God Is Love, Kind Of

Saturday, September 3, 2022 

This survey looks for the best place to live if you happen to be Gen Z, someone approximately 20 to 30 years old. 

https://www.commercialcafe.com/blog/top-20-cities-gen-z-2022/

It looked at factors such as affordability, unemployment rate, educated population, recreational facilities and Internet speed.  If, by some misfortune, I regressed far down the alphabet to Gen Z, I would find the largest percentage of confreres in Tucson, Arizona, 11% of the local population.  I would also find, this coming week, predicted temperatures of:

• Sunday 101°
• Monday 104°
• Tuesday 104°
• Wednesday 101°
• Thursday 97°
• Friday 90°
  

Is there a bus leaving?

 

Sunday, September 4, 2022

Religion Freedom vs. Real Freedom?

Yeshiva University has undergraduate men’s and women’s colleges, combining Jewish studies with secular subjects.  Additionally, it has more than half a dozen professional and graduate schools operating on a secular basis.  

I graduated from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, YU’s law school, where Judaism is only discernible in the holiday calendar, the absence of non-Kosher food in the cafeteria and the mezuzahs on door posts.  Cardozo also has OUTLaw, an LGBTQ+ student organization. However, the application for Pride Alliance, a similar group, to take a place among undergraduate clubs has been denied by YU as contrary to Jewish values.

https://forward.com/opinion/516421/illegal-discrimination-or-religious-freedom-understanding-yeshiva-universitys-case-against-the-yu-pride-alliance/

YU defends this seeming inconsistency, because "undergraduate experience at Yeshiva is intentionally designed to be an intensely religious one during the formative years of our students’ lives."  https://5townscentral.com/2022/09/01/r-dr-ari-berman-addresses-questions-regarding-yeshiva-university-the-supreme-court/

A judge ruled that rejecting Pride Alliance violated New York City's public accommodation law, barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.  YU is appealing, hoping to get to the United States Supreme Court, asking to be allowed to preserve its religious character, as it sees it.  The current Court has proved receptive to the primacy of religious practices over general, non-discriminatory policies.  A baker may refuse to bake a cake for homosexual customers; a business may exclude contraceptive coverage from its employees' health insurance; a public high school coach may kneel and pray on the school field after a game.  It's reasonable to guess that YU will prevail in this atmosphere.  

Monday, September 5, 2022

We went on vacation today to New York City.  We rode the gondola across the East River to Roosevelt Island, a free transfer on the Metrocard from bus or subway.  Then, we took the NYC Ferry from Roosevelt Island to Wall Street - Pier 11, $2.75 fare, a breezy ride on the East River.  We walked the few blocks to the South Street Seaport and ate at The Greens, on the rooftop of Pier 17 at 89 South Street.

While the elevation and the views added substantially to the prices, the simple midday menu had some good choices.  I had an excellent chicken salad sandwich on pita ($17), the best that I’ve had in a long time.  I loved drinking a Summer Crush, frozen rosé, vodka, and watermelon juice, missing only a paper umbrella ($19).

. . .

Issues of identity seem to be gathering more and more of our attention and rarely without controversy.  From mid-20th century, we Americans started giving serious attention to race.  In the last quarter of the century, the role of gender rose in importance.  This century has brought the very meaning of gender to the fore.

I admit that the concept of gender fluidity sometimes confuses me.  However, a current controversy in Britain offers a good lesson.  A new play portrays Joan of Arc as non-binary, annoying the hell out of some people now even as it did back then.  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/theater/joan-of-arc-nonbinary-globe.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Upon consideration, I think that Joan presents an ideal example of gender fluidity.  Born female, guided by visions from the archangel Michael, Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine to help save France from English domination, Joan dressed in male clothing and led French forces in several significant battles.  Whether gender dysmorphic or simply hallucinatory, Joan was successful, at least for a time, in the adopted identity, maintaining it until death.  

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

File this under the heading Gift Horse, Open Wide.  

https://www.jta.org/2022/09/06/global/are-too-many-germans-converting-to-judaism-the-debate-is-roiling-germanys-jewish-community

Some German Jews are complaining about native Germans converting to Judaism.  Of course, the father of the clergy member who started the fuss is a convert.  As far as I am concerned, the more the merrier.  Except for the ultra-Orthodox, we Jews are not going forth and multiplying.  

Come on in, your motives are irrelevant. Delightful Donna told me a story years ago when she went to Cuba.  Her group visited a (the?) synagogue in Havana and found a big crowd at Friday night services.  Piety?  Spirituality?  No.  Chicken.  They served chicken for dinner after services, a rare treat for children of the revolution.

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

The Boyz Club gathered at Uncle Lou, 73 Mulberry Street, a new restaurant that intentionally looks back at traditional Chinatown cooking.  As the New York Times reviewer wrote, "Uncle Lou is meant as a kind of love letter to its neighborhood." 

It's pricier than Wo Hop, 17 Mott Street, our all-time favorite, but the food was almost consistently excellent.  The five of us ate Fried Salt & Pepper Fish Filet ($24.95), Crispy Orange Beef ($21.95), Chicken Chow Fun ($14.95), Crispy Garlic Chicken ($18.95) and Ginger Fried Rice ($14.95).  The garlic chicken was superb; the fried rice was clearly overpriced.  If you want to eat Chinatown Chinese food without walking downstairs, this is the place. 

 

Thursday, September 8, 2022

The Jews aren't the only ones feeling challenged by LBGQT+ activities on campus.  Brigham Young University, a devotedly Mormon institution, is also trying to get things straight, in a manner of speaking.  
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/07/us/byu-lgbtq-students-tensions-reaj/index.html

 

In the case of BYU, opposition to the off-campus group RaYnbow Collective, created to support LBGQT+students, comes not only from the administration, but local "conservatives" as well, "[s]ome openly carried handguns and others were carrying 'God hates gays' signs and yelling, 'There are no gays in heaven.'"  At Yeshiva University, by comparison, only some Aramaic mutterings have been heard.