Noah Feldman Is In The New York Times Again

Sultan Knish has an in-depth post on Noah Feldman, who last year claimed he and his girlfriend were cut out of picture of a school reunion because she is not Jewish, and now is back again in The Times, waxing poetic on Islamic law.

One wonders if Feldman thinks that Sharia law is any more accepting of intermarriage than the Halacha.

Feldman claims that the Archbishop of Canterbury thought:

it might be a good idea to consider allowing Islamic and Orthodox Jewish courts to handle marriage and divorce.

Nice touch that: mentioning Islamic and Jewish courts in the same breath--as if the question was the broad issue of addressing the concerns of all religions. The truth is that the issue is not addressing general religious concerns, but rather how to appease Muslims in particular:

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said today that the adoption of Islamic Sharia law in Britain is “unavoidable.” Williams told the BBC that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

Feldman writes about Sharia that "no legal system has ever had worse press."
You would think that Mr. Feldman had ever heard of the accusation that Jews are required to kill Christian children to use their blood for baking matzah.

Feldman's article is absurd.
Read Sultan Knish's post to get a sense of just how far.

Technorati Tag: Noah Feldman and Sharia.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: NOAH FELDMAN. If you do not get The Sunday New York Times, but are curious about the response to Noah Feldman and his essay Orthodox Paradox, you can view the Letter to the Editor, online.

Among the letters are resopnses by Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb of the OU and a Korean-American who converted to Judaism. Of the 9 responses, some praise Feldman and/or condemn Modern Orthodox Judaism while others find him unreasonable and inaccurate.

Read them for yourself.

See also: OU CALLS ON NEW YORK TIMES TO APOLOGIZE FOR FELDMAN ESSAY

Technorati Tag: Noah Feldman.

OU CALLS ON NEW YORK TIMES TO APOLOGIZE FOR FELDMAN ESSAY (UPDATED). From The OU website:

NOAH FELDMAN AS THE “JEWISH JAYSON BLAIR”?

UNION OF ORTHODOX JEWISH CONGREGATIONS CALLS ON NY TIMES TO APOLOGIZE FOR PUBLISHING FELDMAN ANTI-ORTHODOX ESSAY;

NY JEWISH WEEK REVEALS FELDMAN AND TIMES EDITORS KNEW ARTICLE’S ASSERTIONS WERE FALSE BEFORE PUBLICATION

Today, the “Orthodox Union” – the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization – called upon the New York Times to apologize for its publication in its Sunday Magazine of an essay authored by Mr. Noah Feldman after the New York Jewish Week revealed yesterday that Feldman and Times editors knew in advance of publication that the essay contained false statements. The Union further called upon the Times to remove Feldman from his position as a Contributing Editor to the NY Times Magazine.

The essay, a highly personal account of Feldman’s difficult relationship with the Modern Orthodox Jewish community in which he was raised, entitled “Orthodox Paradox,” was published in the July 22 edition of the Times’ Magazine. The essay opens with a lengthy account of Feldman attending a reunion of his Orthodox high-school with his non-Jewish finacee, and his assertion that the school deliberately and singularly eliminated Feldman and his finacee from the photograph of the reunion published in the school newsletter. The NY Jewish Week, in its August 3 edition, published a report in which Feldman admits having learned in advance of the publication of his essay that his assertion of being intentionally edited out of the photo was false. Moreover, the Jewish Week expose reveals that NYTimes editors were also aware, in advance of publication, that the essay’s assertion was false. http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=14367

In the wake of these revelations, the Orthodox Union leadership has written to the NY Times as follows:

On behalf of the leadership and constituency of the Orthodox Union, we write to express our outrage at the decision by the Times Magazine editors to publish Mr. Feldman's slanderous essay when… it became known to the author and to the editors - in advance of publication - that Mr. Feldman's assertion of his being deliberately cropped out of a photograph of his day school reunion - the departure point and narrative framing for his essay - was false. When we read Feldman's article initially, we were offended by the many scurrilous anti-Orthodox characterizations he makes (referencing the murderers Amir and Goldstein; comparing the Tefillin (phylacteries) worn at morning prayers to masochistic devices, etc.), but we could not reasonably expect the editors of the Times to have the knowledge or background to vet such assertions, even though we would expect any intelligent reader of the essay to question Feldman's perspective. But it is another matter entirely to learn that the editors were informed - in advance of publication - that Feldman's representation of the photograph incident was questionable; decide, as reported by the NYJW, to pay for the photographer to travel and retrieve the contact sheets; examine the contact sheets and then determine Feldman's assertion was false and therefore make an editorial decision not to publish the photo! Such editorial conduct is outrageous and we believe demands an apology from the Times.

Moreover, we believe that Feldman's own "journalistic" credibility has been sufficiently shown to be absent, that we ask you to remove him from his position as a Contributing Editor to the Times, just as you would remove any columnist or reporter found to be knowingly writing articles with false information.

It's difficult not to think that:

• A Muslim Noah Feldman critical of Islam would never have had his essay published in The New York Times.
• If CAIR was the group complaining, The New York Times would take quick, apologetic action.

Let's see what happens.

UPDATE: See the response from The New York Times and reply from the OU.

Technorati Tag: Noah Feldman and New York Times and OU.

NOAH FELDMAN: OOPS! (UPDATED) From The Jewish Week:

Noah Feldman, who ignited a firestorm of criticism last week with his pointed attack on Modern Orthodoxy in The New York Times Magazine, admitted this week that he learned before publication of his article that he in fact was not intentionally cropped out of his reunion photograph.

In the article, “Orthodox Paradox,” Feldman, a Harvard Law School professor, asserts that he was erased from a newsletter’s photograph by his former yeshiva, the Maimonides School in Brookline, Mass., because he was standing alongside his non-Jewish girlfriend. The reunion anecdote led off the story in a dramatic way and the image of Feldman and his wife allegedly being stricken from the photo appeared central to his feelings of being left out.

UPDATE: OU CALLS ON NEW YORK TIMES TO APOLOGIZE FOR FELDMAN ESSAY

Technorati Tag: Noah Feldman.

ANOTHER ORTHODOX PARADOX

Even as we students of the Maimonides School spent half of every school day immersed in what was unabashedly a medieval curriculum, our aim was to seem to outsiders — and to ourselves — like reasonable, mainstream people, not fanatics or cult members. Noah Feldman

Or breakdancers?
Hey Noah, loosen up!



[Hat tip to Rubicon3, for introducing me to Yideoz]

Technorati Tag: Noah Feldman.

RESPONDING TO NOAH FELDMAN. Rabbi Avi Shafran responds to Noah Feldman's article in Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

INVITATION TO INTERMARRIAGE

Rabbi Avi Shafran

One can’t help but feel sad for Noah Feldman. In spite of his considerable professional accomplishments – a law professorship at Harvard, three books, a slew of well-received essays and a fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations, to name a few – the young Jew is clearly stewing. A bubble of his own imagining has burst in his face.

What he imagined was that, in its embrace of both Judaism and elements of contemporary culture, the “Modern Orthodoxy” of his youth granted Jews license to abandon as much of Jewish religious observance as they deem appropriate. Expressing his anger – coolly, to be sure, but the hurt seeps thickly through the poised prose – in a recent New York Times Magazine piece, “Orthodox Paradox,” Professor Feldman describes how the Boston Jewish school he attended as a child and teenager went so far as to crop a class reunion photograph to omit him and his non-Jewish Korean-American fiancée , whom he later married.

But the Photoshopped portrait is only the professor’s anecdotal hook. What he really resents is that his erstwhile school, along with some of his mentors and friends, spurn him for his decision to marry outside his faith.

No one, he admits, is rude to him. None of his former teachers or friends, he writes, would refuse to shake his hand. But he knows that they deride him for the life-path he has chosen. And that offends and perplexes him.

Does not “Modern Orthodoxy,” after all, embrace the “reconcil[iation of] Jewish faith with scholarship and engagement in the public sphere”? Should it not, therefore, regard his intermarriage as an expression, if somewhat extreme, of his effort at such reconciliation? Were he and his classmates not taught to see themselves as “reasonable, modern people, not fanatics or cult members”?

Leaving aside whether un-“Modern” Orthodox Jews are in fact disengaged from the public sphere (a visit to any of a number of financial firms, law offices and hi-tech retail businesses in New York or other places with large “ultra-Orthodox” populations might yield evidence to the contrary), much less whether they are fanatical or cultist, Professor Feldman’s umbrage is misplaced. There is a reason why, to Orthodox Jews (and many non-Orthodox no less), no matter how embracing they may be of the larger world, intermarriage represents a deep betrayal. It is more than a violation of Jewish religious law. It is an abandonment of the Jewish past and an undermining of the Jewish future.

Because marriage, arguably the most important choice in a Jewish life, is not a partnership but rather a fusing – “and they shall be as one flesh,” in Genesis’ words. Since a spouse is part of oneself, the personal consequences of intermarriage are profound. As, in Professor Feldman’s case, are the communal ones; his children are not Jewish.

Judaism views the Jewish People as a special and hallowed entity. Members of the nation are to care for all – “we are to support the poor of the nations along with the Jewish poor,” as the Talmud directs. And the righteous among the other nations, the Talmud goes on to teach, will receive their eternal reward. But the Jewish faith is clear about the ultimate redemption of the world: It is dependent on the Jewish People’s remaining a nation apart in fundamental ways. One way is in our basic beliefs – for instance, that G-d gave our ancestors His law, and never subsequently changed it. Another is in our commitment to the integrity of the Jewish people qua people. Our commitment, in other words, to marry other Jews.

A celebrated Orthodox television personality and pundit reacted to Professor Feldman’s article in a Jerusalem Post opinion piece with words of welcome. While he considers intermarriage “a direct threat to the very continuity of the Jewish people,” he nevertheless considers Professor Feldman “a prince of the Jewish nation”; and suggests that intermarrieds be treated no differently from the in-married, that they be offered our “love and respect.”

His suggestion stems from his Jewish heart but his Jewish head should have been more carefully consulted.

Yes, there is ample reason to feel sympathy for Jews who intermarry. Transgressions performed from desire, Jewish tradition teaches, do not reach the level of those intended to be transgressive. And on a personal level, there are reasons to not cut off connections to intermarried friends or relatives. (It is not unheard of for non-Jews married to Jews to actually guide their spouses back to Judaism and to themselves convert; precisely such a couple is the subject of “Migrant Soul,” a biography I was privileged to write.)

At the same time, though, there is simply no way – not in the real world – to warmly welcome intermarrieds without welcoming intermarriage. No way to make Professor Feldmans feel accepted for who they are without making potential Professor Feldmans view intermarriage as innocuous. No way to “devalue” the gravity of intermarriage without dulling the truth that every Jew is an invaluable link in the Jewish chain of generations.

If one begins with the premise that intermarriage is dangerous to the Jewish people and the Jewish mission, the intermarried cannot enjoy our acceptance. There may be quibbles about the means by which we express our rejection of their choice. But the absence of any communal expression of reproach is nothing less than an invitation to intermarriage.

To my lights, it doesn’t seem extreme in the least for a Jewish school to make clear to an intermarried alumnus that, despite his secular accomplishments, it feels no pride in him for his choice to intermarry. I wouldn’t expect an American Cancer Society gathering to smile politely at a chain smoking attendee either.

It is painful, no doubt, to be spurned by one’s community. It is painful, too, for a community to feel compelled to express its censure. Sometimes, though, in personal and communal life no less than in weightlifting, only pain can offer – in the larger, longer picture – hope of gain.

© 2007 AM ECHAD RESOURCES

[Rabbi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America.]

See also Noah Feldman vs. Hamas

Technorati Tag: Noah Feldman and Rabbi Avi Shafran and Modern Orthodox Judaism and Intermarriage.

NOAH FELDMAN VS. HAMAS. A good place to catch up with the issue of Noah Feldman's Sunday article in the times is over at SerandEz.

I just think it's odd that when it comes to Muslims, The New York Times (along with the LA Times and the Washington Post) will give op-ed space to Muslim terrorists--as opposed to moderate Muslims, or even such things as The Secular Islam Summit. Just how often have these 3 followed the lead of The Baltimore Sun in giving space to real moderate Muslims? But when it comes to a disgruntled Jewish Harvard professor upset that not everyone accepts his marriage to a non-Jew, this is the New York Times finds a place for.

It's an obvious question, but I'll ask it anyway: Would The New York Times--which did not publish the Mohammed cartoons for fear of offending Muslims--publish a similar piece by a Muslim complaining about being ostracized for marrying a non-Muslim?

BTW, the mention of Feldman with Hamas in the subject of my post is not just for effect. In May 2003, Martin Kramer wrote about Feldman's book Jihad is Over, downplaying the Islamist threat (Maimonides apparently is the bigger threat).

Hat tip to My Obiter Dicta on this, who also links to a piece on Feldman's opposition to the Tenafly Eruv. See also Steven I. Weiss' (The Canonist) piece in The Wall Street Journal on Feldman's "puzzling compromise between religion and secularism"

'Puzzling' doesn't begin to cover it.

UPDATE: Just thinking...Feldman doesn't get it. He does not see a distinction between friends privately accepting him, while not being accepted publicly.
As for Shmuley Boteach's lament--both for Feldman and for the Jewish communities reaction--he does not seem to make a distinction either.

If Feldman was not an "intellectual superstar," would the New York Times have printed his piece?
Would Boteach have written in the same glowing terms of a stam Jewish neshamah?
The answer to the first question is obvious.

See also: Responding to Noah Feldman

Technorati Tag: Noah Feldman.