are underrepresented in every positive indicator and overrepresented in every negative indicator. And I can’t tell you how many times I encounter somebody, well-meaning or hateful, who thinks Black people had no real culture or knowledge or university education or anything before they were enslaved, when clearly in the 1600s, English people knew that they did. We don’t have to frame this as unseating one people’s history: Rather, there has been a group of people in our society who have been able to dominate the narrative in a way that I think distorts our understanding of the world. You can certainly study great European literature, but do you know enough to know that Europe is not the center of the world? Timbuktu was a center of learning before anyone thought about Europe as a center 40

Nikole Hannah-Joness

of learning—can we learn that too? You don’t have to have a great depth of knowledge and expertise in history, but just understanding that shift makes us more tolerant. It opens the mind. And that, above all else, is what college should do: Opening the mind helps us understand that power is created, not inherent. Universities should provide spaces where people of different viewpoints come together. But we have to start with a basic framework—that there are certain groups that have been mistreated, and that they deserve some level of protection. We have to be able to critique, but we also have to be able to have discernment in our critique. College obviously can’t teach us everything that we need to know, but it can unsettle what we believe to be fact and truth, that there are some certain facts and certain truths that are

shaped by people who want us to understand our world in a certain way. We say all the time, “Our children, our students, are going into a global economy.” “The world is smaller than ever.” But we’re not preparing them for that. What we’re preparing them for is to go into a world where white people are the dominant force in America and where America still is and should be the dominant force in the world. We should actually prepare them, and help them have an understanding of the actual world, not the imagined world. Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prizewinning New York Times reporter, founder of The 1619 Project and inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University’s School of Communications, where she established the Center for Journalism and Democracy.

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Julia Fisher I’m an old-fashioned millennial, and this is an old-fashioned answer. The most important thing to get out of a college education is a fairly rigorous grounding in what are probably now thought of as old-fashioned forms of canonical knowledge. College graduates should have a good knowledge of history, particularly American history, and the history of ideas—not to the exclusion of other things, but enough to give them a firm sense of the Western intellectual tradition. They should have read Shakespeare, Plato, Homer, and should be able to trace the big movements of thought over time in the traditions that have shaped the world we live in now. Something like Columbia’s Core Curriculum or Yale’s Directed Studies Program should be required at every college in the country. Roosevelt Montás, former director of the Core at Columbia, has a new book in which he gives a beautiful defense of the value of the humanistic tradition in allowing people to be people. There’s a reason these subjects are called the humanities. They prompt you to ask questions that have no set answers, but have inspired thousands of years of good and beautiful and contradictory answers to the grand questions about what it is to be human—questions about beauty, justice, truth, science, love. Yes, all of that is really useful for preparing people for careers, or teaching them to write and think better, but that’s not ultimately why they matter. History, philosophy, art history, literature matter most because they enrich your soul. Actually, students should learn a lot of this in high school, but unfortunately they don’t. Even in college, a lot of philosophy and English departments these days are too focused on simply training students who might want to go into those fields. But history and philosophy and literature are more important than learning how to write academic papers in those areas. To be clear, I don’t think a strong grounding in a Western tradition should be to the exclusion of other things. It’s

just a base. The canon shouldn’t be fixed; it should be argued about. It would be sad if at every school in America they read all the same books. There are a lot of ways to tell the story of the history of human thought and give people a glimpse of it. In programs such as Directed Studies, which I did, the faculty argue every year about what is included. The goal should be that college grads know enough to be able to participate in those arguments and see that there isn’t a fixed answer. Maybe that’s the test of whether you have a good grounding in the humanities: Whether you can argue about what that grounding should be. College should also be a time to devote to exploring all passions in all directions—whether that’s reading really intensely, or staying up till 3 a.m. arguing about liberalism, or going to parties, or running a newspaper and thinking that’s the most important thing in the world. Education isn’t moving in this direction at all. It’s super practical, super commercially driven. People think, “Am I going to need this in my life? Am I ever going to use this?” It worries me. I guess I need the skill of paying my taxes, but I’m glad I didn’t learn that in school. School should be exciting and fun and a feast for the mind and the soul. You’re going to use it when you’re walking to the grocery store and your mind is wandering. It’s more interesting to live in your own head if your head is enriched with a good education. Julia Fisher teaches English at Georgetown Day School in Washington, DC. She received a PhD in English from the University of Virginia.

Meira Levinson More than any one form or type of knowledge, we want our students to leave college with a certain set of dispositions. They should have a sense that they are able to lead lives that they value and that are of value to others. And they should know

“What I wish for college to impart to our students is a capacity to thrive in (and protect) our fragile democracy.” that one important way to achieve that is to work in concert with other people. It’s way too much to expect our students to know what kind of life they want to lead when they leave college at 22. Very few of us knew that, and some of us are still questioning ourselves about it in middle age. So our kids don’t have to leave school with a clearly defined purpose. But we do want them to leave with a sense of themselves as people who can have purposes, who feel some confidence in exercising agency to pursue those purposes. They should have a sense that the life they’re leading will be something they enjoy—not just looking to the future or making their parents happy—and that it will have a purpose beyond themselves. They should feel able to work toward something that they think is good for others and also gives them some sense of joy, satisfaction or progress. An essential feature of living that way is living in concert and communication with diverse others. There may be the occasional solitary guru, but there is a reason why in Jewish tradition, for instance, the rabbis are always in conversation. Trying to understand what it means to live out one’s values is a communal process. And whatever young adults are trying to do—get into medical school, write a novel, make it up the corporate ladder, teach fifth grade in rural Mississippi or English in Taiwan or care for an ailing parent or grandparent—they’ll do better if they have people to rely on who will ask them questions they haven’t thought to ask themselves. Getting away from your family for a while lets you bump up against peoSPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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“Every college student should know how to frame a question that merits an answer.” ple who think differently from you and have different experiences and life plans, people who will challenge what music you like and what foods you find gross and how you’re spending spring break and whether you really want to go to law school. That constructively forces you to define what you know and what you want to do. That’s what colleges are set up for—residential colleges in particular, but not exclusively—to bring young people together in community and give them the opportunity to ask really big questions. Do colleges do a good job of making that happen? It’s hard to offer a generic answer. Almost every college strives to provide students with those opportunities. Not all students have the support for that freedom to define themselves instead of having to fulfill somebody else’s expectations. If they have to work constantly to earn money to support themselves or family members, for instance, they won’t have the time to reflect and engage with others in ways that can build these opportunities. Different schools have different cultures, and every college has pathways or areas or communities in which that kind of interaction and growth does take place. But sometimes it takes real work by students to seek those places out. They may not know where to look, or end up on tracks that skew them away from opportunities. How to successfully construct campuses that maximize those opportunities is a science unto itself. Constructing a diverse class along multiple dimensions, and then creating the spaces and opportunities in classrooms, dorm rooms, activities, summer internships, for that diversity to be experienced by all as a net positive in an equitable 42

way—that takes a lot of work. It’s not easy, but it’s very valuable. Meira Levinson is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Director of the Design Studio at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics and the leader of Justice in Schools and EdEthics, which aims to launch a field of educational ethics.

Evan Goldstein If you leave college knowing one thing, let it be this: Your value—and the value of the college degree you just earned— is not synonymous with your net worth. Your salary is not a report card on your life. Your vocation is not synonymous with your education. College is more than an economic sorting system. Most of us need jobs, ideally work that is interesting and adequately remunerative, but we also need meaning, perspective and understanding. As sociologist, historian and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois put it: “The object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men.” This is an old insight in need of new defenses. As a society, we increasingly talk about college in starkly economic terms: What’s the salary premium on a four-year degree? What’s my return on investment? A cottage industry has sprouted up to calculate the economic value of your college degree, an arms race of calculators and scorecards that purport to measure whether you got your money’s worth. The impulse behind these efforts is admirable: Like any sector, higher education has its share of bad actors and grift. We need some way to assess whether colleges are delivering on their promises to students and families. But you’re more than a cog engineered for the labor market, and every question doesn’t lend itself to an economic answer. Some things can’t be distilled on a spreadsheet. So what is college for? Here we get to the heart of the matter.

You are hopefully departing college having been awakened to life’s possibilities. Your gaze has been directed outward at the world, at the full range of human experience, and not merely inward at your own sense of self. You’ve been exposed to ideas you disagree with, and identities other than your own. You’ve cultivated—or managed to preserve, against great odds—an attention span, despite the apps and algorithms clamoring for your time. You understand the benefits and responsibilities of citizenship. You are humble about all the things you do not know, and curious enough to keep learning. Am I being impossibly quaint? Possibly. But you should expect a lot from your college education. You’re worth it. Evan Goldstein is the managing editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Michael Feuer When I was in college, a half-century ago, we did social media a bit differently— with spray paint. On the wall of a campus building that became a graffiti sketch pad, multicultural messages were scrawled in multicolor. One student offered a twoword summary of the late 1960s zeitgeist: “Challenge Authority!” The next day, a wry rebuttal appeared: “Says who?” Sometimes four simple words are enough to conjure a philosophy of education. College students should acquire technical skills and knowledge to advance them in their careers—in science, the arts, business, government or some combination. But just as important are the ideas and values that will matter wherever they go next. Challenging authority was how the republic was founded, and college grads need to appreciate their luck to live in a society allergic to autocracy—and be prepared to cope with the ensuing messiness. To do this well means treating civics education as more than an accidental byproduct of the physical and social

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sciences and humanities; and it requires innovations in interdisciplinary teaching and learning, so that principles of the public good and excellence in traditional college majors don’t get trapped in foolish either/or logic. But that won’t be enough. As much as I hope college grads have confidence to argue and a skepticism that is at the core of scientific and artistic progress, I hope they can curb their rebellious enthusiasm by showing respect for the authority of knowledge; and that they exhibit a trait which has been stuck in the clogged supply chain for some time, namely humility. That’s the wisdom of the “Says who?” part of the wall art: It’s fine to dissent, but we all need to listen to that inner voice that murmurs, “Don’t think you’re so great.” In other words, we need to challenge our own authority, too. This should be obvious in a religious society such as ours: After all, monotheism means, among other things, that God is [the only really great] One, so we should all take it easy. As the late Israeli author Amos Oz so poignantly reminded his audience in a talk at Australia’s University of Monash in 2011, “The Jews gave monotheism to the world…and then proceeded to argue with their creator—and with anyone who claimed they had things all figured out.” (I’ve often wondered if the romantic attachment between America and the Jews stems from our shared preference for argumentative cacophony over anodyne conformity.) Humility should be an essential goal in everything we teach: We build on the shoulders of giants, while doggedly and civilly searching for and correcting the flaws in their (and our) convictions. Below every so-called “bottom line” there usually lurk unseen squiggles and curves. Nevertheless, what I wish for college to impart to our students is a capacity to thrive in (and protect) our fragile democracy. It is a sense that robust dissent and self-imposed modesty are the hand and glove of civic responsibility. On their graffiti walls (OK, their Twitter feeds) our graduates might put playwright and former president of the Czech Republic Václav Havel’s wise counsel: “Keep the company of those

Leon Botstein

who seek the truth—run from those who have found it.” Inevitably, then, someone will add, “Oh yeah? Don’t be so sure…” Michael Feuer is dean of the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at The George Washington University and past president of the National Academy of Education. He is working on a book about civics education.

Leon Botstein The one thing that, ideally, every college student should know is how to frame a question that merits an answer. That’s the one universal skill, and it’s not as obvious as it seems. Asking a question that either merits an answer or suggests a search for an answer is what everybody should be able to do. We spend a lot of our time ask-

ing nonsensical questions. So it’s a critical intellectual skill to distinguish what are the important questions, which ones have merit, and which ones are worth the time and effort to answer. “Why are canaries inferior to crows?” Well, they’re not. That’s a bad question that doesn’t deserve an answer. But if you ask “Why do people believe canaries are inferior to crows? Why harbor such beliefs?” that’s an interesting question. The whole enterprise of science is based on asking the right question. At best, you’re asking a question about how the world works, how nature works. There’s a chance that if you pose the question properly, you may have a chance to push back on the people who insist on believing things that aren’t true, whether it’s the assertion that the 2020 election was stolen or fake Russian reporting about the invasion of Ukraine. The asking of the right question can puncture the falsehood. Questioning underlies rabbinic commentary, Talmudic SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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commentary and Socratic tradition. It is Athens meets Jerusalem, both centered on the asking of questions. I also think that everybody at some point in their lives should have the experience of making music, whether they sing or play an instrument—whether at home or in a group. I would wish for everyone the experience of making music that’s heard by others. Bard has a requirement that all undergraduates take one semester of a studio art. That can be music, but it also can be painting or photography. The distribution requirement includes a semester of making art, not only studying it. Engendering curiosity and thinking clearly and critically require knowing a lot of things. But understanding what needs knowing and defending—and what truths need defending—is also very important. Leon Botstein has been the president of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York since 1975. A violinist, Botstein has served as principal conductor for the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, music director of the American Symphony Orchestra and music director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.

“College graduates urgently require humanism—the drive to live up to their higher potentialities.” often been completely squelched. I took these kinds of courses when I was at Syracuse. And then years later, after all the toxic effects of the cramming and having to go to class and all of those things that were interfering with my social life wore off, I got interested again. When you leave school, you may never want to see one of these books again. But try to get over it. Go back and look at those materials you were interested in. Try to reignite the curiosity you had orig-

inally when you stepped into the class. Going to college is almost compulsory for all sorts of occupations. But we undervalue all sorts of non-college kinds of skills. We look down on people who go to vocational schools, but that’s a whole other kind of talent and intelligence. There’s a whole class of people, myself included, who can maybe do well on Jeopardy! and do The New York Times crossword puzzle, but if they get a flat tire, they’re out of luck. The actual thing that changed my life happened at Syracuse. I often didn’t attend classes, so there was one class in sociology that I didn’t go to at all, except for the first class. But I went to the last class for the exam. And when I arrived late for the exam, the teacher came over to me and said, “Who the hell are you?” And I waited a beat, and then another. And then I said to him, “You know, I could very well ask you the same question!” And the entire class as well as the teacher broke out in laughter. And that’s actually what did

Bob Mankoff The one thing graduates should know is that five years from now, they will forget almost everything they learned from all of their college courses. Of course, there will be a residue that they will remember—sparked when they’re watching Jeopardy! That’s about it. Their education was largely wasted. They could have taken out books on answering Jeopardy! questions, and they would have done a lot better. I do think that most of education is wasted and actually harmful. It’s harmful in that it is forcing students to learn and to be able to recite and pass examinations. To do this, they will have to cram. And then they will say, ‘Well, that’s over, that’s done with, no more of that cramming and learning and testing.’ All of those topics they’re studying are actually quite interesting. But their curiosity has 44

Bob Mankoff

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change my life because then I knew I was going to go into humor. Bob Mankoff is the cartoon editor of the digital magazine Airmail and former cartoon editor of The New Yorker. He is the author of Have I Got a Cartoon For You!: The Moment Magazine Book of Jewish Cartoons and many other books.

Eric Adler College graduates should know their answers to two crucial questions: “What does it mean to be a good person?” and “How can I lead a fulfilling life?” Naturally, these are not easy queries. But their college education would be greatly enhanced by an introduction to transcendent works of literature, philosophy, art and religion that grapple with such questions in especially penetrating ways. The examination of great works such as the Bhagavad Gita, the Analects of Confucius, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man can help students ponder their own responses to the human predicament. Unfortunately, most of our nation’s colleges and universities do little to help the young address issues of the utmost significance to human flourishing. With their choose-your-own-adventure approach to general education, these institutions avoid the crucial element of character building. A college curriculum ought to provide a philosophical blueprint for the sorts of adults it aims to create. The university smorgasbord, by contrast, treats students as customers and reinforces the pernicious notion that the young have nothing to learn from the past. What else can one say about institutions that leave the content of an education up to the whims of the uneducated? Unfortunately, most of our universities do not take human nature seriously. Enraptured by a chimerical faith in man’s natural goodness, they appear to believe that people left to their own devices will make the best decisions. But what happens when undergraduates are allowed to

select all their own courses? Most of them choose the classes that don’t meet on Fridays or early in the morning and that don’t require much work. As the great Harvard humanist Irving Babbitt contended, “The very word curriculum implies a running together. Under the new educational dispensation, students, instead of running together, tend to lounge separately.” Eschewing character development in favor of strict vocationalism is a danger to society. We can no longer presume—as the pedagogical romantics who built the American research universities in the late 19th century presumed—that young people will naturally use their pragmatic training for altruistic purposes. By avoiding the ethical element in education, America’s institutions of higher learning run the risk of creating adults whose resistance to introspection can cause great misery. In short, college graduates urgently require humanism—the drive to live up to their higher potentialities. It is a fine thing that our universities have helped improve the material conditions of life and allowed for greater prosperity and efficiency. But by attending overwhelmingly to such matters, our higher education has lost sight of its crucial role in training for wisdom and character. Is there a central core of human wisdom—across the ages, from manifold traditions—that can guide us as we contemplate the best ways to live? Undergraduates can best find out by experiencing masterworks from a broad range of cultures. Especially in our increasingly pluralistic democracy, that’s exactly what they need to do. Eric Adler is a professor of classics at the University of Maryland. His most recent book is The Battle of the Classics: How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today.

Erica Brown I’m a believer in the importance of academic freedom, so there is no one subject I believe university students need to know

“The one thing graduates should know is that five years from now, they will forget almost everything they learned from all of their courses.” before graduating. They are on college campuses to figure themselves out and should enjoy the autonomy of selecting their own courses. They are not children, they are emerging adults who usually learn at the end of their first finals that they are accountable and must drive their own educational trajectory. Students, however, can become quickly overwhelmed by a heavy course load, club memberships and social obligations. They do not always know how to prioritize, often confusing what’s urgent for what’s important. By midterms, many students are drowning in commitments and not doing well at any of them. They are controlled by time and the lack of it instead of managing time well. The fable that papers fueled by creative adrenaline at the eleventh hour are better is an unfortunate myth. By the time college students graduate, they should have the kind of strong time-management skills that set them up for success in their future careers. The other necessary skill to graduate is writing. We tend to think of writing as a talent someone either has or does not have. But good writing is fundamentally an expression of good, clear, logical and coherent thinking. Every college student needs more of that. Papers without clear thesis statements, without supporting evidence and with poor introductions and conclusions are not a problem primarily of writing, but of thinking. How is it that a university education can cost upward of a quarter of a million SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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dollars and allow students to graduate unable to master time management or write well? It so happens that both these arenas are profoundly fundamental to Jewish life. Genesis 1 opens with the logical ordering of creation within time. This precious taxonomy is the first and perhaps greatest gift to humanity. And in receiving the Ten Commandments chiseled in stone, we understand that that which is in writing carries greater weight and influence. It has staying power. Erica Brown is Yeshiva University’s vice provost for values and leadership and the director of its Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership. Her forthcoming book is Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning.

David Kertzer We hope our students will get many things out of their college education, but as an anthropologist let me focus on two closely related skills they should acquire to help them escape from cultural bias. One is the ability to remove the blinders of ethnocentrism—that is, our natural tendency to judge other cultures by the standards and categories of our own. The other is the ability to critically evaluate the claims to knowledge that we encounter. My colleagues in the discipline of anthropology should be uniquely qualified to help students learn both of these skills. Ethnocentrism is something that anthropologists have historically warned their students against. That said, I fear that in recent years many of them have fallen prey to it. On the fraught subject of race, for instance, anthropologists have long argued that race is a social construction, not to be treated as an essential or innate quality. But in recent times, many anthropologists themselves seem to be trapped in a highly culturally specific (and highly politicized) worldview. I am 46

constantly struck by the extreme ethnocentrism shown in so many college discussions and presentations dealing with issues of race. Colleges overflow with courses and guest lectures that seem to take for granted that it is a Western or even a peculiarly American practice to divide the world’s population into categories based on physical appearance and place of origin. Yet anyone who has lived in other parts of the world knows how widespread such distinctions are, though the specifics of course differ. While one might expect anthropologists to raise such points and help students draw out their implications, these days such discussions are often avoided. (With this in mind, in one of my own classes, a course on the role of symbolism in politics, I assign readings that describe how the racial and ethnic categories in the U.S. census, such as Hispanic, are political constructions, the product in part of lobbying by ethnic entrepreneurs in whose interest it is to create groupings that they can claim to represent.) Besides showing students how to question and deconstruct categories that are widely assumed to be somehow natural, a college education should teach students to critically evaluate claims to knowledge, including—and this is essential—those they agree with. In our highly politicized society, students often seem to assume that dubious claims (“fake news”) are to be found on only one side of the political spectrum. Yet assumptions of facts and implicit editorializing are to be found on all sides. If a student came out of college with a wider understanding of other world cultures and with the recognition that all knowledge claims, no matter what their source, need to be evaluated before being accepted, along with the tools to do so, that would be a great achievement of the college years. David I. Kertzer is University Professor of Social Science at Brown University, where he teaches anthropology and Italian studies. A Pulitzer Prize winner, he is the author of the forthcoming The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini and Hitler.

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein If a student doesn’t leave college knowing what knowledge is, what knowledge demands of us, the responsibilities it lays on us, then, sad to say, I think the four years have been a waste of time and money. Philosophers have a handy definition of knowledge: Knowledge is “justified true belief.” All the big questions get pushed off into the word “justified.” It’s not enough to have a true belief if the grounds on which you believe it are bad, because then your belief just happens, by accident as it were, to be true. You’ve got to make the truth less than accidental, up the odds. Justification means you have to have a good argument for your belief. And what’s a good argument? That’s what students should be trained to know. They should become adept at recognizing the difference between good arguments and bad ones. This isn’t easy, especially if the conclusion is something that we want to believe. Then we’re easily bamboozled into accepting bad arguments. Then all the cognitive fallacies our brains are prone to are put to work, and we end up basing our beliefs on unsound arguments. Students should learn how difficult it is to argue well for a conclusion. To know this, they have to know how to distinguish between different types of arguments—deductive, inductive, abductive—and what counts as good within these three categories. Fortunately, there’s a whole science of assessing arguments, and the science is called logic. So what I’m advocating for is a basic knowledge of logic. The most useful tool I learned as a student was to take some article I’d read and formally reconstruct it, laying out the bare bones of its logical structure. What, exactly, is the conclusion? What, exactly, are all the premises that

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the author is relying on, both stated and unstated? (Often the unstated premises are the shakiest. You may not realize the author is depending on them until you do the formal reconstruction.) Once you’ve got the structure of the argument all neatly laid out, only then can you ask the next questions: Do the premises actually support the conclusion? Are the premises themselves true? This familiarity with arguments of different kinds, knowing what’s required of each kind and how to spot the fallacies, should become a lifelong habit. It means a lifetime of changing your beliefs in response to changing evidence. Recognizing that some of your premises are less than established, meaning that reasonable people could believe otherwise, tends to make you grasp your conclusions less tenaciously. You understand how others might reject one of your premises and reach a different conclusion. In other words, you lean more naturally toward tolerance. And also—and perhaps most important, as these last few years have demonstrated—being hyper-conscientious about the grounds for your belief will provide a vaccine against the deadly contagion of conspiracy theories that spread through communities, again because the conclusion is one that the believers so desperately want to believe. It makes them feel powerful, especially if they feel otherwise powerless. Students often leave college with the opposite of this inoculation. They learn some narrow ideological framework guaranteed to churn out an answer to all questions. And that ideological framework hasn’t itself been subjected to rigorous standards of justification, but is just handed to students as the very meaning of justification: To be justified is to fit into this ideological framework. In that case—and I think this is tragic—they’ve spent their college years being anti-educated. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, a MacArthur Fellow and an award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction, is an American philosopher, writer and public intellectual.

Sarah Otto

Sarah Otto The one thing undergraduates should leave college knowing is how to learn. There is no one factor, no one area of knowledge. There’s no one skill, no one technique that they need to know. It’s just the ability to be aware and humble about your lack of knowledge. No matter how much of an expert you are, there’s so much more to learn. Students should be well prepared to be students for the rest of their lives, to know how to learn, to know how to look things up, investigate, take pause with their assumptions, and then consider if their assumptions may be invalid and need updating. It may be that science has changed, the evidence has changed, our understanding of our role in the world has changed, culture has changed. The ability to update one’s knowledge to learn continuously is the number one

skill a student can leave college with. We do experiments in the lab with yeast. And sometimes we say things like, “Of course, we understand how something as fundamental as meiosis cell division works.” And then we look into it, and we realize, “Yeah, but we don’t know this.” We don’t exactly know where the chromosomes are in the cell and why that matters. And we just realize, again, that what we know is the tip of the iceberg. In some ways, that’s why I like experiments, because a lot of times they reveal to you your ignorance, that you can make a prediction and that’s not what happens. And then you have to figure out, ‘Well, OK, what’s really going on here?’ Sarah Otto is a MacArthur Fellow and professor of zoology at the University of British Columbia. She specializes in evolutionary biology and is coauthor of A Biologist’s Guide to Mathematical Modeling in Ecology and Evolution. SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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Nate Looney Students should learn resilience. They should learn to take charge of the direction of their education. I got my undergraduate degree in business, and I could have just attended classes, but I was working on the business plan for West Side Urban Gardens, so I pretty much turned my senior year into my own think tank. I used that time to lean on my professors who knew the most about the startup world. One professor was my first client. Many students are missing a level of grit. They come out of college with an expectation that all their needs will be met in the exact way that makes them feel comfortable. They have a kneejerk reaction to run from conflict versus meeting it head on. I think there’s a cold splash of water when people meet the reality of what it’s like out in the business world or in the working world. Sometimes resilience comes with upbringing. Some of it comes from putting yourself in really challenging situations and sticking through them. Some programs give you a taste of it, but you have to seek out the opportunities in order to gain that learning, it’s not spoon-fed to people. Service learning programs such as the Peace Corps are an example. If you have never experienced scarcity, see what it feels like not to have enough money to eat a nourishing meal every day, to survive on beans and rice. See how that impacts your body. We live in a challenging world. If people don’t have that resilience and grit, they may not be ready for what could come our way. We think we have an impenetrable bubble around the United States. We live in this sense of comfort and safety that isn’t accurate. And I wonder how people would react if that bubble were to pop. If you don’t know something, you can only blame it on your educational upbringing for so long before you have to take charge and have agency over your own learning. So the one thing that you should walk away from college knowing 48

Nate Looney

is that you’ve been given a set of tools to navigate learning. Thinking you know it all is a recipe for disaster. Nate Looney is Avodah’s manager of Racial Justice Initiatives, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq, and CEO and owner of Westside Urban Gardens, an agricultural company based in Los Angeles, CA.

Nadine Epstein The knowledge of humanity’s long slow hard trudge through misery to what we have today is in danger of being lost— and we can’t let that happen! Lessons gleaned from millennia of massacres,

mass starvations, plagues, tyrannical rulers and more are being forgotten. It’s not just the failures: Much of what we’ve learned from golden ages and breakthrough moments that have changed the path of history for the better is also vanishing from public consciousness. This inspiring story of the human struggle for knowledge—the history of the evolution of human thought, organization, expression and the revolutionary marvel that is the scientific process—are among the most critical lessons a college education has to offer. It’s a vast territory to cover, so every one of us needs a time and place to learn to recognize some of the stepping stones along the way, enough to arrange into our own rudimentary path of understanding. These stones include not just the well-worn ones set by white men, but less-trodden

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“Every college graduate needs to have an extreme skepticism of power and institutions.” ones left by women and global cultures off the beaten track. Your years in college are your best opportunity to build a mental construct, be it a path, map, memory palace, tapestry, series of images or a personal library on a virtual or physical bookshelf. Whatever construct you choose, think of it as an evolving framework that will stay with you and add balance and humility to your post-college life of osmosis learning and invention. We live in complex times that will only grow more complex, so you will need every tool at your disposal to navigate them and swim through the tidal wave of information you’ll encounter every day. Some kinds of learning are better found outside of college, but this kind rarely is. A better understanding of what came before, our human entanglements with nature and each other, combined with rigor of thinking and skeptical analysis filtered through empathy, are essential for a democratic humanity that can solve the problems of the world. One more thing. We’re also forgetting that historically, higher education was, with few exceptions, reserved for the rich or the well-connected. One of the goals of a modern democracy is to open the doors of college to everyone who wants to learn. Colleges are as imperfect as any other human institution. Nevertheless, the more people who experience college, the better life will be for all of us. Nadine Epstein, a writer and artist, is the editor-in-chief of Moment Magazine. Her most recent book is RBG’s Brave and Brilliant Women: 33 Jewish Women to Inspire Everyone.

Dean Bell Critical thinking is a core skill that students need to develop—along with the ability to apply it to the ways they see and interpret the world. However, I believe there is something else that is just as important: The concept of complex resilience. Usually when we think about resilience, we think about the capacity to return to a normal state of functioning, the way things were. But through the work I’ve done with a colleague, Michael Hogue, I have come to the conclusion that what’s more necessary is a different kind of resilience, a resilience that takes you beyond the way things were so you are stronger going forward. We call this complex resilience. Those entering the adult and professional worlds are faced with significant and accelerating social and technological changes along with an increasingly polarized society. Learning the capacity for complex resilience provides ways to grow from such challenges. Complex resilience isn’t innate. It can—and should—be taught. It encompasses four qualities: vulnerability, intentionality, trust and awareness. We usually think of vulnerability as susceptibility to being wounded or harmed, but vulnerability is also about how you react to change. There’s a Talmudic passage that compares reeds and cedars. Reeds are pliable and connected through underwater networks that allow them to be very flexible. Cedars are dense and strong, but if there’s a really strong wind, a cedar can be knocked over. So there are blessings in both. There’s something important about being open and flexible and there’s something important about being rooted and strong. Students need to know how to reflect and ask themselves difficult questions. They also need to understand and appreciate different perspectives. They need to be both flexible and strong. The second piece of resilience we call intentionality. You need to develop

a process for thinking things through, evaluating and then acting. The third part is trust. It includes developing a network of colleagues, peers and friends, as well as a network of information and resources. When we think about resilience, we often think about resources that we can tap into when we need them. These need to be ongoing and trustworthy. The final part of complex resilience is awareness—constantly evaluating what’s going on, both within yourself and in the world. The good news about resilience is you can learn it through practice and reflection. Which is why it ties in nicely to the traditional ways we think about education, about developing critical thinking skills and reflection and communication. A key part is asking questions. This is a very Jewish concept, the idea of asking questions of yourself and of others. We see this in many rabbinic writings, which quite often feature two different opinions in conversation with each other. It is an exercise in understanding each other’s position. That’s an important skill that a lot of students don’t end up getting. They end up leaving school with a body of content knowledge, but not really knowing how to inquire—to cross-examine their own ideas and to be open to others’ beliefs, even when those beliefs don’t seem to resonate with their own. Embracing the Jewish tradition of lifelong learning, students find that learning doesn’t end when they leave school. They need to cultivate the ability to understand and adapt to rapidly changing conditions. They need to continually ask questions of themselves and of those around them. They need to process and reorient and think differently. They need to grow resiliently to face challenges with strength and flexibly to create positive, meaningful change. Dean P. Bell is the president and CEO of the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership. His new book is Interreligious Resilience: Interreligious Leadership for a Pluralistic World, coauthored with Michael Hogue. SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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WHY IS THERE A BUDDHIST AT THIS SEDER? MOMENT-KARMA FICTION

BY ANNE SCHOTT

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n the evening of the first Passover seder, traffic on the Long Island Expressway heading east into the suburbs was massive, slow-moving and maddening, just as Martin Weissman expected. “It was probably easier to cross the Red Sea,” he muttered, slamming on the brakes as a monstrous black SUV swerved into his lane. “Why are we going so slow?” Lisa asked from the back seat. “Do you see what’s ahead of us?” Martin said. “Just relax. Read Ben a story.” “I don’t want a story,” Ben said. Martin’s wife, Rachel, leaned over the back seat to soothe the kids, ages 8 and 5. “Why don’t we tell each other the Passover story,” she said, her voice freighted with enthusiasm. “I’ll start. A long, long time ago in the land of Egypt...” “We’ve done that,” Lisa said. “Well, tell me what you know about the special matzahs.” “The komen,” Lisa said. “The Afikomen. Better get it right. Grandpa’s going to ask you. And you’re going to read the Four Questions.” “I know…” said Lisa. “Maybe not,” Martin said. “Maybe the twins will read them.” “They’re only six. They probably don’t read well enough, and can you imagine David preparing them? That’ll be the day.” David was Rachel’s brother, her Buddhist brother, and a perfectly nice guy as far as Martin was concerned, but a disconcerting guest when he showed up at the family seder, something he did only in alternate years. “Other years,” according to Rachel, “he ruins his in-laws’ seder.” David had given up his university position and his practice as a clinical psychologist and moved with his wife, Ellen, to Vermont. For the past five years they had lived near Lake Champlain where they ran a gallery selling American handcrafts largely to the tourist trade, which thronged the

area all summer and through the leaf-watching fall. During the mud-season when the tourists vanished, they lived in semi-isolation, watching deer nibble the yews at the edge of the woods and savoring the quiet. Martin would not have chosen such a life. He commuted from Westchester to the city every day and liked the buzz and the jostle of strange bodies, the shifting smells of pizza and souvlaki, the snatches of unfamiliar languages—and the faces. Even on his brief subway ride from Grand Central, he could see descendants of the Incas, the Mongols, the Han, the Ibo tribesmen of Nigeria, their faces conjuring the history of the world and better by far, he thought, than watching deer. “I hope we’re not going to be late,” Rachel said. “Mom will be chewing her nails.” “We won’t be late. Stop fidgeting.” Martin was a calming influence. Rachel had always appreciated that. If at times she wished she’d married someone more dynamic, it was only a passing fancy. Martin was exactly what she needed. He was an accountant with a balance sheet sensibility: so many assets, so many debts, keep the cash flow steady. He was not easily moved or easily rattled. He could be counted on to be fair, sensible and loyal, a man who cared about his home and his family, a man she could trust. She watched him now, inching the car forward, a slight frown creasing his brow, but no sign he would leap from the car to pummel someone blocking his way. But a hint of a double chin, she noticed. He was almost 40 and beginning to solidify. That was okay, she thought. Solid is fine, as long as he doesn’t get fat. Rachel was thin and tense. Inner agitation seemed to devour whatever calories she took in. “My wife turns hollandaise and chocolate mousse into leg twitching,” Martin said, when anyone noticed what she ate. “I’m really going to try to be nice to David,” she said. “For mom’s sake.” “Good.”

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“If he just doesn’t lecture us.” “He doesn’t really lecture.” “Of course he does. He raises these questions no one can answer, just to show off, to make us feel stupid and shallow. He knows he’s not going to change anyone’s mind. If he’s so big on compassion, why doesn’t he just be compassionate and shut his mouth instead of implying he’s deep, deep like the ocean and the rest of us are puddles on someone’s driveway?” Martin had heard these accusations before; he attributed them 10 percent to religious differences and 90 percent to sibling rivalry. “Well, if you didn’t argue with him, the subject would die. So don’t take the bait. You’re the one that keeps it bubbling.” “What about dad? I only jump in to support him.” Martin gave her a skeptical look, which she ignored. “Maybe you should speak to Ellen,” he suggested. “Ellen’s useless. She can’t stop David. She practically walks two steps behind him. She’s in dreamland with her weaving and her hair.” “What’s her hair got to do with it?” “If your hair turns prematurely white, you don’t wear it in a ponytail like…like…I don’t know. She looks like the rear end of the Lone Ranger’s horse. “Why doesn’t she cut it or dye it? Like a normal person.” “I saw the Lone Ranger on Debbie’s TV,” Lisa said. Martin and Rachel exchanged glances and fell silent. As Rachel well knew, her mother, Bea Hirsch, was in the kitchen watching the clock and listening to the traf-

fic reports on the radio. Delays at the Whitestone Bridge. Delays on the Triborough. Delays on the Throgs Neck. The dinner she had worked on for three days was ready. In the refrigerator, the strawberry applesauce was well chilled. Two sponge cakes wrapped in linen towels waited on the breakfast room buffet. The gefilte fish sat in a Tupperware bowl. Next to the stove, the chicken soup stood ready for reheating, and the matzah balls rested in a metal bowl. In the oven, chickens were roasting. On the back burner, a brisket simmered in its rich gravy. The dining room was ready for guests. Candles stood tall in their silver candlesticks, and the ceremonial plate with its bitter herbs had been placed near the head of the table, where Sam Hirsch sat with a pile of Haggadahs, leafing through the pages. “Don’t make the seder too long,” Bea said from the kitchen door. “The children will get restless and the chicken will dry out.” For Bea, the seder was first and foremost a gathering of her family, and if kindness and good cooking could bind them all together, tonight they would be as perfectly blended as her sponge cakes. To that end, she had not stinted. By herself she had done all the shelling, peeling, chopping, beating, mixing and baking required for a traditional four-course seder meal. But she was not confident her efforts would suffice. She worried that some key ingredient was missing. Not that her family had any terrible problems, and for that she was grateful. No divorces, thank God. No strange stepchildren from a second marriage or ex-spouses making trouble, no feuds or scenes with shouting

and doors slamming. But not like the family when momma and papa were alive, not like that. “These new Haggadahs have nice pictures for the children,” Sam said. “But they changed some things here I don’t like.” “So use the old ones.” Sam frowned and continued comparing Haggadahs. “And just read in English,” Bea said. “Otherwise it’s too long.” “What do you mean? The children have to hear Hebrew. Lisa’s learning Hebrew.” Bea sighed, but she never pursued arguments with her husband on matters Jewish, because she could never win. On this subject, he was adamant and also knowledgeable. Although Sam Hirsch was a successful periodontist, in his own mind he was more importantly a pillar of the Porthaven Jewish community, president of Congregation Beth Emeth, active in B’nai Brith and a generous contributor to the UJA. Some people had suggested he become a rabbi. But that was ridiculous. Sam wasn’t religious. Although he no longer called himself an atheist as he had in his younger, more radical days, questions about God had never interested him. He had more important things to think about. “Oh, it’s getting late,” Bea said. “I’m worried about the chicken.” Ellen, David and their six-year-old twins, Josh and Ethan, arrived first, carrying several shopping bags and bringing a measure of commotion and noise. The kids had been cooped up in the car for too long, and after the first round of hugs and kisses, Ellen took Josh and Ethan into the basement rec

This story is the first place winner of the 2021 Moment Magazine-Karma Foundation Short Fiction Contest. Founded in 2000, the contest was created to recognize authors of Jewish short fiction. The 2021 stories were judged by novelist and president of the PEN/ Faulkner Foundation Susan Coll. Moment Magazine and the Karma Foundation are grateful to Coll and to all of the writers who took the time to submit their stories. Visit momentmag.com/fiction to learn how to submit a story to the contest. 52

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room to try to get them in the proper mood for the seder. Sam returned to examining the Haggadahs, and David followed his mother into the kitchen. “Smells good,” he said, putting a large shopping bag on the counter and then hugging his mother again. “Are you exhausted from all this cooking?” “I just hope there’ll be enough for you to eat,” Bea said. “What do you mean? There’s matzah balls, asparagus, salad, applesauce, sponge cake. What more could I want?” Bea smiled wanly, thinking of her brisket and her chicken, but it was hard to be disappointed when David was around. She’d thought Rachel was a beautiful baby until David was born. People used to stop her in the supermarket to comment. Such dark, sparkly eyes. Such a smile. And a good baby too. Ate well, slept through the night before he was four months old. To Bea’s great satisfaction, David had grown into a handsome man, tall and lean, with a strong, bony face and those same sparkly, dark eyes. Not that Rachel was unattractive. Bea always reminded herself of that. Rachel was sleek and fashionable, although a little too thin, and she’d adopted that trendy, spiky hair, which Bea hated. But David was always a pleasure to see. Of course, she was not happy that he’d left his university job or that he called himself a Buddhist. How could he be a Buddhist? He’d had a proper bris and a wonderful bar mitzvah. He’d married a nice Jewish girl under the chuppah at Temple Emanuel. So why make a fuss because he meditated? Weren’t they teaching yoga at the Jewish Community Center? Wasn’t her friend Irene Goldfarb doing tai

chi? It’s America, she thought. Everyone’s doing everything. Sam was needlessly upset. His concern reminded her of an argument she’d had with him years ago when Rachel was in fifth grade and wanted to give a St. Valentine’s Day party. “Now we’re celebrating saints?” Sam said. “It’s little girls eating cookies and sending cards with hearts on them. It won’t make her a shiksa; I promise,” Bea insisted, and she was right. So now it was Buddhism. What’s the difference? David was taking things out of the grocery bag: containers of organic fruit juice for the twins, four bottles of wine, a tin of macaroons, a box of chocolates in the shape of matzahs, a bottle of soy sauce, and, finally, a container of tofu. Bea looked uneasily at the tofu. “I don’t know how to fix that.” “Ellen will do it,” he said. “Only takes a few minutes.” The Weissmans arrived a few minutes later and the family assembled in the dining room. The children were seated apart from each other at the four corners of the table, which placed Rachel, David and their spouses face to face in the middle. How well everyone looked, Bea thought, relishing the sight of them, healthy and happy, and successful. If only momma and papa could see this, she thought, remembering for a moment their hard, narrow lives. “Come, Lisa,” she said. “You’re going to help me bless the candles.” “I can do it by myself,” Lisa said, joining her grandmother in front of the buffet. “All right. You say the blessing, I’ll light the candles.” “I can light the candles,” Lisa said.

“She can do it,” Rachel said. “Let her do it.” Lisa took the matches from her grandmother’s somewhat reluctant hand and in a soft clear voice began, “Baruch ata Adonoy, Eloheinu Melech ha-Olam...” At the head of the table, Sam Hirsch smiled. He nodded approvingly at the halting Hebrew, at the sight of a new generation learning the ways of his people. Rachel caught his eye as if to wiggle beneath that smile. “Very nice, Lisa. Good job,” he said as she took her seat. Despite his criticisms of certain parts of the new translation, Sam had chosen the Haggadah with the dramatic pictures for the sake of the children. In fact, he ran the seder, as he always had, like a professor leading a class, and although he read portions in both Hebrew and English, he also skipped sections, “moving now to page 63…” Lisa read the four questions in English, “Why is this night different from all other nights…” and Sam, with great pleasure, gave the answers, doing his best to include the children, addressing age-appropriate comments to them, one by one. “Ben, do you understand why we eat unleavened bread?” “I don’t like matzah,” Ben said. Bea, who had one ear tuned to the soup simmering on the stove, thought the seder was going well, and not too long, thank God. The children were still behaving, although Ben slid under the table several times and had to be retrieved. Fortunately, everyone liked the wine. “Remember when we used to drink that Manischewitz,” Martin said, making a face. “That was always my fifth question. ‘Can’t we get some decent wine?’”

What contest judge Susan Coll has to say about this story: “Like all good fiction, ‘Why Is There a Buddhist at This Seder?’ operates on multiple levels: On the surface it is a funny, sharply observed story of a single Passover seder and its various shades of barely contained family dysfunction. From the traffic on the Long Island Expressway, to the quality of the wine, to the changes in the new Haggadah, the story covers the familiar seder tropes. Read on deeper level, however, it captures the subtle conflicts of family---sibling tension, generational disconnect, and judgments about the choices that we make on matters of faith, and on the ways we live our lives.” SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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When Sam finished the last prayer and everyone murmured a final amen, there was a palpable sense of relief around the table. The children could get up and move for a few minutes, and Bea headed for the kitchen and what for her was the centerpiece of the occasion. “What can I do to help?” Ellen asked, following her to the stove. “The gefilte fish has to go on those plates,” Bea said. “Let’s see, we’ll need four portions. I don’t know whether Lisa and Ben will eat the fish. Ask Rachel. And you and the boys…?” “No fish for us,” Ellen said softly, although she hated to say it. Despite being a vegetarian, she would have eaten the soup, the chicken, and even the brisket if it had been up to her, because it was so important to Bea. She and David had argued about it all week. “Your mother will have cooked for days and then you want me to walk in with tofu and a bottle of soy sauce. It’s insulting.” “So we won’t bring tofu. We’ll just eat the vegetables.” “Great. Everyone else is eating a four-course meal and we’ll sit there with our asparagus. Your mother will love that.” “We shouldn’t change what we do to please other people. What does that say to the kids? And mom knows we’re vegetarians. She won’t even be surprised.” Rachel and David had left the table and taken the kids into the living room for a brief break, where they were now sprawled on the floor with the crayons and coloring books Bea had provided. “The seder went well, don’t you think?” Rachel said. “Meaning what?” “Please, don’t start that.” David smiled because she was using her executive voice, a cover, he thought, for an ocean of uncertainty. “Well, nobody spilled the wine, if that’s what you mean. Nobody said anything inappropriate. But if you were looking for a serious religious ritual you might find it lacking.” “Because we weren’t sitting cross-legged?” 54

SERIOUS QUESTIONS ARE OFTEN TERRIBLE. THAT’S WHY YOU HAVE TO ASK THEM. “Because the inner meaning of the Passover was missing.” David didn’t want to argue with his sister, but she seemed always to be prodding him, trying to push him into some aggressive, proselytizing stance where he had no wish to be. “Dinner’s ready,” Bea called and everyone reassembled at the table, where Martin assumed his usual role of gourmand, tasting the fish and licking his lips. “At how many seders do you think there is homemade gefilte fish like this?” he asked, and Bea smiled with pleasure. “I don’t really like this new translation of the Haggadah,” Sam said. “What do you think, Martin?” “It’s just that the old version is more familiar.” “I like its modern connections,” Rachel said. “It’s important to keep up with the times.” “Why?” David said. Ellen quickly put a hand on his knee and squeezed hard, but to no avail. “Because it’s important to remain relevant,” Rachel said. “Isn’t that what Reform Judaism is all about?” “That’s true,” Sam said, “but tradition is also important. We have to move forward, but we must never forget the past.” “Tradition is important only if it sustains a living inner connection with the truth,” David said, looking intently at his father. “Otherwise it’s just conformity and habit.”

“Habit?” Sam said. “You think habit has sustained the Jewish community for 5,000 years, despite hatred and exile and pogroms and…” “I think prejudice and observance have held it together while its true religious core leaked out.” “Leaked out!” Sam yelled. “What do you know about its religious core? You study Talmud? You know the Kabbalah?” “Do you?” “I may not be religious enough for you, but I know what held Jews together. And it wasn’t prejudice and habit,” Sam said. “What was it?” “God!” “God? I thought you didn’t believe in God.” “Rachel, hand me those plates,” Bea said, rising from her seat. “We’ll serve the soup.” This discussion made Ellen uneasy. She was glad the children were asking about the plagues. “Frogs everywhere?” Ethan said. “In the beds, under the covers?” “Boils, yech,” said Josh, sticking out his tongue. Sam and Martin began to explain, which gave David and Ellen time for a whispered exchange. “Please don’t pursue this,” Ellen said. “You want me to treat my father like a child? He wants to know what I think, and he has a right to know.” “He doesn’t want to know. You just want to tell him.” Bea and Rachel returned with the matzah ball soup, and for a few moments there were the pleasant sounds of eating. “Wonderful kneidlach, even without the soup,” David said. “No one makes kneidlach like Bea,” Martin said. “Not even my mother.” “You know, Ellen, you could put them in vegetable broth,” Bea said. Rachel’s fingers drummed restlessly on the table as though she were marking time. “The wonderful thing about Reform Judaism,” she said suddenly, “is that it takes the wisdom of

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the Bible and the ancient traditions and connects them with what we face today. The section about the Jews who don’t have the freedom to hold a seder…that’s more meaningful to me than what happened 5,000 years ago. They’re still in bondage. We need to remember them.” “Yes, yes,” Sam said. “We take our freedom too much for granted.” David looked down as his soup plate, now empty of matzah balls, as though by avoiding everyone’s eyes he could refrain from speaking, but it welled up in him, as it always did in these circumstances, a ferocious impulse to make them take religion seriously or to drop it. He knew it was useless to say anything. Every time he opened his mouth he only convinced them he was a renegade, but his mouth kept opening. “What we need to remember is not the bondage of others,” he said, “but that we’re not free. Passover is not about political freedom. It’s about inner freedom. “That’s the only way to understand freedom in religious terms. Seen that way, we are all enslaved by our fears and desires. We should be worrying about our own bondage.” “I think that’s very selfish,” Rachel said. “Without political freedom, you have nothing,” Sam said. “Not so. You can be free in a jail cell. You can be in bondage on the golf course.” “That may be true in Buddhism,” Sam said. “No, no!” David said. “It’s not just Buddhism. ‘I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other Gods before me.’ You’ve heard that? You think it’s just about idols?” “Well, I certainly don’t worship false gods,” Rachel said. “You won’t find any graven images in my house.” “No false gods? You don’t worship success, money, fashion, comfort, pleasure? Excuse me; I thought you were my sister Rachel, the All-American girl.” “Hold it!” Martin said. “Ordinary human impulses are not false gods.”

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“They are if you worship them.” “Rachel, please clear the soup plates,” Bea said. “I’m ready to serve the brisket.” David was grateful for the interruption. He’d obviously taken a wrong tack. Somehow he couldn’t find a way to reach them. Everything he said was like an alarm bell triggering their defenses, because it sounded like an attack. He had to be more positive. “Ritual is the door to silence.” That’s what he should say. Open the door. Let silence swallow you. Let it swallow the known world. Then you’ll see that “Have no other Gods before me” is good and practical advice, the key to understanding, to sanity, to happiness. That’s what he had discovered. That’s what he should say. There was a brief commotion as the soup plates were gathered. Bea hurried to the stove and began arranging the chicken and brisket on platters as Ellen slid in beside her to sauté the tofu. Rachel moved quickly back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room carrying bowls and platters. The men remained seated and seemed to be continuing the conversation, which annoyed Rachel; she didn’t like being left out. “This is a wonderful meal, Bea,” Martin said, when everyone was seated and food again became the center of attention. “Enjoy,” Bea said, leaning over to cut Ben’s meat into small pieces. “Rachel, give Lisa a piece of chicken.” Bea never ate much at these meals; she merely tasted a bite of this and that to make sure everything was all right. Her pleasure came from seeing her family fill their plates. She kept her eyes off those that held only tofu and asparagus. Was that food for growing boys? How could a nice piece of chicken hurt them? “I don’t know what you said while I was in the kitchen,” Rachel began, “but you seem to be criticizing Judaism because it’s life-affirming.” “I’m not criticizing Judaism,” Da-

vid said. “I’m criticizing what I see as a deep indifference to what religion is all about.” “And you know what that is?” “Lots of people know. It’s not a secret.” “Uch, David, David,” Sam said, shaking his head. “For all your years in Sabbath school and all those bar mitzvah classes, you never understood Judaism. There’s a lot more than theology here.” “There’s a history and a living tradition and a commitment to an ethical life…to repairing the world.” Rachel’s voice trembled with emotion. David studied the little pile of matzah crumbs by the side of his plate, searching for a way through what seemed impenetrable barriers. They cared about being Jewish, but not about the questions religion illuminated. “Do you believe in God?” he asked Rachel. “Yes, of course.” “And what do you mean by that?” For a moment, she stared at him angrily. “God is the ruling spirit of the universe,” she said. “That’s what I believe.” “And the ruling spirit of the universe permitted the Holocaust?” In the silence that followed, even David thought he had gone too far. Passover was a happy occasion, and the faces around the table suddenly darkened. “It’s a terrible question,” Sam said. “Serious questions are often terrible.” David said. “That’s why you have to ask them.” Ellen didn’t like the pained look on Sam’s face or David’s foolish persistence. For some people these questions were real, she thought. For others, they didn’t exist, and you’d think a psychologist would understand that. “Is everyone ready for dessert?” Bea asked, rising from the table. “Ellen, will you bring the tea?” As always, the seder meal ended with Bea’s famous strawberry applesauce and large slices of golden sponge cake, treats that quickly changed the mood. “Oh, I ate too much,” Martin said. Continued on page 68

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Heschel, from page 37

wave in a powerful way in the academic world and brought a lot of people with her,” Levitt says. More recently, Heschel’s work has helped the women of Jewish academia’s #MeToo movement. In 2018, Keren McGinity, a research associate at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University, was the first woman to come forward with allegations of inappropriate behavior years earlier by a prominent gatekeeper of Jewish academia, Steven M. Cohen. A string of women then followed, echoing similar experiences dating back decades. Cohen was forced out of his tenured position at Hebrew Union College. McGinity, now a consultant on interfaith marriage for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, was asked in 2020 to moderate a panel for the Association for Jewish Studies about the #MeToo movement. Heschel participated in the panel, and McGinity listened as she described the ways men exclude women and why women stay silent. She also exposed the power plays that men use to threaten women’s professional abilities as “an attack on the mind.” For McGinity, Heschel’s words—“an attack on the mind”— crystallized how she felt about her experience. They helped her to finally fully grasp the ramifications of speaking out. “Listening to her was like an intellectual salve,” says McGinity of Heschel. “She’s helped me realize my own worth as a scholar and a Jewish feminist.”

Heschel believes that Jewish teachings can address the moral issues of the day. The world once again faces what her father called “a moral emergency,” with echoes of the antisemitism that he narrowly escaped. Amid the uncertainty created by the pandemic and threats to democracy, she believes Jewish scholar-

ship has much to offer in a moment such as this, as the Jewish people have been confronting similar threats for centuries. “In many important ways, Jewish studies has shed a light on the failures of socialism, nationalism, fascism and so on,” she says. “For example, when nationalist movements are incapable of including Jews who lived in the country for 2,000 years, then that nationalism has a problem.” Indeed, colleagues at Dartmouth, where Heschel and Aronson moved to teach in 1997, say Heschel has created a Jewish Studies department with a raison d’être of collaboration and integration. “We don’t see ourselves as siloed away in some corner of the university where Jews can take these courses and learn about Judaism,” says Shaul Magid, a scholar of Hasidism and Jewish studies professor. Heschel believes that the more Jewish studies becomes less exclusively Jewish and helps answer the larger questions posed by humanity, the more effective it will be. Tarek El-Ariss, a professor of Middle Eastern Studies who co-taught a course with Heschel on the Jewish and Arab Enlightenment, says Heschel’s ethical commitment to knowledge shines through every interaction she has with students and faculty. Her goal of bringing a variety of voices to the fore, he says, creates space for students to understand that there are historic connections between peoples now portrayed as being in conflict. The fact that Jews historically have lived in harmony with their Muslim neighbors is an important part of the story, Heschel says. It doesn’t have to be us versus them, El-Ariss adds: “This is a project I know Abraham Heschel took to heart and is continuing with Susannah.” Like her father, Heschel is not afraid to tread on sacred ground, as scholars must sometimes do to explain the past. For her 2010 book The Aryan Jesus, Heschel mined German archives to uncover the Nazis’ malign influence on Protestant theologians at German universities. Some conservative Protestants in Germany did not look kindly on her revelations that their predecessors had produced a Bible that labeled Jews as

Satanists, Hitler as Christ and Jesus as a redeemer of the Aryan people. She also pushes for more honest and constructive interreligious conversations, challenging the motives and ethics of today’s discourse. It bears more than a footnote that around the same time that Rabbi Heschel was flying to Alabama to march in Selma, he also was jetting off to Rome to meet with Roman Catholic cardinals to discuss the Church’s teaching on deicide, the defamatory and antisemitic accusation that Jews killed Jesus. His diplomacy during the Second Vatican Council helped lead the cardinals to overturn that doctrine as well as the church’s mission for the conversion of the Jews. But Heschel says that in the 50-plus years since, interreligious dialogue has grown stale, self-congratulatory and complacent. Once again, she sees an opportunity to call upon the example of the biblical prophets. If religious leaders really want to effect change and move forward together, they would be wise to step aside and let modern-day prophets on the margins lead the charge. Who are these prophets? She says that people who identify as people of color, nonbinary, LGBTQ—“those who keep the faith even when shut out, denigrated, even sexually abused”—have the clearest view. From the margins, they see through the fog of progress on the surface and identify the deep need for change. Jews, for example, must be willing to call out fellow Jews for their racism and misogyny just as they criticize people of other faiths for their antisemitism, she says. And the feminist critique of religion is one of the most important ethical challenges facing every religious community. “To do justice is what God demands of every man: It is the supreme commandment, and one that cannot be fulfilled vicariously,” her father told a crowd in Chicago on the day he first met Martin Luther King Jr. The rabbi’s daughter would say that God also demands justice of every woman. “I see feminism as being part of the prophetic tradition,” she says, “because it’s a movement about justice.” M SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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talk of the table

Adventures with Gefilte Fish BY DAN FREEDMAN

hen my grandmother was 16, circa 1905, she journeyed alone from Smargon (in today’s Belarus) to Ellis Island. Like so many other Jewish women of her generation, she rose from the sweatshops of Lower Manhattan to marriage, motherhood and middle-class respectability. But she never lost touch with her origins. The scent of chopped liver always greeted us as we walked through her door. The smell of dill wafted up from the basement, where pickles were brining. The pièces de résistance? Kneidlach (matzah balls) and, of course, gefilte fish. Like the rest of her immigrant generation, she made gefilte the way her mother made it…and her mother’s mother, and on and on. Grandma died in 1969 when I was just 16. Without her wizardry, I developed a paradoxical connection to gefilte fish. I came to appreciate it as a delivery vehicle for my true love, horseradish. But as time went on, it became harder and 62

harder to find really good gefilte fish. Maybe that’s because, in the post-Grandma world, gefilte fish more often than not came out of a glass jar. Only now can I admit to myself: It was awful! This year, I decided enough was enough. In addition to the Passover hope of “Next year in Jerusalem,” I would add my own personal plea for deliverance: “No more jars! This year, homemade gefilte fish!” I set about finding a source of inspiration, ultimately choosing The Gefilte Manifesto, by Jeffrey Yoskowitz and Liz Alpern. The book promises “New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods.” It includes several recipes for gefilte fish, which, I learned, falls into three varieties: a baked loaf-like terrine, poached quenelles (small oblong balls) and “Old-World Stuffed Gefilte Fish.” “Gefilte” means “stuffed,” so “stuffed gefilte” means…stuffed stuff? No, the recipe calls for mixed gefilte layered inside a shell composed of fish skin and head. I decided to make the first two. I called up Yoskowitz, and he encouraged my efforts with a true rabbinic

touch. “Gefilte fish is one of the food traditions that connect Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern European origin to the past in a way that many others don’t,” he told me. “It’s a bridge between the Old World and the New.” But there were obstacles. The first was obtaining the fish itself. Traditional gefilte is made from freshwater whitefish, pike, carp or a combination. I could not find any of these in the greater Washington, DC area. The terrine called for smoked whitefish and flounder fillets, both easily obtainable. But I lowballed the flounder, using a pound of fillets instead of the recipe’s one-and-a-half pounds. The recipe calls for coarse pulsing the fish in a food processor, and I overpulsed a bit to get the dill and baby spinach mixed in. The greens are a modern touch, Yoskowitz says. I guessed as much, since Grandma’s fish had no green flecks in it. I put the mix in two loaf pans and baked it at 375 degrees, as instructed. The result? I’d rate it a “so-so-plus.” Good, but nothing like Grandma’s. (However, it was delicious atop a bagel, like a drier version of whitefish salad.) Next up were the quenelles. I approached the recipe with trepidation. On Yoskowitz’s recommendation, I subbed in tilapia. Later I found out that tilapia is native to the Sea of Galilee, which, looking back, was a promising start. One piece of advice in The Gefilte Manifesto that I took to heart: Use the bones, heads and fins of the fish to make a seafood broth. Basically, you dump the parts in boiling water and add carrots, onions and salt. Then I mixed up the fish in the food processor, much as I had done for the terrine. It rolled nicely into coarse egg-shaped balls, just as the recipe prescribed. The eight balls I gently inserted into the simmering broth fell to the bottom. But a minute or two later, they bubbled back up to the surface. They had maintained their egg-like shape while submerged. I remembered Grandma’s fish balls bobbing on the surface, so I knew I had hit pay dirt; this version of gefilte fish would be in the zone. I made sure not to drown the quenelles in horseradish for the first taste, and final-

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POACHED GEFILTE QUENELLES ingredients

(Makes ten 2-ounce quenelles) For fish mix:

Left: Terrine-style gefilte fish. Above: Quenelles.

chopped fresh dill 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1/8 teaspoon white pepper 1 tablespoon sugar

For poaching liquid:

4 1 2 4 3

Heads, bones, tails from fish (Get fishmonger to give you bones, head, tails when preparing fillets from whole fish. Or do it yourself! All you need is a sharp knife.) quarts of water tablespoon kosher salt onions, coarsely chopped medium carrots tablespoons sugar

kosher food manufacturers filled in the tradition gap. Yoskowitz discovered this while researching his college thesis at Brown University on the industrialization of the kosher food industry. He says the idea behind The Gefilte Manifesto and its website, Gefilteria, is to “look to the past

1. If there are any bones left in your fillets, remove by hand. Don’t worry about small bones; they’ll get ground up in the food processor. Make sure skin is removed. 2. Place the onion in food processor bowl. Pulse until finely ground, mostly liquefied. Add fish fillets and rest of ingredients. Pulse until mixture is light-colored and evenly textured. 3. Meanwhile, prepare poaching liquid. Place fish parts, salt, onions, carrots, sugar and water in stockpot and bring to boil. Reduce to simmer, let it cook for 45 minutes. 4. Put fish mixture in bowl and give it an additional stir. Wet your hands and form about 10 quenelles, each the size of an egg, with the same oval shape. 5. Place the quenelles one by one into the stockpot. (Beforehand, I removed the fish heads and skeletons from the broth. But that’s optional.) Reduce heat to low and cover the pot. Poach for 30 minutes. Remove quenelles with a slotted spoon and place them in a bowl or deep serving dish. Spoon in enough poaching liquid to cover the quenelles and cool slightly before refrigerating. 6. To serve, remove the carrots and cut them into 3/4-inch rounds. Serve the quenelles chilled with carrot pieces and your favorite horseradish or horseradish relish.

to inform us and help us find a sustainable way of living in the future.” Grandma as a sustainability pioneer? She would have exclaimed: “Hoo-Hah!” But I know somehow she would have been proud of my achievement. “Echt gefilte,” Grandma might have said—roughly, “the real deal.” SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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OPPOSITE: LAUREN VOLO. TOP: WIKIPEDIA

ly dug in. They weren’t a carbon copy of what I remember, but they were moist, flavorful and fishy in a good way. They were the closest version I’d had to Grandma’s in decades. I emerged from the experience not only with a keeper recipe, but also with a new appreciation for how shtetl food culture feeds our modern-day desire for sustainability. “The shtetl was one of the most environmentally sustainable places, foodwise,” Yoskowitz says. Impoverished Jews of the shtetl let nothing go to waste. I saw this in my quenelles preparation; instead of throwing the fish bones and heads in the trash, I used them to flavor the broth. And using tilapia made sense for similar reasons. Carp, pike and whitefish were preferred in Eastern Europe not because they were the best, but because of the abundance of freshwater fish in Eastern Europe. There were also regional differences. Gefilte fish in southern Poland (Galicia, roughly) tended to be sweeter, a bit sugary. Gefilte of Lithuania and Latvia, however, was more peppery. And in Hungary: “Guess what?” Yoskowitz asks. “They used paprika!” When Jews arrived in America, they congregated in urban areas and did their best to maintain the old ways. The 1972 children’s book The Carp in the Bathtub depicts a young Jewish sister and brother in Flatbush, Brooklyn, trying to save the live carp swimming in the family tub from the gefilte pot. The story is based on a real practice: Fish in a tub assured freshness pre-refrigeration. But succeeding generations didn’t want to devote time to laborious recipes, and

1 small onion, coarsely chopped 12 ounces whitefish fillet (or pike, tilapia, hake, flounder, sole, whiting, halibut) 1-1/4 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 large egg 2 tablespoons fresh watercress or spinach 2 tablespoons coarsely

instructions

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literary moment BOOK REVIEW ROBERT SIEGEL

AMOS OZ LOOKS BACK AT LITERATURE

What Makes an Apple? Six Conversations about Writing, Love, Guilt and Other Pleasures

BERNARD GOTFRYD, COURTESY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

By Amos Oz with Shira Hadad Translated by Jessica Cohen Princeton University Press, 152 pp., $19.95

n the midst of a long conversation about men, women, love, sex and his own adolescence, the late Amos Oz reminds his interlocutor Shira Hadad that “the most important word in our whole conversation today is ‘sometimes.’” “Sometimes” is the title of a chapter, one of six in this wonderful little book, but it might as well have been a motto for Amos Oz. The life of the great Israeli novelist and essayist, who died in 2018, taught him powerful lessons early on about the failures of certainty and constancy. He was born Amos Klausner and raised in Jerusalem. His family were Revisionist Zionists, members of the conservative, nationalist movement founded by Ze’ev

Jabotinsky. Although secular, his parents sent him to a religious school. When he was 12, his mother committed suicide. Two years later, he left Jerusalem to join a kibbutz, where he took the name Oz, meaning courage. By the age of 14 he had sampled a variety of Israeli affiliations and identities: left, right, religious, secular, urban, rural. Perhaps that sampling of the varieties of Israeli life endowed the author of such novels as My Michael and A Perfect Peace and the memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness with an empathy for characters who were creatures of his imagination or of his memory. Perhaps that is also what makes the characters so vivid and convincing. In this posthumous book, Oz reflects on writing fiction, on his refuge in writing stories during an unhappy childhood and on his thoughts about life and literature. The book is based on a series of interviews transcribed and edited from dozens of hours of recorded conversations with Hadad, beginning in 2014 when Oz was finishing work on his last novel, Judas. Hadad, in addition to being a television writer and producer, was Oz’s editor and friend, and I find myself regarding her with intense jealousy and admiration. Jealousy because the best part of the job I did for 31 years as host of NPR’s All Things Considered was read books (a couple of them by Oz), bone up on the author’s work and then pose the questions that my reading had prompted. Hadad got to relish that experience at great length and depth. Admiration because, while she challenges Oz, expresses her differences with him and points out his contradictions, the conversation is not a balanced exchange between two friends. She is too good at her job to make that mistake. Her question might run a dozen words; his answer sometimes runs two pages. She knows who the star of the show is, and he does not fail her or us. Oz published first in the 1960s, one of a generation of young Israeli writers that also included A.B. Yehoshua and Aharon Appelfeld. Sometimes, he enjoyed the adoration of literary critics in Israel. But, as Hadad reminds him, his early rave reviews were followed by a long stretch of critical

disappointment with his work, followed in time by his return to the good graces of the local literati and broad international recognition of his talent. His explanations for his period of eclipse include the possibility that writing from a kibbutz kept him from making the kind of connections that a writer in Tel Aviv would naturally develop. When he speaks of literary critics, it is not with great respect. The state of teaching literature bothers him, too. “In the past few decades,” he observes, it “has often turned into teaching the politics of minorities, or gender studies, or alternative narratives versus hegemonic narratives—in fact in many places they teach a type of sociology through literature.” He faults Israel’s Ministry of Education and Culture for taking a view of literature as a “sort of wagon that must carry a cargo to the students: the heritage of Eastern European Jewry, or Holocaust awareness, or our entitlement to the country, or whatever.” For him, the “treasure” in a book is not “in the depths of a safe that must be ‘cracked’” but is “everywhere: in a single word. In the juxtaposition of words. In the punctuation. In the melody. In the repetitions. Everywhere. Above all, perhaps, it is in the spaces between the words or between the sentences or between the chapters.” He sounds like a painter urging us to look past his painting’s story to his brush strokes and colors. Oz goes on to disparage an approach to teaching literature that he calls “ripping off the mask or exposing the nudity… of the story.” He cites the criticism of his 1968 novel My Michael, which has been attacked by some critics as misogynist, Orientalist and racist. It is narrated by

In this posthumous book, Oz reﬂects on writing ﬁction, on his refuge in writing stories during an unhappy childhood and on his thoughts about life and literature.

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a woman, Hannah Gonen, who, disappointed in her husband, finds imaginary adventure in sexual fantasy. Oz is dismissive. My Michael’s critics, he says, “classified the book as an oppressive-racist text that represents the prejudices of a privileged white Jewish male. Hannah and I read some of the things that were written about us, and what we wish for our accusers is that their sexual fantasies always be absolutely politically correct.” Oz was a man of the left, but he was unpredictable. At times he supported Israeli wars against Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza when the international left was broadly opposed to them. Being a kibbutznik also seems to have been a tough fit for him. He recounts casting the lone vote against the political party affiliated with the kibbutz. He could only write for as many days of the week (at first, just one) as the kibbutz permitted him. To write more was to contribute less to the communal good in the fields or the cow barn. Oz did not live to experience his younger daughter Galia’s published attack on him as a selfish and violent parent (his widow and two other children rushed to his posthumous defense). But, as for the childhood he provided his own children on the kibbutz, in retrospect he is scathing and apologetic. “The kibbutz founders… believed, as does the Christian church,” he tells Hadad, “that innocent children are little angels who have not tasted sin, and that the kibbutz children’s house would be a paradise of affection and friendliness and generosity. What did they know, those kibbutz founders? They’d never seen children in their lives.” At night, he goes on, “the children’s house would sometimes turn into the island from Lord of the Flies. Woe to the weak. Woe to the sensitive. Woe to the eccentrics. It was a cruel place.” The conversations that led to What Makes an Apple? are about Oz’s fiction and his life. The more political conversations were largely saved for a future book, but they do make appearances. Oz recalls that his renown as a writer led to invitations from Israeli prime ministers for drinks or

Amos Oz

dinner and “a heart-to-heart, with questions like ‘Where did we go wrong?’ and ‘Where do we go from here?’” He recalls the admiration these political leaders would express for his answers, which they would then completely ignore. “Almost all of them—not Ben-Gurion, but Golda and Eshkol and Shamir and Peres—tell me: ‘How you phrase things! Such Hebrew! Such oratorical skills!

You’re wrong, but you put it so well!’ Once in my life, just once, I would like to have a prime minister say: ‘Amos Oz, you talk like shit, you phrase things terribly, the words don’t stick together, but you know what? You’re right.’ I would like to hear that just once before I leave.” Robert Siegel is Moment’s special literary contributor. SPRING ISSUE 2022 | MOMENT

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