What’s the point of having a bat mitzvah?

Tablet Magazine

These days, I’m often gobsmacked by girls’ outfits at their parties—and sometimes in shul, as well: gynecologically short skirts, bustier tops cantilevered over barely developed curves, nosebleed-inducing stratospheric heels. The bat mitzvah girl’s friends teeter into the party like a herd of newborn foals. Some hostesses provide baskets of ankle socks so that the girls can dance more comfortably after they take off their foot-bindings.

But I am a little concerned about the big picture. What’s the point of having a bat mitzvah—a symbolic ceremony marking the time when a girl becomes a Jewish adult, fully responsible for her own actions and choices—if she’s going to focus more on the clothes and the party than the ritual? Why choose to do exactly what everyone else does, with the only individualization being the theme colors, the degree of showiness, and the amount of pupik shown by both the bat mitzvah girl and her mother? The ungapatchka same-sameness seems particularly sad when you consider how hard individual girls and women worked to win the right to celebrate this milestone at all.

Private Schools Mine Parents’ Data, & Wallets

NYTimes

Relentless fund-raising, be it for the annual fund, the spring benefit or the latest capital campaign, is as much a feature of private schools as small classes and diverse offerings. But with schools hitting the upper limits of what they can charge for tuition, consultants, parents and school heads say the race for donations has become notably more intense and aggressive. 

Schools are mining online data for details about parents’ homes, luxury cars, private planes, stock holdings and donations to other charities. So-called development offices, once the domain of part-time administrators and school volunteers, have been elevated along with the titles of those running them, who are now known as chief advancement officers, directors of philanthropy and heads of strategic initiatives. Heads of school report spending much of their time in search of money, according to surveys. 

The biggest change is the sophistication of the data available, and how schools can use it. Before a campaign begins, consultants interview 40 to 50 of the school’s top prospects to determine their level of interest in a campaign and how much they might give (a “feasibility study”). The consultants also try to measure a school’s philanthropic capacity (a “capacity analysis”).

Milestone:Senior priest on trial for protecting child molesters

NYTimes

The landmark trial of a senior official of the Philadelphia Archdiocese who is accused of shielding priests who sexually abused children and reassigning them to unwary parishes began on Monday with prosecutors charging that the official “paid lip service to child protection and protected the church at all costs.” 

The defendant, Msgr. William J. Lynn, 61, is the first Roman Catholic supervisor in the country to be tried on felony charges of endangering children and conspiracy — not on allegations that he molested children himself, but that he protected suspect priests and reassigned them to jobs where they continued to rape, grope or otherwise abuse boys and girls.

Birchas Hailanos:Dispute regarding correct Beracha

VIN by Rabbi Yair Hoffman

There is a great debate that has gone on in Torah circles for almost three centuries now.  The debate centers upon the following question:  What texts we should be following?  Do we follow the Shulchan Aruch and Talmud or do we follow the Siddur?  This debate centers around one particular bracha – one that occurs in Nissan.

The Talmud (Brachos 43b) tells us that during the month of Nissan, when one goes out and sees trees blossoming recites the blessing, “Who has not left lacking in His world etc.”

The wording is either “shelo chiser beolamo klum” or “shelo chiser beolamo davar.” The Talmud uses the word “Klum” which means nothing.  The version in the current editions of the Siddur have the word “Davar” meaning “something.” 

9.5 years for sodomizing 11 year old chareidi boy

JPost

The Tel Aviv District Court sentenced a man to nine and a half years in prison on Sunday for raping and indecently assaulting an 11-year-old boy eleven years ago.

As part of a plea bargain, the defendant, Nahman Nohi, had previously agreed to plead guilty to multiple counts of indecent assault and one charge of sodomy under circumstances of rape. However, the plea bargain did not include any arrangement regarding punishment. [....]

Shabbat Lunch is a Country Song.Who knew?

Forward

Yesterday, I listened to a country song on the radio, a lyrical lament of a time gone by, as country songs often are. But one line made me laugh: “sittin’ around the table don’t happen much anymore.” It doesn’t, at least not at my house Sunday through Thursday. Though my kids are still small, we are already scheduled within an inch of our lives, my husband and I are attached to our oh-so-smartphones, and dinner is usually in shifts of macaroni and cheese.

And then comes Friday night, the beginning of Shabbat. The wind up to observing the Sabbath is at times chaotic, because while that sun sets Friday night, no matter what, Shabbat doesn’t make itself. In Hebrew, to observe Shabbat is to be shomer Shabbat, a “guardian” of the Sabbath. I always thought it sounded like Shabbat was prone to attack, or would wander off alone if not for your protective skills. Not so far from the reality. [....]

I haven’t always done this, been shomer Shabbat. I’d been told about it, had watched it from afar. And then someone invited me into her very traditional Jewish home for Shabbat lunch. I once could not imagine observing Shabbat in the most traditional of senses. No cooking, no driving, no television or internet, no shopping, no catching up on laundry. And if there had been texting twelve years ago, I probably couldn’t have imagined giving it up for an entire twenty-four hour period (never mind that Shabbat is actually twenty-five hours!). It seemed so extreme. And yet, when I was first invited to a family’s home for Shabbat lunch, I was intrigued, amazed, curious and eventually, hooked. There was something so calm, in spite of the six kids in the family and all their friends running around. There was so much food. So much talk. So much time around the table. I would climb back into my car after a very long lunch, not so much feeling guilty, as wondering, “How do I make that happen in my own life?” The answer was, incrementally.

Europe's blind spot on anti-Semitism

CNN

It is time to stop excusing anti-Semitic calls for the murder of Jews as an acceptable outgrowth of the Palestinian cause.

A couple of years ago, I was in the Netherlands when a pro-Palestinian demonstration broke into a familiar chant: "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas." The "Jews to the gas" is a common cheer at Dutch soccer games. This was nothing new.

What was new is that this demonstration included a Dutch member of Parliament, Harry van Bommel of the Socialist Party, who continued along as his comrades called for a repeat of the Holocaust.

Political leaders and government authorities often act dismissively when Jews are the target of violence, particularly from Arabs. When a Jewish girl was beaten at school by five Muslim girls who called her a "dirty Jew" and shouted that she should "return to your country," community leaders said they were "exasperated" by the endless attacks on Belgian Jews and asked the government to take action. Viviane Teitelbaum, a Jewish member of Parliament, condemned the failure of the Belgian media and the political establishment to speak out.