Rosh Hashanah and the Single Person

Among the Jewish holidays, Pesach and Rosh Hashanah are the hardest for those who have suffered a loss or have no family. If we have to rank the two, I feel that Rosh Hashanah is somewhat harder. While in our part of the world, Pesach is celebrated in the spring, time of hope and new beginnings, the mood of self-examination which characterizes the High Holidays is augmented by the innate melancholy of the fall. The fact that Rosh Hashanah lasts two days and is only the beginning of a whole month full with awe-inspiring festivities, is an additional reason for its being such a burden.

There were other times as well, actually Rosh Hashanah used to be my favorite holiday, but once my husband passed away I started to experience first hand the problematic aspects of the holidays.

In recent years Facebook keeps providing new and unexpected anxieties connected to the holidays. Some "friends" show off their talent as hosts and post, ahead of time, photos of a decorated table. Others demonstrate their good fortune by posting, in real time, pictures of their happy family sitting around the Rosh Hashanah table,

I wouldn’t want to be invited for holiday dinner to the home of one of those happy Facebook families. As someone who suffered a loss, even seeing the pictures is a painful reminder of what I no longer have, and perhaps it is best not to look at Facebook during the holiday season.

Israel is a family-centered society and, in order to escape the holiday stress, it has become a national tradition for many single people to be abroad during the Jewish holiday season.

But for the few who stay in Israel and decline the dinner invitations of friends and relatives, there are other options. My way of coping with the holiday was to revive a family tradition that we started when we lived in the US.

Since we wanted our young daughters to get to know the Jewish holidays and to remember them, we decided to have a festive and meaningful event. So my husband and I always had young people over for Rosh Hashanah and Pesach. They were usually Jewish students from the university who were happy to come to someone’s home for the holiday meal. They often asked to bring over a friend or two.

The same thing happened last night as well, most of the guests around the table were students who came over with their friends. Around the table we had Americans who study at international programs at the university, new immigrants from Russia and some Israelis. From the questions of the new comers about the holiday customs and about Israeli society it was clear that they had not been invited to many Israeli homes.

Without friends or relatives, it was a different kind of holiday, but it was easy and full of good will, just like the holidays that we used to have back in the US. I’d forgotten how hungry students could be and was really glad that I made enough food.

Happy New Year.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/rosh-hashanah-and-the-single-person/

Facebook's Community Standards and the community

Before I was allowed, to set foot in the Bodleian library in Oxford, I had to participate in an ancient ceremony and take an oath: “I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.”

The Bodleian library was opened in the beginning of the 17th century, and is still one of the most revered halls of western civilization.

The oath cannot guarantee that readers will not damage the building or the collections of the library. Yet the founding fathers of the institution regarded this symbolic act as a contract. They trusted that it would create a  connection between the reader and the library and promote appreciation and responsibility. 

Until recently libraries like the Bodleian used to be the world greatest source of information. Their collections and the information in their catalogues could be compared, in the internet-driven information age, to a leading search engine like Google or an online social networking website like Facebook.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel 

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/facebooks-community-standards-and-the-community/

Listen To Facebook: Don’t Forget To Call Your Parents Today

For billions of users Facebook is a reflection of what they wish their world to be. Some see it as a mere meeting place with friends, others use it as a  a tool  to promote different ideas and beliefs. But for those in need of guidance, Facebook can serve as a source of instant universal truths, with endless quotes and proverbs, from philosophers to religious leaders, about all aspects of life.

I saw one of those aphorisms this morning on my Facebook page. It focuses on sharing special moments with our parents now, since later they will not be here. The late songwriter Ehud Manor (1941-2005) once said that with the loss of his parents he also lost the opportunity to brag. It is so true, bragging to your parents about your success is not bragging at all, it could almost be considered honoring your father and your mother.

This is my essay about the challenges in fulfilling this commandment.

Please kkeep reading in the Times of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/listen-to-facebook-dont-forget-to-call-your-parents-today/

The New Don Quixote: Facebook

Only six days have passed since Yinon Magal, the charismatic M.K. from the Jewish Home Party, was first accused of sexual harassment in a Facebook post, and today he resigned his position in the israeli Knesset. Magal never denied the facts detailed in the post (that was done by his many friends who used typical victim blaming techniques to fight back). However in his first response to the post Magal condescendingly chided the accuser for "shaming" him in the social media.”

I, for once, am thankful that Facebook could do this important service for victims of sexual harassment. A year ago I wrote an essay about a similar case in which Facebook became the voice of the women, who were victimized by a powerful man, and the effect this campaign had on empowering them.

In the last few weeks we witnessed extensive protests in the social media against the decision to award the Landau award, by the national lottery association, to the writer Yitzhak Laor.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-new-don-quixote-facebook/

My [Facebook] Home Is My Castle

Last October The Marker  section of  Haaretz newspaper cited a study which found that during Operation Protective Edge one of six Israelis blocked or defriended a Facebook friend. 60% of the people did it because they disagreed with the content and 52% because they encountered offensive posts.

I am not ashamed to admit that I too was one of those six. Although I am too polite to defriend any one, and it has never been an option, I did block several people who shared or liked opinions, which I felt, were offensive or painful. In addition, I stopped following quite a few friends.

Since then my Facebook page has become a haven where I spend time only with like minded people,

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/my-facebook-home-is-my-castle/

The Past Has A Vote And Religious Feminists

I am a non-religious Jew, but my favorite group on Facebook is “I Am A Religious Feminist And I Too Have No Sense of Humor.” It is a non- political group, of almost 10 thousand members, most of them religious women. In its credo the group claims that it provides a safe place for religious women to share events from their life. However, as a recent post demonstrates, the members manage to accomplish much more than that:

“After taking part in a partnership Minyan at the library, one of the scholars stopped me and asked “what was that”? “A Minhah “I answered. “Don’t be clever “ he said: “Listen to me, stay away from peculiar practices, just do as your mother used to do”. “But my mother also prays at a partnership Minyan,” I answered. That was it, I have heard the last of him”

This seemingly innocuous incident delivered in the most straightforward, way, with no commentary, is typical of the type of posts published by members of the group.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel:

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-past-has-a-vote-and-religious-feminists/

Facebook Power: From Clarence Thomas to Yitzhak Laor

In the last few weeks we witnessed extensive protests in the social media against the decision to award the Landau award, by the national lottery association, to the writer Yitzhak Laor. Although he was never charged, it appears that over the years he had sexually assaulted and harassed numerous women.  In response to the outcry,  the board of the Landau Foundation decided to withdraw the prize for poetry from Laor.
It could have ended differently, In 1991 president George H. W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.  Anita Hill, was an attorney-adviser to Clarence Thomas who was then the Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. After a report of a private interview with her by the FBI was leaked to the press, she was called to testify at the hearings. At the time we lived in the US and I remember how she described in great details the sexual harassment which she had suffered from Clarence Thomas, her boss.
Yet, in spite of her testimony, the Senate voted 52-48 to confirm Clarence Thomas as associate justice of the Supreme Court.
At that time it was still possible to dismiss serious  accusations  like those of Anita Hill, as merely her word against his, and to cover up sexual misconduct. But today thanks to social media such as Facebook and Twitter, women are no longer alone, they have a community and  are not afraid to speak up.  It happened recently on Twitter with the accusations against Bill Cosby and here in Israel in the case against Yitzhak Laor. In contrast,  during the Clarence Thomas hearings, four female witnesses waited in the wings to reportedly support Hill's credibility, but they were not called to testify and their voice was not heard.
During the course of the debate concerning Laor, some people, especially men, claimed that he should be judged for his art and not for his character or his conduct. They argued that we should make a distinction between the man and his art. I feel that this is no longer possible.
As long as we knew nothing about our artists we were content to merely judge their work. However,  at the age of information it’s getting harder  to cover up misconduct. Thus when an artist is about to get a prestigious award,  it makes sense to assure that he is an upstanding  person who could bring credit to those who  nominated him/her.
There is no going back, in Ha’aretz today the writer Michal Zamir complained that being politically correct ruins all the fun.  She is right, it is not hard to imagine the Facebook outrage if we heard a declaration such as  “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” today.
Richard Wagner was banned and his music has not been performed in Israel not because he was an inferior composer, but since he was an Anti-Semite. Paul de Man lost all his standing when it transpired that he was a Nazi collaborator. So why should we make allowances  when it comes to crimes against women?

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/facebook-power-from-clarence-thomas-to-yitzhak-laor/

The Girls' Sense Of Humor

Today on the wall of a well-known religious figure and a Facebook personality I read that he was delighted to announce that after having three lovely sketches—his daughters, finally the real masterpiece --his son was born. That son would be the heir to the throne of his kingdom.

This is, of course, a happy occasion, and it is his personal post, but having several thousand friends and followers makes him almost a public figure.

I was disappointed to discover that out of the hundreds of likes and comments no one criticized the unfortunate choice of words.

Please keep reading in The Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-girls-and-the-sense-of-humor/

The Eggs In The Gilded Cage

For years we have been impressed with the perks of being a High Tech employee:  the exciting free food, the on-site gym, the retreats, and that even before we begin to admire the generous  paychecks and the other financial benefits.

But  there is always a price, in return for all that the worker gives the company his/her life, or at least time and creative energy,.Now comes the latest perk: covering the expense of freezing women's egg as announced by Facebook and Apple.

But excuse me if I  don’t trust those companies to have women’s  best interest in mind.

Please keep reading in The Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-eggs-in-the-gilded-cage/

The Facebook Golem Or The Man On The Street

 I have nothing against other people’s opinions, sometimes  I even change my mind based on what I hear. But I would like to choose where, and when to hear or read them.

In the past I could think of two main examples when those opinions were not welcome. First, on the evening news when reporters chose to spend a good part of the program on interviewing  “the man/woman on the street.”  I guess the rationale was that their opinions were representative of  most people. I always preferred to hear the opinions of experts in the field.

The second  occasion happened when during  the questions and answers session after a formal lecture, some people in the audience mistook that time to be an opportunity to voice their opinions rather than to ask for those of the speaker.

Now because of the war in Gaza I can add  Facebook to the  list of unwelcome opinions

Until recently I was an active user of Facebook and enjoyed reading about my friends’ life. Facebook for me was exactly what Mark Zuckerberg meant it to be: a social network. I didn’t know the political opinions of most of my friends and never requested new  friendships based on people’s political inclinations. Yet,  I didn’t mind reading  my friends’ opinions  about those subjects as well.

However, with the war, many people started sharing and promoting those  political views to which they subscribe. For me  it means that the social media stopped being social. I should have known that, what is Facebook if not the man on the street in his contemporary attire?  While I like my friends and used to look forward to hearing about the different aspects of their lives, now I dread Facebook and it has lost its appeal.

I hear that this war is the war of the social media. My friends are civilized people, their posts may be  disturbing, yet they are never offensive. But  our activity on Facebook does not represent what is out there  in other parts of the social media. I guess we are not the "real man of the street" of Facebook, where I was exposed to horrible posts  full of violence and hatred. It is scary.

Several months ago I wrote about the benefits of  Facebook.as a  big bazaar where treasures could be found: 

http://razornabat.blogspot.com/2014/07/welcome-to-russian-culture-week-in.html

But now I realize that the big unpredictable bazaar has become a Golem, that unintelligent creature who was commanded to perform a task, but became enormous, uncooperative and ultimately out of control. There is evidence everywhere, and not only in Israel, of the damages created by the Facebook Golem.

I wonder if it is too late to stop it. In one version of the Golem story the rabbi who created him had to resort to trickery to deactivate it, whereupon the Golem crumbled upon its creator and crushed him.

I sincerely hope that we are not looking at a similar future.  

.

A Skype Mother

 APR.21.2013

Thirty  some years ago when the US was still across the ocean, I left my parents in Israel and travelled with my husband to the US to attend graduate school. Living abroad at that time meant being disconnected from everything that was going on in Israel.  

 Every week I wrote long  letters to my parents  and reported all the details of our new life; they were filled with longing and love. The letters that my parents wrote back expressed similar sentiments, but they never questioned our decision to go away or doubted the merit of advancing our education abroad.

However, the idea that one should sacrifce being geographically close to family in order to advance a career or achieve a better life is not shared by everyone. When I wrote my PhD on the connection between life and literature in 1950s Britain, I was surprised to discover  a different reality in Family and Kinship in East London, a 1957 sociological study by Michael Young and Peter Willmott reporting on the life of working classes in Britain. Young and Wilmot  found that  being close to the mother was one of the most important considerations in finding housing, and that young people tended to stay within walking distance from their mothers.

Although I was very close to my  mother, staying nearby was never a a factor in my considerations of where to live.  I took for granted that in order to move ahead we needed to move away, and my parents agreed with me. Only later when I was already a mother myself, I would sit down to have a cup of coffee in the morning and think “What am I doing here? I could have had this cup of coffee with my mom”

We went back to Israel in 1994 and I had two good years to enjoy the company of my mother, but she died in 1996. To this day I regret all those years that I missed not being close to her.

Then, following our footsteps, in 2000 my 18-year-old daughter left Israel to study in Germany. At the time there was still very little internet connection, and Skype had not yet been invented. She had to wait a whole month for a phone, and I got a chance to experience what my mother must have felt: a nagging feeling of  worry and longing mixed together with happiness that my daughter was moving ahead with her life.

My two daughters are in the US now and we connect through email, Skype, Facebook and cellular phone. Thanks to video chat I can even see them when we talk.  Moreover, it seems that social network has trained young people in the art of documenting their life. They devote time to report what they do and attach appropriate photos.

People complain that the cheerful public persona reflected from Facebook, for example, is never the real person, but didn’t we write letters to our parents and report that all was well even when it wasn’t, as to not make them to worry?

Since to connect with my daughters we use all the technology available, we can detect even small worries from the hello on the phone to the frown in a video chat. The readily available technology is the “spoonful of sugar” that makes the distance between us “go down.” But still when I sit down for coffee in the middle of the morning now I miss my two daughters who are busy making a life for themselves over sea.

"I Am A Feminist And I Also Don’t Have A Sense Of Humor:” A Story About Facebook

 - AUG.31.2013

I belong to the Israeli group “I am a feminist and I also don’t have a sense of humor” on Facebook. The group defines itself as “the group of disgruntled uber feminists and their friends." The group serves as a watchdog against discriminating misogynistic practices in different areas of life in Israel and  acts against offensive texts, photos and pictures in the media in general and on Facebook in particular. The other day the trigger for action was a cartoon that  appeared on FB, courtesy of a group called “Welcome to the Internet” https://www.facebook.com/4funsociety 

The cartoon showed a roller-coaster ride in an amusement park and the caption read “rape-- you could either scream or enjoy the ride.”

Our humorless group has over 3000 friends on FB and many of us reported the cartoon to FB as abusive and inappropriate. At first Facebook refused to regard that cartoon as offensive. Today more than a week later they wrote me to inform that they have reversed the decision. Here is what they wrote:

“You reported Welcome to the Internet's photo for harassment.

Details: We reviewed the photo you reported for harassment. Since it violated our Community Standards, we removed it. Thanks for your report. We let Welcome to the Internet know that their photo has been removed, but not who reported it. Facebook never discloses who submits a report. We have marked this content as insensitive and reached out to Welcome to the Internet and asked this to remove it.

Report Date       August 20

Status   This photo was removed

Owner  Welcome to the Internet

Reason Harassment”

I am relieved that Facebook has changed  its scandalous decision. However, it is discouraging to see, first that cartoons like this one are still posted at all, second that they could be considered humorous, and finally that for more than a week FB refused  to acknowledge the noxious nature of that cartoon.

For generations, feminists have been accused of having no sense of humor; the  Feminist  group on FB takes pride in having no sense of humor when it comes to offensive content.

Humor is a quality that allows us to put a distance between ourselves and the world around us. But could fathers, brothers, sons and husbands remain detached when rape, the most violent and inhuman crime against their women, is treated as a joke?

PS. I just found out that the cartoon could still be seen on FB

Young, Restless and Extremely Gifted: The Israeli Painter Zoya

O

You can never know what you will find on Facebook, I often think of it as a virtual bazaar or a giant T.J.  Maxx  store. It offers an array of unrelated, mostly irrelevant, information. However,  there is always a chance to  find a real  gem.

The  painter Zoya Obianuju Cherkassky-Nnadi  is such a gem. I was first introduced to her when someone shared on my wall several paintings from her series “Aliya 91.” Those paintings realistically depict scenes from the new reality of the Russian immigrants who came to Israel in the early 90s (the young Zoya and her family were among them). The paintings were clever, funny and insightful.

Looking at the one devoted to the Russian culture week in Ashdod, I found myself laughing out loud even though it wasn't really funny.

Please keep reading in my Times Of Israel blog

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/welcome-to-the-russian-culture-week-in-ashdod-the-israeli-painter-zoya-obianuju-cherkassky-nnad/

The Ingenious Invention of "Like" Or The Revival of Bragging

I once heard the Israeli lyricist Ahud Manor (1941--2005) say on the radio that with the death of his parents came the sad realization that from that point onward he had no one to brag to. It was a sincere and sobering insight. Since in most cases our parents are eager to hear all about our success, sharing it with them in great detail, is not even considered bragging. We merely humor our parents, and if unfortunately we don't have any good news to report, it is our duty to think of something, even the smallest accomplishment, to brighten their day. 

But this happy arrangement  tragically ends once our parents are no longer with us. Unfortunately no one else in the world (not even our partners, siblings, best friends, or PhD advisers) is that invested in our success. Those who are close to us at best tolerate our bragging, but in the rest of the world it is regarded as bad form.

Please keep on reading in my Times Of Israel blog
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-ingenious-invention-of-like-or-the-revival-of-bragging/