minorities

Views on various occupations

COVID-19 changed a lot of people’s perceptions as to what types of jobs are essential. Not only doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers are on the front lines, but so are retail clerks, maintenance workers, truck drivers and many others. In this context, it is interesting to think about what occupations, if any, have been promoted or praised in Judaism.

As it turns out, Jewish scholars gave work considerable attention. Talmudic sages advocated for working rather than living off charity. Indeed, this principle provides some food for thought for modern-day Israel, where many ultra-Orthodox do live off charity. According to a January 2020 report by Dr. Lee Cahaner and Dr. Gilad Malach for the Israel Democratic Institute, between the years 2003 and 2018, about 50% of ultra-Orthodox men aged 25-64 and 76% of women in the same age bracket worked.

Scholars had a great deal of respect for labour. The Talmud abhorred idleness and argues that it leads to mental illness and sexual immorality. (See Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ketubot 59b, at jlaw.com/articles/idealoccupa.html.)

“Rabban Gamliel the son of Rabbi Judah HaNasi would say: Beautiful is the study of Torah with the way of the world, for the toil of them both causes sin to be forgotten. Ultimately, all Torah study that is not accompanied with work is destined to cease and to cause sin.” (Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, 2:2). Midrash Rabbah Bereshit (Vayetze chapter) goes even further, saying that practising a craft saved lives.

Yet, the sages believed that being absorbed with making money is not the ideal for an individual. Again referring to the Pirkei Avot (4:10), Rabbi Meir asserted: “Rather limit your business activities and occupy yourself with the Torah instead.”

Historically, teachers were valued – but only to a point. The high priest Joshua ben Gamla (circa the first century CE) issued an opinion that “teachers had to be appointed in each district and every city and that boys of the age of six or seven should be sent.” Where the boy had a father, it was the father’s responsibility to make sure his son had a basic education. Significantly, between the third and the fifth century CE, providing the salary of the Torah and Mishnah teacher became a communal task. Even those without children contributed to the teacher’s wages.

But teachers were not fully trusted. The Mishnah of Tractate Kiddushin 82a teaches that a single man or single woman should not become a teacher. The Gemara explains that the rabbis worried that such a teacher might have an affair with a parent of one of the students.

On torahinmotion.org, Rabbi Jay Kelman contends that the Gemara initially suggests that the Mishnah is afraid that an unmarried teacher might molest his students, but then rejects this explanation, noting that molestation is not something we need to suspect happening. Kelman, however, says, “this is something which no longer can be said with any degree of certainty. What we can say with certainty is such a fear is warranted even with those who are married and that, while rare, when it occurs, the results are devastating and tragic.”

While on the subject of sexual misconduct in certain occupations, here is an idea that might resonate with the #MeToo movement: the Talmud lists certain precarious trades that require men to often be alone with women. For example, a male goldsmith who makes jewelry for women. Talmud scholars were uneasy that such a businessman would be tempted to sin.

Curiously, harsh words were said about doctors. Tractate Kiddushin 82a ends with this statement by Rabbi Yehudah: “The best of physicians deserves Gehenna.” Why do they deserve a damned place? An article on talmudology.com contends that the opinion was based either on the belief that doctors were haughty before G-d or the fact that their treatment sometimes killed the patient.

Even though Israeli citizens highly value their army, Shalom Sabar points out in a Forward video that, in Medieval Haggadot, the “bad son” was portrayed as a soldier. This was because, at the time, non-Jewish soldiers would come to kill Jews.

Sailors, on the other hand, “are mostly pious … with many a ship sinking, sailors were in constant fear causing most to be super honest in the hope that G-d would protect them.” As Kelman summarizes, there really are no atheists in the foxhole.

On myjewishlearning.com, Rabbi Jill Jacobs states that, since Mishnah Zeraim (Seeds) deals solely with agricultural issues, we have proof that Judaism emerged from an agriculturally based community. Yet, in the Torah, farmers get off to a really bad start. Early in Genesis, we learn that Cain was the first farmer. Notwithstanding, G-d refused to accept his offering, accepting only his brother Abel’s. Cain couldn’t accept this rejection. In a jealous rage, Cain killed his brother and hid what he had done. G-d, consequently, reduced Cain to a life of wandering.

At a time when, around the globe, people are learning more about the extreme misconduct of some police officers, it is worth looking further into the Torah to see what Deuteronomy 16:18 and later commentators wrote about the police. Deuteronomy points out that both judges and police should be appointed to govern the people with due justice. Drawing on various Jewish sources, Rabbi Jacobs divides the function of the Deuteronomy-based police into several specific, but integrated parts: the patroling police person who “reminds the public to obey the law”; the roving inspector who ensures fair pricing and compliance with local ordinances; the arresting police officer who, while assuming the person is innocent until judged guilty, nevertheless begins the judgment process by arresting the suspect; the bill collector police officer who extracts payment from the obligated party to give to the aggrieved party; and the police officer who is a leader in his/her community. From Jacob’s assessment on truah.org, it would appear that today’s police have what to improve, especially when it comes to trust-building measures.

Over the centuries, Jewish scholars have taken into account the fallibility of people engaged in certain occupations. With tremendous insight into human behaviour, our sages apparently realized progress is not always in a forward direction. We have a long way to go in (re)establishing the integrity that Jewish scholars outlined for certain professions.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

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The abstract of the article “Jewish Occupational Selection: Education, Restrictions or Minorities?” (The Journal of Economic History 65, no. 4 [2005]), Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein reads: “Before the eighth-ninth centuries CE, most Jews, like the rest of the population, were farmers. With the establishment of the Muslim Empire, almost all Jews entered urban occupations

despite no restrictions prohibiting them from remaining in agriculture. This occupational selection remained their distinctive mark thereafter. Our thesis is that this transition away from agriculture into crafts and trade was the outcome of their widespread literacy, prompted by a religious and educational reform in Judaism in the first and second centuries CE, which gave them a comparative advantage in urban, skilled occupations.”

The full article is available at jstor.org.

– DRF

Safe spaces, diverse voices

Bradley West and Shayna Plaut (photos from conference organizers)

As part of Winnipeg Pride Week in May, local organizers put on the first-ever Queer and Faithful Conference.

A grassroots event created to give voice to LGBTQ2+ people of colour and their experiences with faith and spirituality, the conference featured two panel discussions with opportunity for informal roundtable discussions. The keynote speaker at the May 25-26 conference at Robert A. Steen Community Centre was writer, facilitator and performer Jenna Tenn Yuk. She spoke about exploring identity and the intersections of race, queerness and faith through personal storytelling, spoken word poetry and facilitation; encouraging interfaith conversations around intersectionality, privilege, social location and other aspects; creating safer spaces for LGBTQ2+ people of colour in faith-based environments; and ensuring safe spaces to ask questions and explore the issues as a community.

Bradley West, who has been involved with Winnipeg’s queer community for more than 20 years, and Shayna Plaut, a former Vancouverite who now lives in Winnipeg, were part of the conference’s Jewish panel.

“I think the conference came about because there were people who had been talking about the importance of keeping their faith, while also celebrating their gender and sexual diversity, and there were some people who were finding that to be a little difficult,” West told the Independent.

Explaining that it was an uncomfortable topic for many people in the broader queer community, he said, “In fact, one of the members said, on Saturday, that, ‘because faith rejected us so soundly, we have rejected faith.’ We need to create a safe space where we can come together and have these conversations – where people from the various faith communities and also from the queer community can come together in a mutual space.”

While such conversations have been going on for some time, typically led by faith leaders and queer community organizers, the aim of the recent conference was to offer a more personal approach.

“The organizers wanted to have voices of the people who are more marginalized in our community, because of their skin tone, or religion, or spirituality, or faith,” said West. “They wanted to make sure it wasn’t just centred around white voices; white, Christian voices….. Oftentimes, when we are having conversations about faith in this Canadian landscape, we default to the dominant voice which, in our historical context, is Christian.

“So, they definitely had a lot of Christians who were there and who were involved, but, in terms of the planning and the panel speakers, and in terms of how they wanted people to think, was thinking of how we might be able to create an open dialogue with each other … to be able to, first, honour our own faith journey, but then also to understand the faith journey of others, especially when that faith journey is very different from our own.”

According to conference organizers, 70 to 80 people attended over the two-day period, with attendees coming from Winnipeg, as well as from surrounding areas, such as Morden, Selkirk, Steinbach and Portage La Prairie.

“From what I experienced, everyone … was approaching it with a spirit of reflection,” said West. “They were definitely gently challenged by the speakers to reflect on their own personal participation in terms of do you really believe your faith is the only faith or the true faith … and does that subtly reinforce this idea that those who are different are ‘less than’?”

The speakers, he continued, “were gently challenging people to think about how we interact – not only with the different denominations in our faith, but everyone of Abrahamic faiths, with different strings of denominations, and also those outside of some of the faiths … different groups practising different versions of the larger faith. Sometimes, we have a tendency to think that our journey and our view is the view that is shared by everyone in our faith … and so, there were those gentle reminders to reflect on that. Overall, as a participant, I would say there was a sense of a call to self-reflection, and there wasn’t any resistance in terms of the intent to self-reflect, for sure.”

For West, one thing that struck a chord was that, even though he was in a room full of strangers at the beginning of the event, everyone got to know one another very quickly. “I think it was very much about, yes, we have differences, but we also have commonalities and, as we move forward, we need to look at both … have a bifocal lens in honouring our differences – not minimizing or whitewashing, or asking us to abandon our differences in order to get along … just focusing on our similarities. We’re going to honour that and work together, and look at how we’ll create spaces and places within our own lives. And then maybe, by extension, our own communities will allow more of these dialogues.

“The gathering had the flavour of us coming together and having these conversations, and continuing to do so outside of this space,” he said. “That core that comes from great changers, like [Mahatma] Gandhi, talking about that idea of, if you want to change something, first, change yourself, because, wherever you go, there you are. If you change yourself, you’ll automatically change the spaces you go into, because you are no longer the same person.”

Plaut’s faith has changed over the years. Born into a Chassidic home in the United States, her family decided to follow Conservative Judaism when she was 5.

“The joke I like to say is, I’m queer, I’m Jewish, I’m a mom, I have seven tattoos, 13 earrings, and I keep a modicum of kosher,” said Plaut. “I teach at the University of Winnipeg and work in the field of human rights and journalism.”

When asked to help organize the conference, Plaut jumped at the chance. She took on the role of food coordinator and ensured all the food was vegetarian, so that everyone could eat, regardless of their religious or dietary restrictions. She also took it upon herself to make sure that not only the Abrahamic faiths were represented, but also Hindu or Sikh, by reaching out to some of her students.

“Folks would use their own experiences and explore some of the strengths that they found within their faith and also some of tensions,” said Plaut about the conference. She said that some people feel like they have to choose, in terms of their identities – religious, cultural and sexual – and that the conference encouraged an exploration of various faiths’ strengths and limitations in terms of guiding people, and what it means to find acceptance within a faith.

The conference attracted a range of attendees.

“Many of the folks who came, not all, but a good proportion, may not have identified as being queer themselves,” said Plaut. “Many of them were grandparents, actually, or parents who wanted to know how to better support their children or grandchildren. They wanted to learn.”

While organizers worked hard to share with and connect people, they left it up to the participants whether to exchange their contact information with one another. Some attendees expressed interest in continuing the conversation beyond the conference and organizers are working on determining the next steps. Many of the participants joined the nearly 50,000 marchers at the Winnipeg Pride Parade, which took place June 1.

“It was amazing, our biggest Pride ever in terms of participants in the parade,” said Plaut. “There were over 112 organizations that registered either floats or walking groups.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Love the stranger, the “other”

Chanukah came early this year, and I hope you had a fun one. Now that it’s almost over, it can be a long dark vacation for those of us who do not observe anything on Dec. 25.

I say this because, although my family is clearly in the “Chanukah only” category, I know other families handle this differently. Some families are multifaith and observe several winter holidays. There are even (this was a surprise to me) Modern Orthodox Jewish families who have used Dec. 25 to create an entirely kosher Christmas dinner – because everyone had the same day off of work. Some Jewish people choose to observe aspects of Christian or pagan holidays, and, well, that’s up to them. It’s not the custom in my home, but we’re all lucky to be in a place where we are free to choose our own traditions.

A strange thing happened to me this fall. A friend of a friend put together a “women-owned businesses” shopping guide. It had a hashtag of #ShopWithHer. My work includes writing and editing, which can be hard to advertise. The other part is that I write downloadable knitting patterns. That means knitters, or those who love them, can go online and download a pattern I wrote for the price of a big cup of coffee. It’s not a huge earner, but I have a “woman-owned” business, so I asked to be included.

The emphasis of the guide’s creator was to highlight women and minorities. It was the week after the Pittsburgh massacre, so when I got to that question, I said something like, “I’m Jewish and an immigrant and now a dual-citizen. I moved from the U.S. to Canada.”

Why did I mention being Jewish? Jews are a minority in North America. While it has been popular in recent years to downplay any issues of our minority status, the truth is that there are still challenges to being Jewish here. For instance, violence like in Pittsburgh – and the assumption that, if we want to pray in peace, we should be hiring armed security.

If we just go back in history a little ways, we should think about quotas at universities, country clubs and other organizations that didn’t admit Jews at all. There were countless other places with no formal policy, but where folks made sure that we knew we didn’t belong.

For those who think that’s all in the past, I can say sarcastically, sure it is – my father’s university (Duke) had quotas when he attended it. The Women’s Junior League in Virginia did not accept “our kind” when I was a kid. The issue of “anti-Jewish” or antisemitic discrimination is not new, nor is it going away. The recent rise of hate crimes is well-documented in the news. Some American universities and colleges are canceling study-abroad programs to Israel, or their faculty members refuse to write letters of recommendation to Israeli study-abroad programs. I get e-newsletters from JTA and other Jewish organizations – and the news is clear.

When the #ShopWithHer guide came out, I was excited – and then shocked – to see my entry. Where other minorities were labeled “WOC” for “Woman of Colour” or “LGBT” or “Disabled,” mine read “Immigrant, Other.”

I’m proud of being Jewish and it’s not a part of my identity that I hide. I shouldn’t need to feel ashamed of it. I’m also well aware of our minority status, particularly when we’re surrounded by a holiday that celebrates the birth of another religion’s messiah. However, I didn’t include my business in this guide so I could be made “other” all over again. Why was I labeled “other”? Was it an attempt to protect me from hate? Or do I belong to a category that the guide’s creator didn’t feel was valid?

“Othering” isn’t my invention – if you’ve taken social science, religious or cultural studies, philosophy, history or other humanities classes at a university, you’ve likely heard of it. There are academic conferences and teacher in-services on the topic. A simple definition? It’s the action of deciding someone else is different or alien to you, “not one of us.” It’s a very primitive tribalism that helps people survive in adverse conditions. Some theorists think it references early human civilization, and others think it comes from times of war, famine and other natural disasters.

You can read about the “in group” of the Israelites and “others” in the Torah. There’s a lot of tribalism at work in some of our most common stories of identity. At the same time, we’re reminded, “You should love the stranger,” for “We were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

That’s right, Jewish tradition teaches us to love the “other.” In the face of increased hate crimes, discrimination and erasure, it can be hard work to keep reaching out and loving others. Perhaps it is ignorance that allows our identities to be ignored or disregarded; I’d like to think that, because the alternatives aren’t nearly as harmless.

It feels awful to have one’s own religious tradition erased. This time of year, it happens a lot. We’re faced with holiday greetings, music, customs, lights and foods that aren’t ours. When Chanukah is long over, it also feels ridiculous to wish someone or thank someone for a “Happy Chanukah,” even though it’s well-intentioned.

I’m still struggling with what to say to this shopping guide’s organizers. Saying nothing is an option, as is trying to engage in a dialogue. Maybe it’s enough to send along a copy of this column. There are so many ways to divide and diminish others, rather than celebrating and boosting our identities and differences. Chanukah is a holiday that, unmistakably and militantly, celebrates religious freedom. Perhaps it’s time for us to be our own modern version of Judah Maccabee, strong in the face of dangerous discrimination, but also trying to embrace the Jewish notion of loving the stranger rather than “othering” her.

Joanne Seiff writes regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. See more about her at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.