This week’s homepage features a “Back to Hebrew School” special, with an article on how to choose the best school for you children. But nationally, many parents are avoiding that decision. A new study, commissioned by the Avi Chai Foundation, finds that more and more Conservative and Reform Jewish parents are opting out of giving their children a religious education, due to rising costs and apathy.

The study, carried out by Jack Wertheimer, found that “85% of children who are enrolled in grade six have left by grade 12. He speculates that many parents are content to withdraw their child after that child receives a bar or bat mitzvah education.” (MORE)

This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone at all familiar with the world of Hebrew schools. But the study is the largest census of Jewish religious schools, including data on what it claims to be “up to 90% of the nation’s total,” and should help inform the growing number of funders and organizations addressing the seemingly age-old problem of fixing Hebrew school.

A substantial look at how the ailing economy means that donations to social action agencies are down as demands are up. (Jewish Journal)

Is it OK to provide money for those who kill? (Jerusalem Post)

A look at how Israelis cope with rising fuel prices, with gas prices now more than $8 per gallon. (Jewish Week)

Our newest batch of articles includes an essay of mine on Franz Kafka, a Prague writer from the turn of the previous century who’s probably sparked more speculation, mystery, and drama than almost any other recent author. I read somewhere doing my research that academics have done more analysis-per-word of Kafka’s oeuvre than any other author, ever (but I have no idea where. Surely, Shakespeare and the Bible would both beat him out?).

Regardless of verbiage, Kafka has sparked more creative–or, at least, innovative–critique than any writer I can think of. The artist Star St. Germain, who I admire immensely, recently did this portrait of Kafka for Weird Tales:

I’d say that Kafka is going through a renaissance right now, but it always seems like he’s going through a renaissance.

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From our friends at Jbooks. The Daily Show’s resident Brit John Oliver sounds off on apocalyptic literature. Eschatology and comedy: together at last.

As if Agriprocessors/Rubashkin’s isn’t keeping PETA’s hands full enough, Italian animal activists, citing Pope Benedict’s well-known love of cats, are calling on the pontiff to stop wearing fur in his official ceremonial raiment.

   

This is eerily reminiscent of a series of incidents earlier this summer in Jerusalem, where legions of Viznitz Hasidim are snatching each other’s streimels–the fur hats that married Hasidic men often wear–and holding them hostage. YNet writes, “In recent weeks, the brawls between the camps have intensified, with both sides snatching each other’s shtreimels. During the peacemaking, each camp returns the other’s goods stolen in the last strife.”

Ironically, all of this fighting and petitioning is happening in the summertime. Not that that means a thing when dealing with religious rituals….

This post on Jewschool got me thinking. It’s a pretty common story in our days: a Jewish teenager’s grandfather died, and:

he was rushed with his family to Florida for a quick funeral and subsequent shiva period. When it was time for mincha and maariv respectfully, no one volunteered to lead because no one knew how. There was not one skilled individual who was able to recite Kaddish Yatom (Mourner’s Kaddish).

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As you might have guessed, I’m a bit obsessed with the Olympics. They provide for hours of fun and excitement watching the competitions. But for me, they also bring about some serious questions.

A good number of Jewish news sources, most notably JTA, are following the medal counts of Jews and the Israeli team. I’ve seen friends on my Facebook minifeed join groups like “I’m Jewish and I’m supporting Israel at the Beijing Olympics.”

But frankly, I couldn’t care less if the winners of any medals are Jewish or not. Because I’m too busy rooting for the Americans.

Though I’m not an overtly or overly patriotic person, there is something that comes alive in me during the Games. Perhaps I associate the Olympics with Judaism because I get a great sense of peoplehood–something that so many of us seek in Judaism and come up disappointed.

I can’t possibly explain all of this excitement with my love of sports. After all, I don’t follow water polo, handball or canoing outside of the Games. But I spend hours watching, cheering, jumping, and screaming every two years.

Take for example Monday’s nights US victory in the men’s 4 x 100 Free Relay. They weren’t supposed to win. The French were favored. And until the last leg of the relay it looked they would win. But then Jason Lezak, came from behind, in what I still think should be physically impossible, to inch past the French:

With 25 meters remaining Lezak trailed Bernard by a half a body length. Bernard, who came into the race as the world-record holder in the 100 freestyle, over-swam the first 50, as Lezak had four years earlier, and tensed up in the final meters. Lezak hit the wall in stride, without any glide.

It was the perfect finish, and it was rewarded with a very precious medal. The Americans trimmed nearly four seconds off the world record that had been set the previous night to defeat the French by 0.08 of a second.(MORE)

I hooted and hollered, ran around the house cheering. I watched the medal ceremony with pride.

It only hit me much later that both Lezak and fellow relay teammate Garrett Weber-Gale are were both Jewish. And it didn’t make the slightest difference to me. I’m following the Olympics Jewishly for the ways that Judaism sneaks in. But I don’t cheer any harder for the Jewish athletes and certainly not the Israeli ones.

Were Judaism to come up with a way to harness this power of peoplehood and pride that comes out during the Olympics, could we solve our continuity issues?

I’m not sure, but I think there is a lesson to be learned here.

And,

Go USA!

Ari Alexander guest blogged from the World Conference on Dialogue in Madrid, organized by the Muslim World League under the patronage of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

Rabbi Alan Brill gives his take on Madrid, starting with going on Saudi TV and explaining that no, Rabbi isn’t his first name.

But Isi Leibler says that “being hosted by King Abdullah had such an intoxicating impact on some Jewish participants that they lost their bearings and indulged in excessive praise of their host that degenerated into groveling.”

Tanya Cariina Hsu disagrees, seeing Leibler as propagating “myths regarding the kingdom of Saudi Arabia” and says “a conference wherein Shas rabbis sat down with Hamas leaders and openly spoke their minds, now that would be progress.”

Rabbi David Rosen makes the case that the recent Madrid event was “Not just another interfaith parley”.

Walter Ruby sees Muslim World League Secretary-General Abdullah Al-Turki’s statement “We hold Judaism as a religion in the highest regard” at the recent Spain interfaith parlay as bucking the Wahabi establishment.

Score one (more) for budding innovative technologies in Israel: at Beit Ha’iver, the Center of the Blind, in Herzliya, a photography teacher conducts a class for visually impaired students.

According to Chueh Lee, the designer of the camera:

“The instructor found the visually impaired have no problems estimating distances, since their sense of hearing is especially sharp. Every rustle of wind in the trees catches their attention and can be used to judge distances. Other senses come into play as well. The heat of the sun or a lamp in a living room, for example, signals a direct source of light. They regularly use their non-visual senses to feel the world and manifest it into a mental photograph.”

Whether blind people are required (or eligible) to say the blessing “Thank You, God…for giving me eyes to see with” is a matter of debate. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the preeminent sage of our generation, held that not only should they say the blessing, but that blind people can be called up for an aliyah (others hold that the blesser has to actually be able to see the words of the Torah) and (I don’t even know why this was up for debate, but) seeing-eye dogs are allowed on the bimah. (Thanks, Jason!)

(via psfk.com)

A New Jersey Conservative synagogue finds that instrumental music draws crowds for a Friday night service. (NJ Jewish News)

Five synagogues of four different denominations in White Plains, NY band together to help Kibbutz Bet Yisrael, one of Israel’s urban kibbutzim, and other “smaller organizations and programs that might not be on the radar for traditional Jewish philanthropy”. (The Jewish Week)

Faith Steinsnyder “is, in her own quiet way, dramatically changing 21st-century perceptions of American women in the cantorate.” Here’s a look at how she has done this. (Forward)

Fuel surcharges and other tactics spread to synagogues as a means of coping. (The Jewish Week)

A look at how, and why the separation of women from men became normative in Orthodoxy, and served to separate Orthodox from non-Orthodox. (The Jerusalem Post)