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Lashon Update 6/16/04
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Rabbi Spurs Growth of Black Jewish Group
When he's out of town and worships in an unfamiliar
synagogue, Rabbi Capers C. Funnye Jr. tends to draw stares.
An African-American Jew, Funnye wears a skullcap and reads
psalms in Hebrew while draped in a prayer shawl. At the end
of the service, he says, some worshiper inevitably asks in
amazement, "Are you Jewish?" "No, I was walking by and I found
this stuff outside," he likes to answer. "And I wanted to
come in and see how it worked."
Funnye leads Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian
Hebrew Congregation, a predominantly black group that considers
itself part of an ancient lineage of Jews of African descent.
It also represents a contemporary increase in minority Jews
in the United States as intermarriage and searches for spirituality
make conversions more common. On Friday and Saturday, the
growing congregation will dedicate a new home in Marquette
Park that has more classroom space for the 45 children in
its religious school. The group is moving out of a historic
1902 synagogue in the South Chicago neighborhood, having grown
from 55 families to 70 in recent years, Funnye said.
African-Americans and other minorities are increasingly attending
synagogues, said Gary A. Tobin, president of the San Francisco-based
Institute for Jewish & Community Research. "We fully expect
over the next 20 years for the face of Judaism in the U.S.
to change dramatically from largely a white, Eastern or Central
European group to include many more Asians, Latinos and blacks,"
he said. Tobin estimates the number of black Jews nationwide
at 50,000 to 100,000, though others dispute that figure. James
Landing, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois
at Chicago who has studied black Judaism, says their numbers
probably do not exceed 10,000.
Judaism most often is inherited rather than spread through
adult conversions, which are disputed in some branches of
the faith (an Orthodox rabbi, for example, would not recognize
a conversion performed by a Reform rabbi). But today's conversions
are helping Judaism reclaim its heritage as a multiethnic
religion that once stretched from Africa to China. At least
350,000 blacks, Asians and Latinos practice Judaism in the
United States, according to a 2001 survey done for Tobin's
institute.
The Ethiopian Hebrew movement to which Funnye belongs began
in the 1890s but traces its spiritual roots to Africa. Centuries
ago, Jews moved from the Arabian peninsula to the Horn of
Africa, established Jewish city-states in Ethiopia and spread
their influence elsewhere, Funnye said. "We like to say we
reverted, not converted," he said. Some members of Funnye's
congregation wear traditional African robes, and the ancient
psalms assume a gospel rhythm as the rabbi sings them in a
baritone voice. Funnye calls the congregation conservadox.
Men and women sit separately, but there are musical instruments
in the service, something Orthodox congregations don't allow.
Members keep a form of kosher.
Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken traces its lineage to a congregation
founded in 1915. The flock is mostly African-American, though
there also are two white families, blacks from the Caribbean
and a Russian whose father was a black American. They are
moving into a synagogue at 6601 S. Kedzie Ave. that once was
a safe house for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The congregation is not connected to the American Hebrew Israelites
of Jerusalem, or Black Hebrews, an African-American group
that claims Jewish ties. That group considers leader Ben Ami
Ben Israel to be the Messiah, uses both the Old and New Testaments
in worship and allows men to have multiple wives. Funnye's
group, by contrast, follows the Jewish scriptures and is widely
recognized within Judaism - or as widely recognized as any
group is in a disparate religion, Tobin said. Funnye is a
member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis. Raised in an African
Methodist Episcopal church in Chicago, Funnye was sent by
his family to live for a time with an uncle in South Carolina.
There, he experienced the racism of the segregated South,
something that contributed to his spiritual questioning.
"I had never seen anybody in the pictures in my Bible who
was black," he said. "Everybody was white. Through all the
segregation, all the stained-glass windows in our church had
white people." While working at an accounting firm in Chicago,
he met two young blacks wearing skullcaps. They explained
that they were Jews, and Funnye began studying with them.
He was particularly influenced by a book called The Hebrewisms
of West Africa: From Nile to Niger with the Jews, which traces
Jewish influences on the continent.
"Judaism is a return to the faith community that we believe
our forefathers and foremothers were a part of before the
Middle Passage and the Atlantic slave trade," Funnye said.
"We've simply found a very good space in the Jewish community."
Funnye's synagogue is actively seeking new members by reaching
out to people who don't have a religious home. "We certainly
think that Judaism is a viable option for those that are seeking,"
he said.
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Ethiopian Pupils get Helping Hand in Celebrating their Bat
Mitzvah
With the help of the parents committee at Jerusalem's
Evelina de Rothschild School for religious girls, seven Ethiopian
pupils were able to celebrate their bat mitzva on Monday.
Some of the girls said that while they might have had a bat
mitzva ceremony without the help of the committee, they could
not have enjoyed such a lavish celebration, which included
Ethiopian fare and dancing. "My father and mother don't work.
It wouldn't have been the same without [the parents committee],"
said Meron Gabriel, one of the seven girls marking her rite
of passage into womanhood.The celebrations began at the Western
Wall, with the girls and 100 of their classmates sitting in
circles by the Wall and praying out loud in unison. After
a greeting from Ethiopian Rabbi Shalom Sharon, the girls and
their families were off to the Hebrew University's Givat Ram
campus. There, the seven bat mitzvah girls dressed in traditional
Ethiopian clothes performed dances and songs, which they had
been practicing for weeks, for their families and their classmates.
Mentamer Assefa, another one of the seven,
said performing was her favorite part of the ceremony. Assefa,
whose family moved from Ethiopia four years ago, agreed with
Gabriel that her family could not have afforded a celebration
quite like this one. The girls said they were enjoying themselves
and that the day was very exciting. Gabriel said she really
feels like a woman now, and that she felt peace with God while
the group was at the Western Wall.
One of the organizers of the event, Rena
Fredman Friedlander, said: "I came to this out of a deep desire
to create something for people who otherwise would not have
it. To help the girls feel loved and accepted and dignified,
on a complete par with their peers who are having their own
bat mitzvas all throughout the year."
"I often look at the adult Ethiopians
who don't speak Hebrew and who wear their traditional clothing
and think: 'They feel like I do, that they don't really belong
here,'" said Friedlander, who is also an immigrant. "But just
as I hope my daughters will feel at home here in a way that
I never will, I hope their daughters will as well. Maybe this
is a small step towards that."
"Bat mitzva is a big milestone for the
grade six girls," said Dvora Gredsman, a member of the parents
committee. "This is our way to connect the Ethiopian girls
with the whole experience and to celebrate their culture and
traditions too, along with their families."
After an Ethiopian-style lunch, Ethiopian
activist Shula Mola spoke to the students. Mola, who has lived
in Israel since 1984, stressed the idea that Ethiopians must
"work hard and succeed in order to have a place in Israeli
society."
She thanked the parents committee for
investing so much energy in the girls' bat mitzva celebration,
but also explained the importance of the girls' parents.
"Your parents, who might not speak Hebrew,
and who might not be able to help you with your English homework,
still have so many qualities like patience and respect. You
must learn from them," she told the girls.
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Hebrew Israelite Youths Gear Up for Draft
Some 63 Hebrew Israelite teenagers reported
to the Be'er Sheva draft office last week - for the first
time in the community's three-decade history in Israel. The
youths are slated to be drafted for military service in the
IDF over the next few months. �The draft letters that the
17 and 18 year-olds received last month represent a big step
forward in the community's long and difficult struggle with
the Ministry of Interior. After more than 30 years in Israel,
Hebrew Israelites received blue identity cards late last year,
and the half hour journey to Be'er Sheva was just one manifestation
of their newly coveted status. "I was born in Israel, I live
in Israel, and so I should help defend Israel," Toosheyah,
a soft-spoken 17-year-old with a loosely fitting dress and
perfectly braided hair explained.
In the past, community requests to volunteer for army service had been repeatedly and systematically ignored, says Avraham, who moved to Dimona in 1969, and goes by the uniform Hebrew Israelite surname of Ben Israel. "We never had the proper paperwork, and so serving in the army was never seriously considered," he says. "It never seemed fair, though. I grew up watching other people die, watching other people's parents grieve, and here we were, playing around and having a good time. We wanted to take responsibility." Believing themselves to be descendants of the 10 lost tribes, the community members were led out of the U.S. in 1967 in an organized exodus by Ben Ami Carter, a former Chicago bus driver. They settled temporarily in Liberia in Western Africa before moving to Dimona in 1969, but were only granted temporary resident status in 1991. Permanent residency came late last year.
Serving in the army is therefore one way for the community to prove its connection and dedication to a society that continues to regard it as a somewhat extraneous other. The insular community of 2,500 in Dimona is very much sheltered, both geographically and culturally, and though members of the community say they're more open now than in past decades, the gap that divides these twelfth graders from their Israeli peers is wide and rather gaping. The teenagers were born in Israel, and yet they speak English as though they were raised in urban America; their Hebrew is fluent, and yet there is no getting around the thick and decidedly non-Israeli accents that mark their speech patterns. "Hebrew is our native language," one boy explains in English. "We were born here, and grew up here, and this is our home."
Many of the teens see the army as an opportunity to negate the racism that haunted them during their childhoods in Dimona. "I used to walk around and people would try to put me down and call me kushi in Hebrew, which is like someone calling you a black nigger," 18-year-old Benamadiel recalled, his classmates nodding in agreement. "They just don't understand us." The army, he imagines, will be different; people will be mature, respectful, and curious about their customs and ways of life.
The community is clearly committed to the lofty ideals of national service and commitment to the State of Israel, but behind the overstated enthusiasm lies a clash of cultures that hasn't yet been resolved with the army bureaucracy. Community members practice polygamy, are strict vegans, wear clothes only made of pure cotton, fast once a week in commemoration of the Sabbath, and because some believe themselves to be descended from the priestly tribe, a portion of Hebrew Israelites not only do not allow a razor to touch any part of their face or head, but refrain from cutting their hair.
Military haircuts and uniforms, which are sometimes made of synthetic materials, will therefore be a major problem, as will food. The Hebrew Israelites do not eat canned foods or anything with coloring, preservatives, or sugar, and beginning at an early age, they also fast once a week in commemoration of the Sabbath. All these issues, according to community members, are currently under negotiations with the military.
Tall and lanky, Oriyahu is first in line to be drafted - the community's test case in many ways. His legal status is different from that of the rest of his community, however, though the traditions he lives by remain identical. Oriyahu's grandmother is a Jewish Holocaust survivor from Holland who later married an African American. His mother was born in Israel, lived in the U.S. for a period, and later returned to Israel, where she became involved with the Hebrew Israelites and married Avraham. Oriyahu is therefore Jewish according to both halakha and Israeli law, and so he was granted a blue identity card ahead of the others.
But he also believes himself to be descended from a priestly tribe and has never cut his hair. It is styled in small, tight braids, placed neatly under a white knitted cap, but he's worried that come next month, he'll be forced to cut his hair off, along with the other draftees. "I told them I'd rather they didn't touch my hair," he shrugs casually. He's also already decided that he won't eat the canned food the army distributes to combat soldiers, and says he'll just pack fresh vegetables in his bag instead.
All these issues, says his father Avraham, are in the midst of negotiations, and though he prays the army will be flexible on certain sticking points, the community realizes that the army, and not the community, will be dictating the terms from this point on. "Like with the Orthodox, we hope that there will be certain standards and respect for our customs," he says. The community hopes that their children are allowed to form their own special army unit, so that the traditions will be easier to safeguard.
According to Avraham, teaching the teenagers to "be number-one soldiers" is key to the community's educational system. "We are not about war or killing people," he says. "We are about peace, but when the war is at home on your doorstep, you need to act. The community has prepared them every way they can. They are going to be outstanding soldiers; they've been taught to be obedient. They'll go to the army to teach and be an or l'goyim [light unto the nations]. They'll set an example and be a source of strength." For Avraham, his son's generation is getting an opportunity he and the earlier wave of Hebrew Israelites in Dimona never had. Avraham, who arrived in Israel at age seven, never served in the IDF, though he says that he was able to contribute by entertaining and performing in army bases. "That was our way of contributing, but now it's a different story," he says. "Now it's real."
So in the meantime, the community is waiting with baited breath for July 25, when Oriyahu is to leave his Dimona community and make his way to the Be'er Sheva draft office. He's not looking forward to the moment when, stepping on the bus in his crisp new uniform, he will be the center of attention, as crowds of photographers and journalists see him off. His friends tell him to be excited. "You'll be famous," one says, with a hint of jealousy.
"Other Israelis don't see reporters in their face just because they're going to the army," another friend reminds him. "But you're making history for the kingdom."
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When Temple Isaiah Installed Theodore Truruoka as Full-time Rabbi, it was Another Step in a Decades-long Journey of Faith, for the Man and the Congregation
Sabbath services at Temple Isaiah of Great Neck move forward on this special Friday night after the usual minor adjustments to the host sanctuary.
To turn the Community Church of Great Neck - Temple's Isaiah's home for its 37 years of existence - into a Jewish sanctuary, a burgundy-and-gold Star of David banner has been hoisted high via a pulley system so that it screens the church crucifix. To complete the transformation, a portable ark is carried near the pulpit to offer access to the synagogue's two Torahs. Yet this is no ordinary night at Temple Isaiah, a Reform congregation whose search for a home and spiritual fulfillment holds similarities to the background of its religious leader, Rabbi Theodore Tsuruoka.
Tsuruoka, 58, of Valley Stream, a Japanese-American who converted to Judaism at age 22, is being officially installed as spiritual leader after four years as a part-time rabbi. With Tsuruoka's wife, Linda, his mother, Haruno Tsuruoka of Somers, N.Y., and other family members attending, the installation merits speeches, song and a little humor. "I don't understand why they call it an installation," said Rabbi Bernard Zlotowitz, a Bible professor at the Academy for Jewish Religion in the Bronx who has known Tsuruoka for 20 years. "You install a light bulb. ... I prefer to call this night a coronation."
Zlotowitz seals the transfer of rabbinical authority with a ritual laying on of hands and, apparently, an impromptu kiss to Tsuruoka's forehead. "Now I will be able to focus my entire energy toward the needs of the congregation," Tsuruoka says from the pulpit. "My charge as rabbi is to help you find your way to Torah." That spiritual journey should soon become more convenient for this Reform congregation, founded in 1967 by a handful of dissidents from another synagogue. The membership, which has held steady at about 120 families, expects to relocate soon to nearby Great Neck Plaza.
At a cost of about $1.5 million, the shuttered Uncle Chau's Chinese restaurant in Great Neck Plaza will be refitted with a sanctuary, a school wing and meeting rooms, says Stephen Fein of Great Neck, an attorney in Queens and Temple Isaiah's president. An architect is modeling the temple "after the caves in Israel that are lit from above," Fein says. Tsuruoka's "becoming our rabbi proved a catalyst" for turning "what is essentially now an abandoned building into a work of art."
Fein said that Tsuruoka offered leadership, a sense of confidence and "a strong, positive presence that it was the right thing to do." Tsuruoka was hired four years ago while still immersed in rabbinical studies, and he quickly turned the job into a full-time occupation. "If there are 24 hours in the day, the rabbi stretches it to 36," former Temple president Terry Joseph said in a speech during the installation.
The ordination and installation capped a life of spiritual searching for Tsuruoka, whose Japanese immigrant grandparents and California- born parents were held in a World War II internment camp in Poston, Ariz. Tsuruoka's parents met during a dance at the camp. They were married in 1945 and moved to Manhattan's Upper West Side, where Tsuruoka was born the following year and was raised as a Methodist amid a large Jewish community. "Being the only non-Jewish kid, I got invited to a lot of bar mitzvahs," Tsuruoka recalls. He decided to learn more about Judaism after a probing conversation with the pastor at Manhattan's Riverside Church. Tsuruoka recalled that he had several things he needed to know: How can he relate to God in a way that was spiritually meaningful to him? Did he need to achieve grace through an intermediary? Or was it something that he could achieve on a more intimate basis with God? "The questions I had," Tsuruoka said he was told by the pastor, "were better answered by a Jewish person."
So he crossed the street to the Jewish Theological Seminary. By age 19, when he met his future wife, Linda, who was born Jewish, Tsuruoka was already on his way to his formal conversion at age 22. A graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, Tsuruoka earned a bachelor of arts degree in sociology and a bachelor of science in math from City College in Manhattan, a masters in population research and a doctorate in math from Georgetown University. He worked in his family's custom framing business and as the chief financial officer for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in Manhattan.
He made his bar mitzvah at age 50 while serving as president of Temple Emanuel in Lynbrook, his former congregation. Many of his friends from that synagogue came out to cheer him at Temple Isaiah. "After two careers, both in business," Tsuruoka says, "it became clear to me that I wanted to teach and share what I had learned about Judaism with other people. ... I wanted to express my own enthusiasm about Judaism with others."
Tsuruoka's decisions to convert and become a rabbi exemplify "the changing face of Judaism," says Hasia R. Diner, professor of American Jewish history at New York University in Manhattan and author of "The Jews of the United States" (University of California Press) a one-volume history to be published later this year. "The entry of converts who come from very different religious and ethnic traditions into Judaism is historically significant," says Diner. "There's a real opportunity for Judaism to redefine itself in more spiritual terms where heretofore it's been primarily understood in ethnic terms."
At Temple Isaiah, having a rabbi whose ethnic background differs from most of the congregation raises no eyebrows. "We've tried frankly to do many things that I think are unusual," says Bernard Rosenberg of Great Neck, a retired certified public accountant and Temple Isaiah's first president, from 1967 until 1969. "We've had a blind cantor who used to be on the bimah with a seeing-eye dog." Fein called Temple Isaiah a "very heymisher" place - using the Yiddish word for homey. "No one cares what you wear on Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah," he said. That weekend, Tsuruoka was back at work, performing a Saturday morning bat mitzvah and a Sunday unveiling at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont. Then there was a Monday meeting to discuss the religious school schedule. "A typical week for a rabbi," Tsuruoka said. It was no accident that his path converged with Temple Isaiah's at this crucial moment, Tsuruoka says: "I don't believe there are any mistakes in life. Everything seems to have a reason, and when the reasons are right, it's as though it just crystallizes."
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A Place to Call their Own: Brookline Congregation Moves into New Home
If you traveled Beacon Street near Washington Square around 6 p.m. on Sunday, you surely saw the celebration. The hundreds of people singing and cheering were not rejoicing the Red Sox 7-2 victory over Toronto, however. The Sephardic Congregation of New England was celebrating the opening of its new home, Temple Beth Abraham. Approximately 250 synagogue members gathered on Sunday to participate in a procession from their old home at Temple Beth Zion on Beacon Street to their new home at 18 Williston Road. The congregation, made up mostly of Iranian, Iraqi and Egyptian immigrants, had been renting space from Beth Zion for more than 20 years. They are excited to be moving to their new building.
"We are so happy to have a place to call our own. To have more independence," said Giti Saeidian, who joined the congregation in the late 1980s just a few years after it was founded. Saeidian, a real estate agent, helped find the new location for her congregation about a year ago. The former home of St. Andrew's Church for the Deaf is just a few blocks away from Temple Beth Zion. Much of the past eight months has been spent raising money and renovating the new temple, said Dr. David Sheena, the president of the congregation who helped lead the march up Beacon Street.
The procession, which included the carrying of three Torahs beneath colorful canopies, or chuppahs, paused several times to allow for the singing of traditional songs and recitation of prayers. The festive crowd tossed flower petals along the way, played tambourines, cheered and took turns blowing the shofar, or ram's horn. At Temple Abraham, the rabbi of the congregation, Dr. Baruch Mazor, Sheena and special guests installed mezuzahs on the doorways. The small piece of plastic that encases a scroll of Biblical verses is traditionally affixed to the right side doorposts in many Jewish homes. Inside the temple, some members gathered in the second-floor chapel while others mingled in a large community room on the first floor.
Many young members of the congregation are excited about the new space. "It's nice to finally have our own place. A place where we can go to socialize," said Shabnam Sanieoff, 16, who walked in the procession with her cousins, Roya and Leora. "There are so many synagogues in Brookline. It's cool to have a Persian one," said 13-year-old Newton resident Olly Shamash. Sheena said that the day was bittersweet. "We were under the care of very nice people at Beth Zion. We will miss them," said Sheena. Watching his congregation process up Beacon Street and moving into Temple Abraham brought a smile to his face, however. "Today's trip mirrored that of our ancestors leaving Egypt. But in this case, we traveled the desert of Beacon Street for 40 minutes, not 40 years," Sheena said.
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In a First, Orthodox Shul Hires Woman to Rule on Certain Jewish Legal Issues
For centuries, observant Jewish women had to go to the only religious authorities available, male rabbis, when they had questions about perhaps the most intimate of issues: their sex lives. But now there is a female Orthodox legal expert on American soil trained to respond to women’s issues such as mikvah, menstrual cycles and couples’ fertility problems. In the past, such issues were dealt with by rabbis or, more informally, by rabbis’ wives.
But Nishmat, a Jerusalem-based center for advanced Jewish learning for women, created the new position of yoetzet halachah, Hebrew for adviser on Jewish law, and trained some two dozen women to answer technical questions related to Jewish laws on women’s issues. Most of the women trained by Nishmat in the last six years now serve in Israel. Bracha Rutner, 28, hired in September without fanfare by the Riverdale Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue in New York, is the first yoetzet halachah formally hired by a synagogue in this country. "I know I am paving the way," Rutner said on a recent Friday morning, sitting in the study of the rabbi of the Riverdale Jewish Center, Jonathan Rosenblatt.
Speaking quietly, Rutner is the model of a young, Orthodox wife: a hat covers her hair, long sleeves cover her arms. A day school graduate from Silver Spring, Md., she spent the past two years at Nishmat’s center in Israel studying for her new position. Rutner’s new role is part of an increasingly public conversation that observant women are beginning to have about women’s issues in Judaism. The Israeli documentary film "Tehora," which opened a few months ago in New York, helped spur the discussion. And a recent report by psychologist Michelle Friedman documenting Orthodox women’s feelings about sexuality and the Jewish legal system that regulates it has deepened the discourse. "I think it’s very significant," Carol Kaufman Newman, president of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, said of Rutner’s position. "I think halachah will be better served by women being able to speak to women."
"We certainly support women in leadership positions," she said, voicing "extreme excitement that a rabbi of Rabbi Rosenblatt’s stature would hire someone in this position." Officials at the Riverdale Jewish Center are playing down the move. "This is not a revolution. This is not about feminism. This is about Torah," said Rosenblatt, who has been rabbi at the Jewish Center for 19 years. "I don’t think of myself as an innovator. I’m just a country rabbi. I’m not Branch Rickey." Rickey was the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers who broke baseball’s color line by hiring Jackie Robinson. Rosenblatt, who met Rutner last year in Jerusalem, decided to let her join the synagogue’s educational staff without the glare of publicity, despite the historic nature of Rutner’s job. He wanted to see if it succeeded, if the community accepted her, if women called her.
The answer? Yes on all counts, he said. Now he and Rutner feel comfortable going public. Rutner, who has taken part in community forums over the past several months, was slated to be part of a all-female "rebbetzins panel" during the annual conference of the Rabbinical Council of America June 2-4 in New York. A graduate of Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women, Rutner said she always wanted to be a teacher. Then she heard about the Nishmat program. "I thought it was important to help people improve their level of observance," she said.
A yoetzet halachah has more specialized duties and training than a congregational intern, a pseudo-rabbinic position that traditionally has been reserved for males in the Orthodox community. Recently, women congregational interns were hired at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale and Lincoln Square Synagogue, both in New York. Congregational interns preach sermons, perform chaplaincy duties and counsel congregants. "She doesn’t have a rabbi’s portfolio," Rosenblatt said. "This is an educational function, a community educator."
"Our shul is a teaching shul," like a teaching hospital, he said. The Riverdale Jewish Center has four rabbinic interns, more than any congregation in the country, Rosenblatt said. "When I choose interns, I choose for character," the rabbi said. When Rosenblatt met Rutner at Nishmat, "I did not test her about any of her expertise. I was looking for character," he said. The rabbi was satisfied. He already knew of Nishmat’s reputation for academic excellence. Women there are trained in Jewish legal issues related to women by rabbis and experts in modern medicine and psychology, including gynecology, infertility, women’s health, family dynamics and sexuality.
"This is a new role that we created," said Chana Henkin, Nishmat’s dean. "There’s a tremendous need. The time has come. There are questions that are going unanswered." Nishmat began its yoetzet halachah program six years ago. "It’s on exactly the same level as rabbinical training," Henkin said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem. It’s also an accepted part of Israel’s modern Orthodox community, she said. "Time after time rabbis come up to me and congratulate me on the program," she said. Now all eyes are on Rutner’s success in the United States.
"For many women in the community," Henkin said, "Bracha represents both a role model and a validation of their role as women." When Rutner first came to Riverdale, she wondered if women who didn’t know her would call with questions. But the calls came quickly, and often.
"It shows how important taharat hamishpacha is for Judaism," Rutner said, using the Hebrew term for family purity, or laws relating to sex, the mikvah and the menstrual cycle.
Rutner gets calls from women, mostly young, who are embarrassed to discuss intimate matters with a man, or who had adopted stringencies that hurt their reproductive chances, she said. She told a story about one woman who had been married for two years but had not conceived, despite her best efforts. She followed Rutner’s advice and became pregnant two months later. Rutner has been accepted in the congregation because of her professionalism and because of the rabbi’s efforts in explaining what a yoetzet halachah does, said David Sable, a lifelong member of the synagogue and its current board chairman.
"There wasn’t a murmur" against the hiring, Sable said. In addition to a letter Rosenblatt sent to members introducing Rutner, the rabbi spoke about her role several times from the pulpit. "It was an understood and accepted thing from the start," the rabbi said. "Women use it, and that’s the end of it. I hear the buzz among the young women: ‘If you have a question, why wouldn’t you use her?’ " In hiring Rutner, the synagogue recognized that it was taking a step that would aid the observance of family purity laws, Rosenblatt said. He had suspected there were women in his congregation who hadn’t contacted him with questions because of their personal nature.
Rosenblatt said he didn’t need a focus group to determine that many women would feel more comfortable dealing with another woman, Rabbi Rosenblatt said. In his letter to the congregation, the rabbi wrote, "In an age when women have the option to consult female physicians in areas where modesty might make them reticent, I feel it is imperative that barriers of embarrassment be removed from these observances of the Torah."
While some view the establishment of this new role as part of a revolution in Orthodox women’s leadership, others downplay its significance.
"Yes, it’s true that there are issues that women are comfortable dealing with women rather than with rabbis," said Samuel Heilman, professor of Jewish studies and sociology at the City University of New York, who is spending this semester on a fellowship at Hebrew University’s Institute for Advanced Studies. But Heilman, an expert on contemporary Orthodoxy, said he doesn’t view a synagogue engaging a yoetzet halachah "as a significant innovation."
"It speaks much more to modern America," to the progressive nature of the modern Orthodox community, he said, particularly in a flourishing neighborhood like Riverdale, than to any religious exigencies. "This is an administrative thing, it’s not a rabbinic thing," Heilman said. "I don’t know that it’s different than having a woman who is an assistant to the rabbi" and handles certain educational and administrative duties, he said. Rosenblatt said some rabbis have called expressing an interest in the program. "Riverdale is a visible community," he said. "When something happens in Riverdale, soon the world knows about it."
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Once Considered an Oriental Sound, Mizrahi Music Now Pervades Mainstream
Eitan Salman is at the far end of his store, leaning against a shelf lined with the new CD by Sarit Hadad, one of Israel’s more popular Mizrahi, or Eastern, singers. Business at Salman’s music store has fallen 80 percent over the last decade, but it’s not altogether a bad thing: Mizrahi music has grown so popular in Israel that it no longer is the exclusive domain of mom-and-pop shops like Salman’s but is sold even at Israel’s Tower Records outlets. "Mizrahi music is now available across the country, in all the stores," laments Salman, whose shop is located across the street from where Tel Aviv’s old central bus station used to stand. Indeed, with the superstar status of singers like Hadad, Zahava Ben and Moshik Afia, Mizrahi music now tops the charts in Israel and its popularity crosses ethnic lines.
Salman and neighboring store owners remember the "cassette music" heyday, a time when Mizrahi music was the exclusive domain of Mizrahi-run stores like Salman’s, near bus stations and in souks. "In the 1980s, Mizrahi music was not sold in record stores," explains Barak Itzkovitz, musical editor of Galgalatz, Israel’s popular army music radio station. "Today, there is a lot of consciousness about this music, and it’s one of the most popular musical genres." The roots of Mizrahi music in Israel date back to the 1950s and the mass influx of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East. Every community arrived with its distinct religious music, commonly known as piyutim, as well as its favorite Arabic music. As Iraqis, Moroccans, Egyptians and Persians mixed, they exchanged musical sounds as well. "They found out they had commonalities in their music," said Shoshana Gabay, co-creator of "Yam Shel Dmaot," or "Sea of Tears," a 1998 documentary on the development of Mizrahi music in Israel.
Children born in Israel in the 1950s grew up with other influences as well: American rock music, Indian movie music, French and Italian pop music and Russian-inspired Israeli music. The result was fusion music far ahead of its time. "Years later there was this world music combination in other countries," Gabay said. "But in Israel it started very early, with the Oriental Jews." By the 1960s, Tel Aviv’s Yemenite quarter was home to a brand new sound. "They had all these parties, and at those parties they took what they had learned in school — Russian-inspired Israeli songs, some Chasidic songs — and made them Oriental sounding," Gabay said. "They blended these songs with popular Arabic songs and traditional Yemenite songs and made a mix out of them. They were making an interpretation, their own interpretation."
Musicians blended not only musical styles but instruments: electric guitar and oud, synthesizer and kanoun — a classical string instrument from the Middle East and North Africa — drum kits and darbuka, a Middle Eastern and North African hand drum. Despite the ingenuity of this new groove, Israeli fusion music stayed in Mizrahi neighborhoods until the invention of the cassette recorder, when recording suddenly became economically viable to a community with meager financial resources. The first Mizrahi music became available on cassette in 1974, and the hit bands Lahakat Haoud and Lahakat Tslelei Hakerem couldn’t produce recordings fast enough. Tapes flew off the shelves and into the hands of Mizrahi Israelis hungry for more. But mainstream Israeli radio stations played few Mizrahi songs.
"The people in radio were mostly from Europe," said Yoni Rohe, author of the newly-published "Silsul Yisrael," which documents the development of Mizrahi music in Israel over the past 50 years. "They didn’t like the Mizrahi sound. It was not easy for them to relate to." "The popularity of Mizrahi music was a process that happened over 15 years," Itzkovitz said. "Like hip-hop in the United States, it came from the hood, from the bottom up. It just couldn’t be stopped." Following the success of the first recorded Mizrahi music bands, Mizrahi pop stars suddenly began to appear around the country: Avner Gadasi of Tel Aviv’s Hatikvah neighborhood, Shimmy Tavori from Rishon Le-Zion, Nissim Sarousi from Ramle. Despite the dearth of Mizrahi music on mainstream radio stations, the Mizrahi music industry blossomed. Mom-and-pop stores like Salman’s could not keep up with fans’ demands.
Zohar Argov, the poster boy for Mizrahi music, came onto the scene in 1978. Argov created Israeli country music, Ron Cahlili, film director of "Yam Shel Dmaot," told the Jerusalem Post in 1998. "His subjects were the pain of love, betrayal, loss and sorrow," Cahlili said. "Argov was hard core, unafraid to sing about his reality and his life as he saw it." At times compared to Elvis Presley, Argov lived on the edge: He died at 33 from a drug overdose. His albums continue to be best-sellers, however. "Nancy Brandes did production for Zohar Argov," Rohe recounts. "Brandes came from Romania, and his connection with Zohar Argov made a new blend of music, a blend of big band and Mizrahi. This was a historical turning point. From there, in the 1980s, Mediterranean Israeli music went professional." Meanwhile, other Mizrahi musicians developed new fusion sounds.
Ahouva Ozeri, a Yemenite-Ethiopian Israeli singer who became popular in the 1970s, mastered an Indian string instrument called bulbul tarang and gained a reputation as a world beat musician. She also helped pave the way for women in Mizrahi music. Machismo was not the only obstacle to female Mizrahi musicians: In traditional Mizrahi households, a music career was equated with prostitution, and many families forbade their daughters from performing. Sarit Hadad’s defiance of her parents is legendary in Israel. As a girl, she would climb out of her window at night to perform at local clubs. Her father, who died in 1997, refused to attend even a single concert of his superstar daughter. Gabay and Rohe say the turning point for Mizrahi music was the development of commercial television and radio in the 1990s, which opened up new avenues for national broadcast of Mizrahi music, as well as other alternative sounds.
Today, Itzkovitz says, Hadad is hands-down the most popular Mizrahi musician in Israel. Afia and Itzik Kala are runners-up, and each puts out at least one platinum album per year. "Mizrahi music is very, very popular on Israeli radio today," Itzkovitz says. "On major stations like Galgalatz, we pick only the songs that sell the best, the most popular ones that people love. Today, about 40 percent of what we play is straight-up Mizrahi music."
In addition, Itzkovitz notes, Mizrahi music has influenced musicians closely associated with the Ashkenazi kibbutznik movement. Among them is David Broza, who combines his style with the Mizrahi genre, and bands like Ethnix and Tea Packs, which combine rock and Mizrahi music. Today’s hottest new sound is the fusion of Mizrahi music and hip-hop, Itzkovitz says. Indeed, Mizrahi musicians have blazed the trail for Israeli hip-hop, and children of immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Morocco and Yemen are at the cutting edge of Israeli music today. Somehow, it seems, the music of the streets has became the music of choice. "In the last years," Rohe says, "this mix of the new generations, the blend of music that came from Ashkenazi and Mizrahi homes, has brought a new sound to the ear that is as Israeli as you can get."
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Reviving Jewish Life in Southern Spain
A Jewish community in southern Spain is gearing up for a special seminar this weekend aimed at reaching out to the region's large numbers of crypto-Jews - people whose ancestors were forcibly converted to Catholicism during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Dozens of people are scheduled to attend the event, which will include traditional Sabbath prayers, festive meals, and lectures. Delivered by Spanish, Portuguese and Israeli rabbis, the lectures will be on topics such as "The Dynamics of the Oral Law" and "Renaissance and Recognition of Bnei Anousim [crypto-Jews]." The event is being organized together with the Jerusalem-based Amishav organization ("www.amishav.org.il"), which assists "lost Jews" seeking to return to the Jewish people.
Aharon Franco, a Jewish community leader in the event's host city of Murcia, says that Murcia has a long and rich Jewish history. "Many local families observe Jewish customs, such as lighting candles on Friday evening," he says, "although the origin of these practices is not always familiar to them. But political changes in Spain in the past few decades, along with the spread of Jewish culture, have caused many of them to begin to identify once again as descendants of Jews." Franco estimates that at least 20% of Murcia's population of 350,000 can trace their ancestry back to Jews. In recent years, the community has restored the ancient synagogue at in the nearby town of Lorca, which is now once again being used for prayers.
Amishav Director Michael Freund said that the initiative for the seminar had come from the Bnei Anousim themselves, who are looking for ways to reconnect with their heritage. "In the past year, we have held four seminars in Spain and Portugal, and Murcia will be our fifth," he said. "There is a growing thirst for Jewish knowledge among the Bnei Anousim, and it is our obligation to reach out and help them." Franco, himself a crypto-Jew who formally returned to Judaism last year, said that his journey of return began when he was young: "When I was 12 years old, I already felt Jewish, even before I learned that my grandfather was from a Spanish Jewish background and that my grandmother was from the Anousim. It was then that my quest and my struggle to find my place within my people began." It wasn't easy, he said, but "thankfully, organizations such as Amishav are opening the doors and enabling many of this nation's lost sons to return home. This is not just an act of historical justice, but also a matter of great importance to Jewish continuity at a time when assimilation is destroying our communities."
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Depoliticize Outreach
I was astonished to read a May 28 article quoting Dr. joe Frager as asserting that he has partnered with sylvia and Carl Freyer and myself to establish "a yeshiva in India to facilitate the full conversion of would-be immigrants in order to bring them to Gaza" ("Right-wing Initative Targets 'Lost Jews'"). this is sheer and utter nonsense.
Amishav, the organization that I direct, is dedicated to reaching out to descendants of Jews around the world who wish to return to the Jewish people. We work with the Marranos of Spain and Portugal, as well as the Bnei Menashe of India of India, who claim descent from a lost tribe of Israel. Our mission is is entirely educational and spiritual in nature, and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with internal Israeli political disputes.
In the past decade, we have brought more than 800 Bnei Menashe immigrants to Israel. This was done under both Labor and Likud governments, and with prior coordination with Israel's Chief Rabbinate and the Interior Ministry.
Nearly two years ago, Amishav opened a Hebrew Center in India, where more than 350 Bnei Menashe men and women daily study Hebrew, Jewish tradition and culture. Neither Frager nor the Freyers have or had any connection with its establishment or operation, nor have they "partnered" with us in this undertaking, which is entirely Amishav's own initiative.
Indeed, I condemn any attempt, either by Frager or anyone else, to politicize the issue of outreach to "lost Jews." the Jewish people have a moral, religious and historical responsibility to embrace our lost brethren and facilitate their return. This is a matter that is and should remain free of a partisan political agenda.
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Danger Signs in Nation of Singles
Suddenly, it seems, the increasing numbers of Jewish singles are gaining attention, from demographers warning of our shrinking numbers, to entrepreneurs pushing JDate and a host of other dating Web sites and matchmaking services, to psychologists worrying that today’s young people are being unrealistically demanding in choosing a mate. While there are as many reasons for people being single as there are single people, the subtext of the communal concern is that the Jewish world simply will not survive if Jews don’t marry and have children.
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Ex-chief Rabbi Bakshi-Doron End to Orthodox Monopoly over Marriages
Former chief Sephardi rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron yesterday advocated dismantling the Orthodox rabbinate's monopoly over marriages - the first time any leading rabbi associated with the rabbinical establishment has publicly urged such a step. Speaking at a rabbinical conference in Jerusalem, Bakshi-Doron urged the repeal of the law stating that marriages in Israel must be conducted according to religious law. "Today, everyone marries as he sees fit in any case," he later explained to Haaretz. "This law was very important in its day, but today it is completely neutralized, and merely creates hatred."
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Journals of 2 Ex-Slaves Draw Vivid Portraits
Courtesy of the Alice J. Stuart Family Trust and the Massachusetts Historical Society John Washington
Courtesy of The Historical Society of the Town of GreenwichWallace Turnage
The scene sounds like one conjured up by a screenwriter for a Civil War epic. As the Union Army converges on Richmond in 1862 and white residents frantically pack their silver, a group of slaves gathers in a hotel tavern after closing time. The slave in charge of the tavern, John Washington, pours the others drinks, and they all cheerfully toast to "the Yankees' health." The scene is not from a movie. It is from an account that Mr. Washington wrote in 1873 and whose existence few people even knew of until the last few months. But through a series of coincidences, his handwritten autobiography and another powerful unpublished narrative much like it, by a former Alabama slave named Wallace Turnage, have surfaced and come to the attention of a Yale historian, David W. Blight, who calls them "altogether remarkable."
The narratives are likely to generate great interest in the academic world, in part because they speak to a lively debate in recent slavery studies: to what degree did Lincoln emancipate the slaves, and to what degree were they already emancipating themselves as the war ravaged the South? Mr. Washington and Mr. Turnage liberated themselves during the war, stealing away from their masters by rowboat, at great risk. But both were taken in by the Union Army, without whose help they might have been recaptured. "What these narratives demonstrate in authentic and rich detail is that slaves became free by both means," Dr. Blight said.
The publishing world will probably also be eager for the stories, especially after the success of "The Bondwoman's Narrative," an autobiographical novel written in the 1850's by a slave, Hannah Crafts, who made her way to freedom. That narrative, discovered and edited by the Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., became a best seller in 2002. Dr. Blight plans to publish the newly discovered narratives together, along with his research into the lives of their unsung authors.
The Turnage narrative was completely unknown to scholars until last year. For many years it was kept in a cluttered bureau drawer in the Greenwich, Conn., home of Mr. Turnage's daughter, Lydia Turnage Connolly, who died in 1984 at the age of 99. His story, written on blue-lined paper in a leather-bound notebook, probably sometime in the late 19th century, ended up with a neighbor, Gladys Watt, who discovered only by reading it that Mrs. Connolly was a former slave's daughter. Mrs. Connolly often described herself as "Portugee" to explain her dark complexion; it is very likely, Dr. Blight says, that the fathers of both Mr. Turnage and Mr. Washington were white slaveholders. Mrs. Watt kept the notebook in a closet for years, in a clamshell archival box, unsure what to do with it. And then last summer she took it to the Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich, where Dr. Blight later gave a lecture. "They asked me to take a look at it," he said in an interview last week near the Yale campus, smiling and admitting that because he was so busy at the time, "I really wasn't paying that much attention at first."
But after the Washington manuscript was brought to his attention last winter, Dr. Blight realized the rarity of both manuscripts and their value in the emancipation debate. The two narratives are also significant because, unlike many other such accounts, there is a wealth of genealogical information about the former slaves' lives that corroborates much of what they wrote. After the Turnage narrative was donated to the Greenwich historical society, the group hired two researchers to make sure it was authentic. "This is such a vivid and amazing story, the first thing we wanted to do was make sure it was not a fake," said Debra Mecky, the society's executive director. The researchers found that much of Mr. Turnage's account could be verified in census, Army and bank records. About 120 autobiographical narratives were published by freed slaves before the Civil War, the most famous of which were Frederick Douglass's. Another 100 or so were published after the war.
But discoveries of new ones, especially those by slaves telling the story of their own emancipation, are very rare. Dr. Blight said that only a half-dozen or so exist, most housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. It is unclear whether Mr. Washington, who died in Massachusetts in 1918, or Mr. Turnage, who died in New Jersey in 1916, ever tried to publish his account during his lifetime. "It is very exciting," said Randall K. Burkett, curator of African American collections at the Robert W. Woodruff Library at Emory University in Atlanta. "The thing that's really exciting to me about these is that the provenance of both is so clear."
Records show that Mr. Turnage went on to live a long and rich life after the war, some of it in New York City. For many years, according to the research of Christine G. McKay, one of the researchers hired by the Greenwich group, Mr. Turnage worked as a waiter, janitor and glass blower in Manhattan. In the 1870's he lived in the neighborhood then known as Little Africa — today's Greenwich Village and SoHo. He later moved to Jersey City, but he is buried in the Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn. The Washington narrative was kept for many years by his granddaughter, Evelyn Washington Easterly, who briefly gave it to the Library of Congress in 1976. Before she died Mrs. Easterly gave it to a close friend, Alice Jackson Stuart, a college English professor who intended to publish it herself and spent some time at Harvard in the mid-1980's doing research related to it. But Professor Stuart died in 2001 with her work unfinished.
The narrative then went to her son, Julian T. Houston, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge, who lent it to the Massachusetts Historical Society for safekeeping. Judge Houston, who writes fiction, later talked to his agent, Wendy Strothman, about the narrative. Late last year she helped find Dr. Blight, who has written extensively on slavery and was recently chosen to direct the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale. While both narratives are gripping and often painful to read, Mr. Washington's demonstrates more writerly flair. Dr. Blight said that one of his jobs would be to try to determine the literary influences on both men. It is clear that both knew the Bible, but it also seems as if they may have been familiar with Frederick Douglass. (In one scene in the account by Mr. Turnage, he describes wrestling for two hours with a brutal overseer, echoing a famous account in which Douglass describes his own two-hour fight with an overseer.)
Mr. Washington's story is shot through with dry humor. Immediately after the scene in which he describes toasting the Yankees, he tells how his mistress, in tears, implores him to escape from Richmond with her into the countryside. He writes: " `Yes madam,' I replied. `I will come right back directly.' " He had no intention of returning; instead he made his way to the Rappahannock River, where he rowed to freedom among Union troops. In a motif that shows up repeatedly in such narratives, he also writes in great detail about how he learned to read and write. Mr. Washington writes that while cleaning a room in his master's house, he would read — though "imperfectly," he says — Harper's magazine. Two boys who were friends of his master's family helped him learn to spell, he adds. Teaching a slave to read or write in the antebellum South was a crime, often severely punished.
Mr. Turnage's story tells much more of the brutality of slavery, because most of his years of bondage were spent as a field hand in Alabama. He writes of near-crippling lashings of female slaves and describes four unsuccessful attempts to escape, some of them followed by severe beatings, before he finally succeeded in 1864 after hiding in a swamp for a week. While hiding, he often slept in an unused Confederate lookout perch. One morning, he writes, as if he were witnessing a miracle, he saw the tide bring something in. "Now when I got down there I seen a little boat very small indeed though the tide was going out," he says. "It stood like it was held by an invisible hand; so I got in the little boat and it held me."
A few hours later, as a storm threatened to drown him, he was pulled over the side of a Union gunboat by eight soldiers — and finally "had obtained that freedom which I desired so long." He ends his story with a stern command to his readers not to regard his account as a "novel, nor a fable, but a reality of facts." "My reader," he adds, "I will now leave my book to your judgement. The end."
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Remaking Iraq Without Guns
When the heads of the world's leading industrialized nations meet in Georgia next week, they can do something unexpectedly positive for the Middle East, Muslim women, economic freedom and even democracy - if they take seriously a small but powerful idea on their agenda: microlending in Iraq. It's obvious by now that the reconstruction of Iraq demands long-term thinking, which means using non-military "soft
power" as much as hard ammunition. One of the best ways to achieve stability is by offering tiny loans to promote the creation of small businesses. Iraq has no dearth of budding entrepreneurs who could use the help. Chief among them are women, who have shown themselves able and eager to take on more roles.
An investment in Muslim women benefits men and children too. Testifying to this multiplier effect are the signs in some Afghan schools: "Educate a boy and you educate that boy; educate a girl and you educate her entire family." Indeed, the 30-year record of microlending shows that Muslim women have helped nourish their neighborhoods and towns by building their own businesses. As for the repayment rate? A banker's fantasy fulfilled: 98 percent.
With that in mind, suppose Washington joined a coalition of rich allies around the world - the Group of 8 nations as well as private foundations - to offer women in Iraq a coherent program of microbusiness loans. Pursuing this type of soft power could also compel government transparency in
a way that even popular movements couldn't. Only a broad and inclusive business class that can be taxed by the state will, in turn, convince the state to develop institutions that respond to people. Americans know this principle better than anybody. It's called representation with taxation.
This approach to re-building Iraq could also help heal the rift between the United States and much of the European Union. International agencies have recognized that women are the great untapped resource in the Arab Middle East. The United Nations' Arab Human Development Reports -
written by Arabs - consistently emphasize three deficits in the Arab Muslim world: women's empowerment, knowledge and freedom. By putting a dent in the deficit of Iraqi women's empowerment, we can begin closing the gaps in knowledge and freedom. The World Bank appears to agree. While he was its chief economist, Nicholas Stern said that "increasing gender equality is as central to the idea of development as freedom." When women get involved, he added, "education, health, productivity, credit and governance work better." In short, there's less corruption - a saving grace for a fledgling democracy like Iraq.
But the looming question remains: does Islam permit women to be entrepreneurs? In theory, yes. The prophet Muhammad's first beloved wife, Khadija, was a wealthy self-made merchant. For years, he worked for her - something that Muslim men should be open to doing if they're serious about emulating Muhammad's life. Those Muslims who cite religion to oppose women as economic agents do so not because they fear violating the faith, but because they fear losing comfortable cultural certitudes and personal privileges. More sophisticated Muslims will argue that introducing free enterprise to the Arab Middle East amounts to Western imperialism, regardless of whether women benefit. That, too, is nonsense. The most tolerant strains of Islam have been spread through merchant trade rather than military conquest. Capitalism has such a noble history in Islam that an old saying goes, "May your pilgrimage be accepted, your sins be forgiven, and your merchandise not remain unsold."
Theology and modernity can meet in today's Iraq as they did a thousand years ago when Baghdad, the seat of the Islamic enlightenment, served as a crossroads of commerce. Iraq is precisely the place from which to remind Arab Muslims of their storied history, a golden age built upon the exchange of ideas as much as goods. However, to help Arab Muslims rediscover that glory, or anything close to it, America and the world will need to think bigger than elections. Drafting a democratic constitution for Iraq is important, but it's hardly enough to ensure meaningful democracy. Let's remember that Hitler became chancellor of Germany through free and fair elections. He did so by feeding off stubborn tribalism, economic malaise and resentment over military defeat. Iraq has the potential to incubate all three viruses, plus the remnants of a Baath Party built on the Nazi model. That's why more lasting solutions lie in long-term thinking. And in the women of Iraq.
Irshad Manji is the author of "The Trouble with Islam: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith."
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