April 25, 2014--Two Weak Men

Does anyone think the situation in Ukraine is headed in a good direction when two weak men's manhood is challenged?

One parades around topless, flexing in leather outfits while the other puts on a veneer of cool in search of his inner macho.

This may be one of the best recent examples of how the personal trumps the rational. It's all about mine-is-bigger-than-yours.

In an Enlightenment, post-Cold-War world reasonable self-interest is supposed to prevail. As the Godfather taught, "It's not personal. It's business."

Well . . .

A little history might be helpful--

In the 17th century, war between the Tsardom of Russia and the Polish-Lituanian Commonwealth resulted in Russian imperial control of most of what is now--at least for the moment--eastern Ukraine. And it wasn't until after the First World War that what we now think of as Ukraine was assigned its current borders and became semi-independent.

This is a mere sketch of Ukraine's shifting geography. If inclined, one can look back as far as the 7th century or as recently as the 1950s to see more ebb and flow.

So, in a rational or objective world, for the United States to be lecturing Russia, actually Putin, about Ukraine's immutable borders makes about as much historical sense as Putin chiding the United States, actually Obama, about our Southwestern borders, much of which belonged to Mexico until the mid-19th century. If we applied the same principles to ourselves that we are pressing on Russia, it would mean relinquishing Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and California.

So, what we are seeing is neither about history nor the aspirations of peoples from polyglot backgrounds (look at a current ethnic map of Ukraine if you want a glimpse of these deeper, nationalist problems) assigned to a fiction of a country, but rather the flexing of the out-of-control egos and vulnerabilities of two men who are locked in a dance likely spinning toward disaster.

It doesn't take a seer to predict that before too long Putin will make direct moves to re-annex at least the eastern half of Ukraine and who knows what else after that. And, in response, when Obama's layer of seemingly admirable cool cracks, who knows what fires within might be smoldering and what he might feel propelled to do.

July 12, 2013--Matzo Wars

Been to Yuma, Arizona? Not much there but the heat. And the matzo-makers of one group of ultra-orthodox Hasidim from Borough Park, Brooklyn.

What brings them to this desolate piece of desert just five miles north of the Mexican border? Access to a few acres of a gentile's wheat farm where they are growing the most-kosher-for-Passover grain that will be used to make the most-kosher matzo for next spring's Passover celebration.

The Hasids are not leaving it to Christian Tim Dunn to grow the wheat for their matzo. Rather, two rabbis from their Satmar sect are spending the next seven weeks in Yuma overseeing every aspect of the cultivation and harvesting so that they can assure their fellow worshipers back in Brooklyn that the matzo they bake next April will not contain even one tiny speck of traif or leavening.

And, equally important, they will be able to tell their Hasidim rivals, other Satmars, those who live and grow their wheat in Kiryas Joel in Orange County, New York, that their not theirs is the holiest of matzo. This counts as a big deal among the Satmar Hasidim.

Each sect is led by one of two rabbi brothers and this of course complexifies things. Sibling rivalry between brother Hasids is of, well, biblical proportions. It is one thing to compete for parents' attention, it's another when God Himself is the ultimate dispenser of favor.

So out in a trailer beside the sweltering field reside lesser rabbis who have been sent there to oversee every aspect of the wheat growing. For example, once the wheat matures, to the Satmar it cannot be allowed to become wet and thus run the danger of beginning to ferment. Thus the appeal of the dry desert air as opposed to the more temperate, rainier climate up in Kiryas Joel.

Quoted in the New York Times, Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at Queens College, whose research is about the ethnography of Jewish orthodox groups, knows the rivalrous Satmars well--"One is always looking to be more authoritative than the other and one of the ways they're making this happen is over matzo--our matzo is more kosher than yours, we're more scrupulous and careful over matzo baking than you are."

And, by implication, we're better Jews than you.

The rabbis in Yuma obsess more about keeping the maturing wheat dry than anything else, including insisting that workers not take any water bottles into the sweltering 108-degree fields. And when the farm equipment needs cleaning, the rabbis take charge of that too, blowing air into even the tiniest crevices to make sure than not one bit of dirt remains clinging to the tractors and cultivators.

None of this comes cheap--back in Borough Park, the street price of a one-pound box of Satmar-Yuma matzo is $25. In the supermarket, a one-pound box of Striet's goes for $5.99.