Climbing Sinai

This entry has been cross-posted at the JPS Blog.

The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago recently announced that the PJ Library is launching its free book program in the city. Each month for three years, the PJ Library will send a new, free book to thousands of young Jewish families in the Chicago area. Children receive the gift of a great, age-appropriate Jewish storybook, and families receive the gift of being able to enrich their children’s Jewish learning experiences, and of feeling embraced by the broader Jewish community. Chicago, in fact, is only one of 100-plus communities throughout North America where PJ Library operates – each month, the program reaches over 50,000 children! According to the Chicago Federation announcement,

In each community where it is available, the PJ Library receives enthusiastic praise from parents and grandparents who cite the high quality of the books, and the thoughtful accompanying guides for parents to provide background on topics, among their favorite aspects of the program.

[...]And then, there is the excitement felt by children each month when an envelope arrives in the mail addressed to them, and the joy the parents feel when they watch their children’s faces light up when they learn something new. “The program isn’t just free—that it makes learning about Judaism fun, is priceless,” commented Deborah Cooper, PJ Library program director.

The books that PJ Library selects are age-appropriate and are meant to engage a broad spectrum of Jewish families. Themes tend of focus on Jewish holidays, the Bible, Jewish values, and folklore.

Wishing all the littlest residents of the Windy City happy reading,
Naomi

This video has been making the rounds lately:

This entry has been cross-posted at eJewish Philanthropy.

The theme was “anything is possible,” and yet the predominant mood of this year’s GA was anything but starry-eyed. Amidst the inspiring stories of hard-won campaign achievements and anecdotes from those whose lives have been touched by Federation, an overall sense of gravity pervaded. Steve Schwager, CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, informed us that this past year, JDC could not serve 60,000 frail Jewish elderly in the FSU due to a lack of resources. Michael Oren, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, reminded us of the dire threat to Israel posed by Iran’s nuclear program. Forums and workshops such as “Fundraising in Hard Times” and “Betrayal, Redemption and Reward in a Post-Madoff World” grappled with the unprecedented economic challenges that we face today.

Yet I found that this gravity lent the conference a strong sense of purpose. At the opening plenary, Joe Kanfer, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Federations of North America, recounted the story of the twelve spies. Why did Joshua and Caleb counter the report of the other spies, and encourage the Jews to continue on into the land of Israel? Kanfer argued that it was not only because they were inspired by the challenge, but that they kept their focus on what was possible, rather than on what was impossible.

The GA certainly echoed Kanfer’s sentiments – the enormous sense of gravity also lent the conference a strong sense of purpose. The entire hotel was abuzz with energy as ideas were exchanged and connections made. Personally, I attended a number of informative sessions, including workshops that addressed the shifting landscape of Jewish influence in political Washington, mobilizing community in response to economic crisis, and changing trends in philanthropy.

This was my first GA. Going in, I didn’t really know what to expect, other than that I would meet a number of interesting people, and hear from a few interesting speakers. And while I felt that there were a number of pressing topics that could have been better addressed, in the end, I found the experience highly educational and incredibly inspiring. Now I’m just counting down until next years’ GA in Orlando!

Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador to the US, addresses attendees

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

After a moment of silence in honor of those tragically killed at Fort Hood, Jewish soldiers serving in the American Armed Forces brought an small, portable (and still incomplete) Torah scroll to the stage. This Torah scroll is being donated to the military, so chaplains can carry it to Jewish soldiers on duty in volatile areas such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

All the way back in August, I wrote about the UJC Community Heroes contest, and I reminded you to vote early and often (as opposed to today, when you should have all voted early, but often… well, that would be illegal).  Well, it looks like UJC has finally revealed the 5 finalists:

They’ll be announcing the winner on Monday November 9th, and will be honoring all 5 finalists at the GA on Tuesday the 10th.  Time permitting, I’ll try to attend the press conference, and will report back to you!

So, um, the GA is coming up.  You know, the General Assembly… that annual event which is the largest gathering of the organized Jewish community of North America?  Where Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama will be address the attendees?  With forums and workshops that address issues dealing with themes like the future of Jewish philanthropy, global Jewish responsibility, and Jewish innovation and engagement?

Yeah, that one.  Well, I’m going!  Next week, November 8-10, I’ll be partaking of the amazing insanity that is the GA.  I’m really excited – and you should be, too, because I’m planning to blog all about it when I get back!  In the meantime, the Phillies are beating the tar out of the Yankees right now, so I have to go cheer them on...  Ciao!

This entry has been cross-posted on the JPS Blog.

Wow, tonight’s been quite a night… it’s Halloween, it’s game three of the World Series (go Phillies!), and I just discovered an incredible video!  Do you remember when I blogged about the Valmadonna Trust Library back in September?  No?  I’ll remind you: for the past few months, Sotheby’s has been working to sell the largest private collection of Jewish book and manuscripts to any buyer who has the financial oomph (read: at least $40 million) to purchase the thing in its entirety.  The Valmadonna is incredible, in terms of both its breadth – some 11,000 rare books and manuscripts – and in terms of the quality of the actual items in the collection, for example, the complete Bomberg Babylonian Talmud.  Back in February, blogger Gotham Girl explained why this particular set is so impressive:

[The Bomberg Talmud was] originally acquired by Henry VIII (hoping to find something in support of divorce), which arrived too late to help him out of his dilemma. These volumes of Talmud sat unused for 400 years in Westminster Abbey until acquired by the trust in exchange for a copy of the original charter for the Abbey. They are in perfect condition.

The entire collection was on exhibition back in February, but that exhibition has since closed.  When, back in September, I realized that I had found out about the collection a few months too late, I threw in the towel.  I figured that I would probably have to wait months, if not years, before the collection was again made open to the public by whoever ended up purchasing it.

… And this is where the exciting video comes in!  During my most recent trolling about the internet in search of exciting Jewish Book News, I stumbled across a video on the Sotheby’s website that provides an inside look at the Valmadonna Trust Library!  Get the scoop from Sotheby’s Vice Chairman, Judaica consultants, and even the collection’s custodian, Jack Lunzer!  Learn about how Jack Lunzer accumulated his collection, see some of the collection’s gems, and take a peek at how Sotheby’s put together the collection that you and I sadly missed.  Unfortunately, the video isn’t embeddable, so just click here to go the video on Sotheby’s website.

This entry has been cross-posted on the JPS Blog.

This week, in a stand against censorship and in support of intellectual freedom, the American Library Association is celebrating Banned Books Week.  This annual awareness campaign not only encourages the public to pick up and read books that have been the targets of attempted bannings, but also encourages readers everywhere to challenge attempted bannings in their local schools, libraries, bookstores, and religious institutions.

Now, I’m all for standing up against the censorship of ideas – and banning books means censoring both the production and consumption of ideas.  Not exactly something a free society should stand for, right?  We should keep in mind, though, that most books which have been challenged in the United States were children’s books that were considered age-inappropriate.  And while it can be argued that it should be the parent’s job to decide what his children can and cannot read, let’s just also keep in mind that many children don’t exactly have particularly good parental oversight – and that for these kids, the library is the place where they can get access to books.  So perhaps the issue isn’t so black-and-white: maybe it is in our society’s best interests to let our libraries use some discretion when deciding what books to make available to kids.  (That is, of course, as long as those decisions remain local.  I think we can all agree that we don’t want the government getting all Orwellian on us!)

Still, there’s nothing quite like intellectually “sticking it to The Man”.  I think that’s half of the appeal of banned books week – somewhere, a book gets banned, and bibliophiles everywhere rebel by reading that book.  So, because I like sticking it to The Man just as much as the next guy, I’ve decided to share with you a list of Jewish authors whose books have been banned (or have almost been banned).  I was originally planning to compile my own list, but after a bit of research, I discovered that Tablet Magazine beat me to it this morning:

[1] In 1972, a librarian in Caldwell Parish, Louisiana, used tempera paint to diaper the naked baby in Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen. In 1993, the book was challenged in Minnesota’s Elk River elementary schools because “reading the book could lay the foundation for future use of pornography.”

[2] In The Boy Who Lost His Face, by Newbery Medalist Louis Sachar, a boy gives the middle finger to an old woman during an episode of peer pressure and bullying. The book was challenged at an elementary school in San Ramon, California, in 1993. for obscene gestures, profanity, and “inappropriate subject matter.”

[3] In William Steig’s Caldecott-Medal-winning Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, police officers are drawn as pigs. The Illinois Police Association therefore wrote to librarians in 1977 asking them to remove the book from libraries. (Even though the pigs in the book are perfectly nice pigs.)

[4] Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume is No. 60 on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 Most Frequently Banned or Challenged Books of the 1990s. (In the Night Kitchen is No. 10.) It’s been challenged for sexual and religious themes, as have many of Blume’s books, which may have something to do with her being so active in the National Coalition Against Censorship.

[5] Robie Harris’s four brilliant sex-education books, aimed at kids of different ages and illustrated in comic-book style by Michael Emberley, make censors crazy. Her book for teenagers, It’s Perfectly Normal, is celebrating its 15th anniversary this fall with updated sections on Internet safety, birth control, and the HPV vaccine. In 2008, a patron of the Lewiston, Maine, public library took out the book and refused to give it back because she deemed it disgusting. Other patrons then donated four copies of the book, which remain in circulation. Yay.

[6] According to the delightful website Bookslut, an elementary school in Decatur, Georgia, banned The Bad Beginning, the first volume in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket  because it was deemed to endorse incest. In the book, cartoonishly evil Uncle Olaf tries to steal the children’s inheritance by marrying his niece Violet. (She outwits him, of course.) “It’s difficult for me to imagine how I can construct a villain whose actions would be unobjectionable,” Snicket, aka Daniel Handler, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “That’s called a hero.”

Happy illicit reading!

If you have this stuck in your head throughout the entirety of the Rosh Hashana services… uh, don’t blame me.

This entry has been cross-posted on the JPS blog.

One of the things I love about history is that sometimes, it goes “meta” on you.  What I mean is that on the one hand, there are historians who write about history.  And on the other hand, there are historians who write about how other historians write history.  It’s historiography: the history of history.  (Sick of the word “history” yet?  Too bad!)  For example, there’s E.H. Carr’s What is History?, or Mary Spongberg’s Writing Women’s History Since the Rennaissance, or The Historiography of Contemporary Science and Technology by Thomas Söderqvist.  One of the neat things about history is that there’s no one way to produce it: over time, historians’ accounts of, say, Classical history will be influenced by variations in research methodology, philosophical approach, and even values.

What’s all this got to do with Judaism?, you may wonder.  Well, it just so happens that earlier today, I began to read a wonderful little gem of a book called Zakhor: Jewish Memory and Jewish History, by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi: Jewish historiography!

In this book, Yerushalmi traces the development of how Jews not only studied, but remembered, their own history.  According to Yerushalmi, throughout much of its lifetime, Judaism has had an uneasy relationship with the formal writing and studying of history.  He claims that writers of Jewish history over the ages have typically engaged in what should really be called “selective memory” – recording and commemorating some events and not others, couching historical events in a religious language and context, or simply forgoing recorded history in favor of commemorative holidays or liturgical poems.  It’s all fascinating stuff, gracefully written, and completely accessible for any lay reader.

I also happen to know that JPS will, in the upcoming months, be publishing a work of Jewish history that dates back to the medieval period, and which is discussed in Zakhor.  So keep your eyes peeled, and when the book is finally published, look to Zakhor to read about its historical context.

Heck, read Zakhor right now.  It’s awesome.

- Naomi