In the Moment

Last week, Moment published interviews with two graduates of Yeshivat Maharat, the first school to train Orthodox female clergy. Today, Moment speaks with fellow classmate Rori Picker Neiss. Neiss who is currently finishing her final year at Yeshivat Maharat was recently hired as the Director of Programming, Education, and Community Engagement at Bais Abraham Congregation, an Orthodox Synagogue in St Louis.

How did you become involved in Yeshivat Maharat?

I had been working in interfaith organizations and doing lot in terms of building bridges between religious communities. I realized that all the people I was working with were clergy members and thought about what that meant for me—when will I hit my glass ceiling? Also, as I was meeting other people from different faiths or communities, I realized I wanted the skills to delve deeply into my own texts.

Did you always see yourself taking on a pastoral role?

When I first started I was not sure if this was just going to be a conduit for me to go back into interfaith stuff, but I quickly discovered my passion in the Jewish community. It never occurred to me that taking a leadership position could be an option. Where I grew up, women didn’t have religious leadership positions. Of course there were female Judaic studies teachers, but most of their legitimacy came from being married to a rabbi.

What was your family’s reaction when you said you were enrolling?

I am not sure my family understood what I was getting myself into. My parents knew of Avi Weiss from all of the work he had done for Soviet Jewry in the 1980s and had respect for him. Along the way my parents have learned more about the program and they are very supportive. I have three brothers who learn in kollel in Jerusalem, Lakewood and the Five Towns. We mostly just don’t talk about it. It’s like a don’t ask don’t tell type of situation.

Do you consider yourself a feminist?

I do consider myself to be a feminist. But I also recognize the word itself has become incredibly loaded. I don’t see myself as particularly “progressive” or “liberal” but recognize that in the broader community I’m considered that way because of what I’m doing. It’s a funny experience that other people see that my passion to study more and help people in their own Jewish life as too liberal or progressive and “less religious.”

Do you identify with the Open Orthodoxy movement espoused by Rabbi Avi Weiss?

I never grew up sub-qualifying my religious identity and it’s not something I feel the need to start doing now. I understand if it is a helpful term for people looking to be more inclusive on the role of women or issues surrounding homosexuality or other difficult conversations. But I don’t see the need to label myself in that way.

What do you think is the biggest issue facing Modern Orthodoxy today?

Modern Orthodoxy prides itself on being a movement that is firmly committed to halakha, but believes that halakha does not prevent us from living and functioning in the broader society. And I believe strongly that for the Torah and halakha to be true, it must be true in all times and all places—and not just when you remove yourself from society. But we have to be careful that in the push to bring halakha into society and society into halakha, we don’t give up the halakha or give up ourselves. Because if we just make the halakha fit whatever we want it to say, we risk losing it all.

What will be your role at Bais Abraham Congregation in St. Louis?

The official title is Director of Programing, Education and Community Engagement. In a certain sense the title is just a description of what a Maharat does. It’s hard to say I’m a Maharat because people don’t know what that means. But hopefully, through my work, people will learn to recognize the title “Maharat.”

What was the reaction of the community when you were hired in a pastoral capacity? I know there was discussion in the broader community.

Some people are excited, some people are confused, maybe some are a little resistant. Once I get there and get a chance to start doing the work, I hope people will understand more what this is all about. Things are always scarier and more confusing in the abstract.

You have two children—one a newborn. How do you balance your professional and home life?

It’s a challenge. I had both of my kids while in school, and have been the only on-site, full-time student with children while some other students have been connecting remotely or only attend part-time. My husband has been incredibly supportive both emotionally and mentally, and willing to take on a lot. There have been months where I missed a lot of bedtimes, and at one point I did need to step back and, with my husband, evaluate the path I was on. But the school is very supportive in that they recognize times when I say, “I can’t stay late tonight” or “I need to bring in my kids today.”

How do you think this will change once you become a full time clergy member in St. Louis?

I’m actually very optimistic. Now I live in Brooklyn and travel to the Upper West Side to study or teach. Living in the community itself might be easier because I don’t have to worry about the commute. Something my husband and I talk a lot about is how to balance our family life and work life. I might not always be able to have dinner with my kids but I’ll try to always be able to have breakfast. It may mean that we don’t have a typical schedule and typical practices, but that is okay. This is the life we want.

Behold, the Jewish father: an oft-forgotten figure, generally second fiddle to the much-discussed Jewish mother. Though pop culture tends to be focused on the matriarchs of the Jewish family, a few notable fathers have broken through. Here are a few of our favorites:

1. Ari Gold–Jeremy Piven (Entourage)

The wheeling-and-dealing Hollywood agent who loses his temper at everyone except his children.

Likes: Swearing, hugging it out, heated phone calls.

Dislikes: Adam Davies, Amanda Daniels, losing a deal.

Famous for: Making Vinnie Chase a Hollywood legend, despite the numerous setbacks. “LOYLD!”

2. Bernie Focker–Dustin Hoffman (Meet the Fockers/Meet the Little Fockers)

The attorney turned stay-at-home dad who lavishes praise upon his son and saves his every participation trophy

Likes: His son’s accomplishments, positive reinforcement, his wife Roz.

Dislikes: Negativity, his in-laws’ parenting methods.

Famous for: Being a proud dad, sexual innuendos.

3. Guido Orefice–Roberto Benigni (Life is Beautiful)

The Italian bookshop owner, who must shield his son at all costs from the horrors of the Holocaust.

Likes: Making people happy, his family.

Dislikes: Nazis and other Fascists.

Famous for: Creating an elaborate game out of surviving Bergen-Belsen that allows his son to make it through the war.

4. Jack Geller–Elliot Gould (Friends)

Father of series stars, Ross and Monica Geller, and father in-law to Chandler.

Likes: His kids (but mostly Ross), his wife Judy.

Dislikes: Chandler (initially).

Famous for: Putting everyone in awkward situations. Making embarrassing comments, but making up for them with the phrase “I’m just saying…”

5. Jim’s Dad–Eugene Levy (American Pie Series)

Jim’s good natured, and well-intentioned dad, who has absolutely terrible timing.

Likes: Trying to help Jim navigate through life, love, marriage and sex.

Dislikes: Teenagers making poor, uninformed decisions. He probably can’t eat pie anymore, either.

Famous for: Embarrassing his son, giving good advice, walking in at the absolute wrong moment.

6. Julius Levinson–Judd Hirsch (Independence Day)

The grouchy father of super-genius David (Jeff Goldblum) who embarks on an adventure to save the earth from an invading alien force.

Likes: His son, Judaism, complaining.

Dislikes: Looking like a schlemiel in front of the President of the United States, aliens, the fact that his son went to MIT to become a “cable repairman.”

Famous for: Pulling out the old siddur and yarmulke to pray for his son to return home safely from alien fighting, shepping nachas for his son while simultaneously berating him.

7. Larry Gopnik–Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man)

Physics professor besieged by bad luck: an adulterous wife, a pot-smoking son, and a blackmailing student, for starters. In search of wisdom from the legendary but elusive Rabbi Marshak.

Likes: Schroedinger’s cat, the foxy next-door neighbor, his son’s bar mitzvah.

Dislikes: Sy Ableman, Santana Abraxas, his brother’s unannounced visits.

Famous for: Being wholly unfortunate.

8. Magneto (Erik Lehnsherr)–Michael Fassbender and Ian McKellen (X-Men Series)

The mutant supervillain, and archrival of the X-Men; father of the heroes Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.

Likes: Mutants, metal, elaborate lairs.

Dislikes: Humanity, the X-Men, Nazis.

Famous for: Having the ability to manipulate metal, trying to take over the world every so often, running his own country.

9. Sandy Cohen–Peter Gallagher (The OC)

The ethical center of the television series about privileged teens in California.

Likes: Helping people out, the law. 

Dislikes: People who take advantage of others.

Famous for: Taking in the troubled Ryan Atwood, being a good father to his children.

10. Tevye–Chaim Topol (Fiddler on the Roof)

The dairyman trying—with varying degrees of success—to marry off his daughters to suitable candidates.

Likes: His daughters, raucous celebrations, tradition.

Dislikes: Intermarriage, assimilation, Lazar Wolf.

Famous for: Shoulder-shaking, wishing he were a rich man.

This summer’s Man of Steel, opening June 14th, marks the return of Krypton’s Last Son to American cinemas. Above all the fanfare, a question remains: Do Superman and his Jewish roots still have relevance to today’s American Jews?

The superhero’s origin story is fairly well known: Born Kal-El on the soon-to-be-destroyed planet Krypton, Superman is sent in a ship down the canals of space to Earth by his parents; a kindly Smallville couple, Jonathan and Martha Kent, pick up baby Kal-El and adopt him as their own upon his arrival to this planet, renaming him Clark. On Earth, Kal-El (which means vessel or voice of God in Hebrew), leads a double life as a mild-mannered journalist, using his powers to save the people of Earth, his secret identity preventing anyone from realizing who he truly is.

The story may sound familiar to the Sunday school set, as an allegory for the story of Moses, who was sent away from his home in order to be saved, brought up in a strange land, then become a savior to a group of people he calls his own. Jerry Siegel and Joel Schuster created Superman in 1938, at a time when Jews were still viewed as “others” in the United States, and many immigrant families were having first-generation American children, like Siegel and Schuster. Superman disguised his identity by wearing glasses and acting like a nebbish in order to blend in, just as many Jews took on different names or changed aspects of their lives in order to suitably assimilate into American society. Superman also seems to be partially based on the Golem, the mythical creature created by the Maharal of Prague in order to defend the city’s Jews whenever they came under threat. Similarly, when Superman hears the cry of the imperiled, he rips his shirt open to reveal the shield-encrusted S, which everyone knows and trusts.  

Jews, much like Superman, spent much of the early- and mid-20th century forging a new identity in America. From a purely observational standpoint, they have been successful. Jews can legally apply for any job, are allowed to take unpunished leave for holidays, and celebrate their practices and history on main streets, even the National Mall. These are not the Jews who shared Superman’s duality, Jews who hearkened back to the 1800s Hebrew poet and revivalist YL Gordon’s phrase: “a man in the street, and a Jew at home.” Instead, many contemporary Jews publicly balance the religious and secular worlds.

The Jewish immigrant story has not ended, but is in a new chapter. Recent Superman works, such as this summer’s film, directed by Zack Snyder, and the graphic novel Superman: Birthright, by Mark Waid, have explored Superman’s initial hostile reception after first appearing in the skies of Metropolis. Rather than being welcomed as a hero, Superman is treated with hostility and suspicion; the military even attacks due to fear of a possible alien invasion. Superman has to prove himself a hero, and cannot simply put on the tights and claim to be one. Once Superman has accomplished this, and dedicates his values of “truth, justice, and the American way,” he is welcomed and celebrated for his work and contributions to the world, his unraveling path akin to that of the Jews in America.

Prejudice is not gone from this world. One does not have to go far to find a story of a Jew attacked for being just that, a Jew. Superman revealed his identity to Lois Lane and a few others, but it took a long time. There are many to whom Superman cannot reveal himself, to protect those he loves. We, in Superman’s shoes, have revealed ourselves to Lois (the United States), and a few choice others, but continue to lead subtle existences elsewhere. We, the children of Abraham, are still brothers with the Last Son of Krypton in that sense of still needing to balance our identity against those who might wish to harm us.

Larry Tye, author of the recent Man of Steel biography, Superman: The High-Flying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero, wrote in an email to Moment:

“It’s not just Superman’s creators and publishers who were Jewish. The Man of Steel was, too…it is a big deal in a world where Jewish kids like Jerry still dream that someday the world will see them for the superheroes they really are.”

The Jewish calendar is structured on lunar activity. Every time there is a new moon, a Hebrew month begins. We read in Exdous that God told Moses: “Ha’hodesh hazeh lachem rosh hodashim rishon hu lachem l’hodshei ha’shanah.” “This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.” This statement–that the Jewish people must mark the months–is counted as the first mitzvah that the Israelites received on their way out of Egypt. Rosh Hodesh happens every month, and in modern times, often with little note. But, traditionally, the determination of the first observation of the monthly new moon is the key action by which we live and act as Jews. Before the establishment of settled, printed calendars, it was the diverse voices of Jewish witnesses that set our Jewish calendar, without which we could not have set dates for any of the Jewish holidays. Witnesses traveled to Jerusalem from near and far to testify about having sighted the new moon. The date of every single Jewish holiday, and thus our celebrations and sacred markings of time, can only be determined by reference to the dates of the new moon.

The Mishnah vividly describes to us the importance of the diverse voices testifying about the new moon. Rosh Hodesh is the ultimate occasion of coming together in unity from all of our separate places–even violating Shabbat to testify about the first sighting of the new moon. Even those who could not travel by foot: “They may bring him by donkey [even on Shabbat] and if necessary even [carry him on Shabbat] in a bed…Because for a night and a day they may desecrate the Shabbat and go forth to testify about the new moon.”  (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 22a). Everyone’s voices are what makes Rosh Hodesh Rosh Hodesh.

And even today, we gather together as one Jewish people to celebrate Rosh Hodesh. For almost the last 25 years, every month, a women’s group called Women of the Wall has been celebrating Rosh Hodesh at the women’s section of the Kotel in Jerusalem, seeking to connect with our ancient traditions and God’s presence. Recently, there have been many arrests and much discord and violence, arising from Haredi objections to the women davening out loud, wearing tallit or tefillin, or reading from a sefer Torah.

As we consider the Torah reading for this week, Korach, coinciding on Shabbat and also Sunday with Rosh Hodesh Tammuz and the present situation of disharmony and violence at the Kotel, who among us doesn’t feel a little shiver down the spine? Korach and his family and his possessions, all swallowed up by the Earth in a demonstration of God’s power in rejecting their challenge to Moshe’s leadership. In our modern day, who is Korach and who is Moshe?

Korach confronted or stood up to the established leadership of the Israelites, saying that all Israel is holy–and literally was struck down by God for doing this. Did God reject a populist democracy? And who would dare challenge religious leadership or want to follow in his footstep after this?

Or was Korach’s sin an attempt to bring about anarchy and the disruption and elimination of ongoing religious ritual, by challenging not just Aaron, the Kohen Gadol/High Priest, but also all of the priests and the whole structure of religious, sacrificial worship to God? What was Korach’s vision if he had survived to carry it forward? In modern terms, was Korach a democrat or a fascist?

In considering this question a number of years ago, Rabbi Elliot Dorff posed two possible responses. Perhaps Korach was not wrong in seeking a democratic structure for the Israelites, but his timing was wrong. Too many challenges and crises, in a society not ready or able to cast aside strong leadership. Or maybe, Korach’s challenge to the leadership was that of an anarchist, seeking to undo the rule of law, which would leave the people on their own in the wilderness, facing attacks from hostile surrounding nations.

In the end, the elliptical text does not allow us to determine with certainty what was truly dangerous about Korach’s position. And that, I think, is exactly the point.

It would be so tempting to say: “I have the answer–my position is like that of Moshe, not Korach, and I will seek to bring God to strike down everyone who doesn’t see it my way.” With a narrative this rife with this ambiguity, however, none of us can honestly say that.

Let us also remember the alternative to Korach. The challenge was not only to Moshe, but also to the High Priest, Aaron.  Presumably, had he survived and succeeded, Korach’s regime would have replaced Aaron. With all of Aaron’s errors and sins–silence in the face of his own sons being struck down by God, collaborating with the Israelites to build the Golden Calf–how is he seen in our tradition? “Moshe used to say ‘Let the law pierce the mountain.’ But Aaron loved peace, pursued peace and made peace between people, as is said: ‘The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips; he walked with Me in peace and uprightness and did turn many away from iniquity.’” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 6b, quoting Malachi 2:6.)

From the ambiguity of the narrative and the survival and triumph of Moshe and Aaron over Korach, perhaps we can learn that shalom and shleimut–peace and wholeness–are what we must always strive for, even and especially, in the most challenging times. So for our challenging times, this year, in thinking about the challenges facing our Jewish people, especially on this Rosh Hodesh Tammuz at the Kotel, we offer this prayer for shleimut and izun, wholeness and balance.

Iris Richman is a Conservative rabbi, urging tolerance, pluralism and inclusion for all Jews in the U.S. and in Israel. To learn more about religious tolerance or to get involved, visit http://womenofthewall.org.il/category/divrei-torah/ or email JewishVoicesTogether@gmail.com.

You probably already know that 17th-century Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza was radical for his time—from his notorious excommunication from the Amsterdam Jewish community at age 23 to his proclamation of “the end of Jewish politics,” in his 1677 Theological-Political Treatise, which was written in Latin rather than vernacular Dutch to avoid censorship by Dutch authorities. But University of Chicago political scientist Julie Cooper recently extended Spinoza’s rebel status into the present, defending the radical implications of his thought for Jewish identity and politics today at a lecture held earlier this month at the University of Chicago.

Spinoza remains, to this day, one of the most radical thinkers in Western philosophy and political theory. Condemning the religious superstition and government censorship of his time, Spinoza issued one of the earliest philosophical calls for complete freedom of thought and escape from medieval tradition in a move toward liberal society. Even in his native Amsterdam—one of the most prosperous, enlightened and cosmopolitan cities in the world at the time—Spinoza was excommunicated from the Jewish community for “holding evil opinions.” Yet, in her talk, Cooper explained that it was actually relatively easy and common to repent and be readmitted to Jewish society. But Spinoza never even tried, nor did he convert to another religion. He was, as was almost unheard of in his day, a man free from religious and political association—a rebel.

In her talk, Cooper characterized Spinoza as the “theoretical harbinger of modern alternatives to rabbinic authority,” who first proposed the two models of Jewish political organization still dominant today: 1) equal citizenship for Jews in secular democracy and 2) a Jewish state. But Spinoza’s radical argument is that neither of these options—the only options Jews have today—allows for “Jewish politics,” which Spinoza deemed defunct.

But what would Jewish politics then look like? In the 17th century, most Jews in Western Europe lived in semi-autonomous Jewish quarters, which featured their own courts and leaders, and collected their own taxes—all in accordance with rabbinic law. This theocratic governance is, for Spinoza, the only kind of authentically “Jewish” politics, in that it maintains a Jew’s status, qua Jew, as a political agent (which is lost in secular democracy in which he is equal to all others) and maintains rabbinic law (which he argues is lost under Jewish nationhood).

Spinoza’s radical conclusion in the Treatise comes fundamentally from his reading of the Bible as a historical document, which he thought should be analyzed more like a natural artifact than a sacred message given at Sinai. By this interpretation, he saw the Bible’s accounts on proper Jewish law and political history as historically relative—nothing more than the opinions held by its Jewish authors in the biblical era and no longer obligated or applicable to Jews living in later times. Spinoza thus concludes (much like 20th-century figures like Emmanuel Levinas) that the only binding Jewish obligations are those of morality and reason, while all other political and religious laws lose their legitimacy. In proclaiming rabbinic law non-binding, Spinoza essentially wiped out the need for a rabbinic class of rabbis and judges, since his view allowed individuals to make moral and legal decisions for themselves.

While Spinoza praised Jewish leaders like Moses, he did so not for their status as religious figures, but out of respect for their political abilities. By Spinoza’s reading, Moses masterfully used religion as a means of uniting the Israelites, then largely an uneducated class having been enslaved in Egypt, by appealing to their sense of wonder and organizing them around devotion to God, rather than fear of punishment. And so while figures like Maimonides praised Moses for his philosophical insight, Spinoza saw him primarily as an inspirational figure for Jewish politics. Similarly, Spinoza identified the Jewish people as “chosen” not in a metaphysical sense, but only insofar as they were politically successful. After the diaspora, this chosenness abated, though Spinoza envisioned the restoration of the Jewish state which would constitute its return.

Cooper noted that early Zionists held rallies at Hebrew University in honor of Spinoza—even going so far as to call him the first Zionist. But the implications of Spinoza’s writings for Jewish nationhood are mixed. While the return of Jews to political autonomy in a sense constituted a return to chosenness, Spinoza, ever wary of belief in the supernatural, made clear that the re-establishment of the Jewish state would have to be an entirely practical endeavor of human political and military means—thus making the state of Israel a nation just like any other and subject to the same political forces and moral laws. In this respect, Israel is only a Zionist state, not a Jewish one.

Ultimately, Spinoza’s preferred option was Jewish assimilation into liberal democracy, for several reasons. First, he felt that Jewish self-imposed isolation provoked anti-Semitism and was ultimately self-defeating. Second, he had almost an unshakable Enlightenment-era hope that, under conditions of free speech, democracy and philosophy are mutually reinforcing and the most stable and natural form of organization for human beings. He envisioned liberal democracies like Amsterdam allowing Jews a safe space on account of its freedom of speech and religious expression. Furthermore, its egalitarian political representation also allowed Jews to participate in society as equal citizens. Yet, despite its benefits, assimilation also spelled the end of Jewish politics.

Spinoza’s conclusions constituted in his day a “take your pick” option between democracy and Jewish politics that still holds true today. Alas, the vexed question of whether a Jewish polity can be both Jewish and democratic is older than you thought.

This post originally appeared on http://juchicago.tumblr.com.

Naomi Schaefer Riley, a former Wall Street Journal editor and writer, is the author most recently of ‘Til Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriage Is Transforming America. She also is the author of God on the Quad and The Faculty Lounges, and the co-editor of Acculturated. She lives in the New York suburbs.

Q: What inspired you to write ‘Til Faith Do Us Part?

A: I’ve been a religion reporter for 15 years now. I was very familiar, from growing up [Jewish], with Jewish questions about intermarriage, but I was surprised in doing my research that other religious communities were facing—not as head-on—the same questions about intermarriage. Not necessarily demographic questions, but finding that interfaith marriages were more common. Religious leaders are facing questions about how to counsel [the interfaith couples] and [whether to] perform [interfaith marriages].

Q: How did you pick the title? Was there an assumption that faith would part these couples?

A: In my book research that I did, and the survey I did, I found that interfaith couples had a lower rate of [marital] satisfaction in certain [interfaith] combinations, and were more likely to divorce.

Q: Did these results surprise you?

A: No, other surveys, such as the American Religious Identification Survey, had come to similar conclusions. There’s a higher likelihood of divorce with interfaith couples. Marriage counselors and others would say that the further apart a couple is on any number of measures, the larger the [possibility] that they will experience tension.

Q: How did your own interfaith marriage affect your writing of the book?

A: I’m in a faith/no-faith marriage, so there is not actually another set of religious beliefs [involved]. I would say that it affected the way I understood these questions before I started writing the book. A lot of people entering interfaith marriages assume, Well, we’ll have a conversation about raising the kids, and one person will ‘win.’ Being in an interfaith marriage made me realize how long-term that conversation is, even if you stick to the same conclusion.

Q: How did you conduct the survey for the book?

A: The survey was done by YouGov, a large polling firm. I developed about 100 questions for the survey that reflected the ways that other survey questions were worded, so we could do comparisons. 2,500 people took the survey. They have algorithms to make the results nationally representative. Then we analyzed the results.

Q: What surprised you the most in the course of your research, both in terms of the survey results and the interviews you conducted?

A: With the survey, there were two things. First, that more than half the respondents in interfaith marriages didn’t talk about the faith they would raise their children in before marriage. And of the same-faith couples, one-fourth started as interfaith. There’s quite a bit of conversion going on. It tells you about the fluidity of American religion and the [importance] of a spouse’s beliefs.

From talking to people, it was how much people were willing to share about the tensions in their marriage. Even if they didn’t regret marrying the other person, it was OK to tell me about the sadness and loneliness they felt.

Q: What do you think will happen in future in terms of interfaith marriages, and what impact will this have?

A: Interfaith marriages will continue to catalyze the longstanding American religious tradition of tolerance, and assimilation. As people get to know people of other faiths, they like them better, and are more likely to marry them. … I don’t really see an end to it.

We will continue to [see] challenges to American religious institutions, and it will continue to cause difficulties for some marriages. [It’s important] to have these conversations more ahead of time about what you expect from your religious life as a couple and a family.

Q: What message do you want people to take from your book?

A: It’s not a self-help book, but if you’re talking about people considering interfaith marriage, having more of these conversations ahead of time. You only fill out 500-question [premarital] surveys once someone has already proposed to someone else. It seems very late in the game.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m finishing a manuscript about young adults and religion, [examining] the question of how religious institutions and leaders are concerned about losing the 20- and 30-somethings. I’ve gone around the country looking at how more successful institutions [keep people] in the fold.

This interview was conducted in partnership with Deborah Kalb. For more, visit http://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com.

Norman Gelb is the author of many works of history, including The Berlin Wall, Less Than Glory, Desperate Venture, and Kings of the Jews. His most recent book is Herod the Great: Statesman, Visionary, Tyrant. Born in New York, Gelb has spent many years in Europe, as a correspondent for the Mutual Broadcasting System in Berlin and London, and as U.K. correspondent for The New Leader magazine. He lives in London.

Q: Why did you decide to write a biography of Herod the Great?

A: Herod was the subject of one of the chapters in my previous book, on the lives and times of the kings and reigning queens of ancient Israel. While researching that chapter, I came to appreciate how inaccurate was the prevailing popular image of this Jewish Arab ruler of the ancient kingdom of Judaea.

He has long been commonly portrayed as a creature of unmitigated malevolence though the evidence shows there was more to him than that. I felt the record of his horrific misdeeds and shortcomings should be weighed at greater length against his substantial positive achievements. Hence the book, which is meant to draw a more balanced picture of this extraordinary figure.

Q: As you write in the book, “This study is meant not only to tell the story of Herod but also to modify the persisting one-dimensional negative image of a monarch who, despite his failings, was a constructive and fascinating historical figure.”  How would you characterize his role in history?

A: Rulers in Herod’s day commonly ruled their subjects in ways that today are considered barbaric, but Herod’s faults were egregious even by standards existing then.  He allowed himself to be named king of the Jews by Rome to replace a popular king descended from the Maccabees. Challenged for supremacy in the Middle East by incursions from what is now Iran, the Romans insisted on a reliable figure loyal to them to administer Judaea, which then was the strategically positioned land-bridge between Asia and Africa.

Named king, Herod helped Roman legions bloodily conquer Jerusalem so he could mount the throne there in place of his predecessor. He then transformed Judaea into a draconian police state, murderously crushing all dissent to sustain his long reign despite the hostility of most of his subjects. In addition to being revolted by his brutal rule, they considered him at best a “half-Jew” and a Roman toady who catered excessively to non-Jews in his realm.

He executed members of the Sanhedrin supreme religious council whose loyalty he doubted. His homicidal insecurity and vindictiveness ultimately grew so extreme that he commanded that his soldiers be ordered to slaughter figures revered throughout the land on the day he died so that his subjects would mourn their death rather than celebrate his demise.

Nevertheless, Herod’s transgressions, shortcomings and atrocious deeds should rightly be weighed against his positive achievements.  These included transforming his kingdom into a modern, thriving, flourishing state. He revived Judaea’s languishing economy through agricultural innovation, commercial initiative and enhanced international trade that brought relative prosperity to the land and its people.

He magnificently rebuilt the Holy Temple, beautified Jerusalem, brought state-of-the-art urban renewal to some of Judaea’s other cities, sponsored architectural projects in cities from Athens to Damascus, and acquired international significance and esteem for Judaea throughout the all-powerful Roman Empire, of which Judaea was but a tiny patch.

Despite hostility at home, Herod was acclaimed throughout the already extensive Diaspora. His respected standing in Rome earned Jewish communities throughout the Empire significant benefits, including exemption from Roman military service for their men because it would clash with their Sabbath observance, protection against discrimination by local non-Jewish majorities in the Diaspora and permission for Jews to be judged by their own rather than Roman courts.

Diaspora Jews basked in Judaea’s enhanced reputation during Herod’s reign and were gratified by the grandeur of the Jerusalem Temple he rebuilt, the edifice at the heart of their faith to whose upkeep they contributed generously.

Atrocious though Herod’s shortcomings were, when he died, the tyrannically imposed order and peace that had marked his reign gave way almost immediately to turmoil, disarray and public disorder in Judaea. The thousand-year-old Jewish nation began spiraling toward a hopeless war with Rome that sealed its destruction from which it would not recover until the creation of modern Israel 2,000 years later.

Q: You describe Herod’s family as “the dysfunctional royal family in Jerusalem,” and indeed it was–among those he ordered executed were his favorite wife and his three oldest sons. What created this dysfunctional situation?

A: Herod’s paranoia was deeply embedded.  It was apparent when, as a young official, he brutally suppressed unrest in Galilee and was almost condemned to death by the Sanhedrin religious council for exceeding his authority. As he graduated to greater positions of power, his insecurity expanded and deepened.

Ultimately it would unsettle the balance of his mind. When, as king, he was persuaded by backbiting siblings to doubt the faithfulness of his adored wife Miriamne, it overwhelmed the love he had for her and he had her killed. Her terrified mother, Alexandra, testified against her daughter at a rigged trial, but it did not save her from a similar fate. The sons Herod executed may or may not have been conspiring against their father, but his merest suspicion that they were assured their elimination.

Herod’s paranoia was deliberately fueled by his older sister Salome and younger brother Pheroras, both, like Herod, of more modest origins than his aristocratic victims. They were indignant about the disdain in which they were held by Miriamne, a scion of the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty Herod had overthrown, and by the half-blue blooded sons he and she had conceived together.

Q: Why do you think Herod’s image has been negative and one-dimensional?

A: Almost all people for whom the name Herod has any significance have an image of him shaped by only one thing: a passage in the New Testament claiming that he ordered the massacre of infant boys in Bethlehem after being told that a new king of the Jews (Jesus Christ) had been born there.

The tale of that horrific deed has also been perpetuated over time by magnificent paintings of that horrific “Massacre of the Innocents” by Tintoretto, Peter Brueghel, Gustave Doré and a host of other esteemed artists, as well as in medieval religious plays.

The irony is that this atrocity for which Herod is best known is not likely to have taken place. The brief, single reference to it in the Matthew Gospel is not repeated in any of the other Christian gospels, though such a significant event in the story of Jesus might have been expected to be. Nor is there any mention of that supposed slaughter in the works of historian Josephus, though he is the primary source of our knowledge of Herod’s reign, misdeeds and all.

Nor is there a reference to it in the well-chronicled accounts of the rule of the Roman Emperor Augustus who, though he befriended Herod, was recorded as having commented acerbically on Herod’s observance of Jewish dietary laws and his execution of his own oldest sons,  “I would rather be Herod’s pig than his son.”

Q: The Publishers Weekly review of your book said, “This is an exemplary illustration of revisionist history.” What do you think of that characterization?

A: I am as gratified by praise as others would be and am therefore delighted that my book has been described as “exemplary.” Having attempted to partially rehabilitate the image of Herod the Great, my book is certainly revisionist history, a category which sometimes seems to carry a pejorative tinge. But all new works of history that bring new perspectives and new ideas to old ones are, by definition, revisionist.

Q: What surprised you the most as you researched the book?

A: Two things.

I was most surprised by Herod’s most lasting achievement: how the high regard with which he was held during his reign in the Diaspora across the sprawling Roman Empire promoted and consolidated the emotional bond between men and women in those Diaspora Jewish communities and Judaea, a bond with the Jewish homeland that has endured right through to modern times.

I was also surprised by some of what I learned while researching my “Afterword” chapter for the book. I included that chapter on The Dawn of Christianity because, though Herod the Great was not involved with the birth of the Christian faith, it was the most significant historical event during the Herodian period, which can be considered to have extended until the war with Rome after Herod died.

What surprised me was how profoundly the embryonic Jesus movement in Jerusalem, Antioch and elsewhere in the region was based on, and conformed to, its Jewish heritage before it was co-opted and redirected by the self-appointed Apostle Paul, his evangelizers and those who followed Paul’s teachings rather than the wishes of James, the brother of the crucified Jesus, and the beliefs of the Apostle Peter who had vainly tried to keep the movement true to Torah law.

Q: Are there any particular historical figures to whom you would compare Herod, and if so, who and why?

A: Hard to say. So much depended on historical conditions, like those in which Herod found himself, an ambitious figure in an environment dominated by the Roman Empire and its battle-hardened legions. For example, for much of its existence, the ancient nation of the Jews existed in the shadow of a succession of devouring superpowers: the Assyrians who ultimately obliterated the northern kingdom of Israel (dispersing the “Lost Tribes” of the Jews), the Babylonians who conquered Jerusalem and drove the Jews into temporary exile “by the waters of Babylon”, the Parthians and the Romans.

For many of its leaders, coping with such immediate or potential threats was an existential burden. I can’t say that any succeeded as well as Herod did, to the benefit of his subjects, his kingdom and himself.

Q: Are you working on another book?

A: I might take a break from history writing. Much as I enjoy the research process, in the past, for relaxing breaks from its demands, I also wrote two light novels under a pseudonym. Since Herod was finished, I’ve been toying with a third novel, the proverbial unfinished manuscript so many of us have buried in a bottom desk drawer, awaiting retrieval and reanimation.

This interview was conducted in partnership with Deborah Kalb. For more, visit http://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com.

Yesterday, Moment published an interview with Ruth Balinsky Friedman, who will graduate next month from the first school to train Orthodox female clergy. Today, Moment speaks with fellow classmate Rachel Kohl Finegold. Finegold is a graduate of the Drisha Scholars Circle and currently serves in a pastoral capacity as the Education & Ritual Director at Anshe Sholom B’nei Israel Congregation in Chicago. After her graduation, Finegold will become director of education and spiritual enrichment at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, an Orthodox synagogue in Montreal. Read more »

In June the inaugural class of Yeshivat Maharat, the first institution to train Orthodox women as spiritual leaders and halakhic authorities, will graduate. The three graduates who have spent the past four years studying Jewish law and ritual as well as pastoral counseling and leadership training will earn the title Maharat (Manhiga Hilchatit Ruchanit Toranit) and become spiritual leaders for the Orthodox community.

I spoke with one of the soon-to-be Maharat, Ruth Balinsky Friedman, last week at the Drisha Institute for Jewish education in New York City. After graduation Friedman will join the staff of Congregation Ohev Sholom —The National Synagogue in Washington, DC.

Read more »