Maximum Occupancy Approaching

When protests began in New York City on September 17, coinciding with Constitution Day, most people had no idea what they were there for, if they knew of them at all. Certainly their mission seemed disjointed and unclear, and at best the media portrayed merely a mass of people with little else except a slogan: Occupy Wall Street. Surely no one knew where the idea had come from–or that its origins weren’t even American.

B is for Blood

Or, A Bloody Disgrace

It’s 9:30 on a Thursday night and halfway through a supernatural TV show, a man’s throat is split open and he bleeds to death. On three other stations, seven nights a week, medical dramas and crime shows portray gory deaths and attacks even more frequently than this. On this same evening, half a dozen movies in theatres nationwide are rated PG-13 or R for excessive blood and gore. And at night before bed, most of the viewers of all of these programs curl up with lovely books full of even more bloodshed between the many mysteries, thrillers, and vampire novels circulating bookstores today.

Seems like there’s blood in excess everywhere.

Unfortunately for too many people, there just isn’t enough blood where it’s needed most—circulating their veins and arteries, nourishing the organs that keep them living 24/7.

According to the American Red Cross, five million Americans need blood transfusions in a single year, which taken day by day, accounts for nearly fourteen thousand people in need of blood every twenty-four hours. Second by second, another American needs a blood transfusion every two seconds. That means in the time it has taken you to read this paragraph, twelve more people have become in need of blood right now.

These five million people are not just nameless faces that we’ll never meet. They’re friends, coworkers, students, teachers, even family. Twenty years ago, when my grandmother was in the hospital, she fell into a coma from which she would never awake. The doctors believed giving her blood would help her come out of it, but because of the blood shortage—which persists today—her transfusions were delayed, and almost not given at all. Although by the time she was given the blood she needed, it was too late to save my grandmother’s life, the blood she did receive gave her body the strength it needed to breathe on its own, unassisted by machines, a small miracle that made her death five days later easier to bear on everyone: Instead of suffering with wires and tubes throughout her body, she was able to die peacefully at rest.

For most people, however, blood is the answer, and it does save lives. The Australian Red Cross breaks it down simply and succinctly, naming more than fifteen different causes that result in patients requiring blood transfusions, including, but by all means not limited to, cancer and blood diseases; open heart surgeries; burns; treatments for heart, stomach, and kidney diseases; orthopedic procedures; obstetrics, including treatments for pregnant women, new mothers, and young children; as well as victims of trauma, including motor vehicle accidents and other emergency situations. The list does not end here, and for many people, even a single illness can keep a person on transfusions throughout life. For these people and the many others in need, a shortage in blood—and blood donors—can mean the difference between living a long and healthy life, or living their last days waiting in agony for a miracle to happen. Not only does this hurt the patients themselves, but also their families and their friends.

All of this life-sustaining blood is provided solely by blood donors throughout the United States and has been exclusively donor driven since 1970, twenty-nine years after the Red Cross began its first blood donor program in 1941 to collect blood specifically for the military (blood donations only became available to civilians seven years later in 1948). According to the Red Cross’s estimates, only thirty-eight percent of the American population is eligible to donate blood, but only eight percent of these individuals actually do so. To put these numbers in perspective, that’s only three donors for every hundred people in the US today.

To compound this already tragically low donation rate, an entire category of people are banned from donating blood solely on account of who they are: Gay, bisexual, and even straight men who have ever had sexual contact with another man, even once, are banned, by law, from donating any blood for their entire lives, regardless of how healthy they might otherwise be. Not only does this jeopardize the lives of millions dependant on donated blood, it also wrongfully discriminates against an entire class of people solely because of their sexuality. By adjusting the current donor regulations, we can open the path for these men to become blood donors without sacrificing the safety or the good standing of the United State’s present blood supply.

According to a study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, there are an estimated 8.8 million gay and bisexual men and women in the United States as of 2005. If we assume that half of these people are men, and if we take into account the estimation from the American Red Cross that only eight percent of eligible donors actually donate blood, if the ban on donations were lifted today, there would be 352,000 more men waiting on line to donate blood right now. If a single donation can save three lives, more than a million lives will be saved at once. If all four million of these men donated blood throughout their lifetimes, more than four trillion lives could be saved—and since the present ban extends to all males who have had sexual relations with other men, even once, regardless of their sexual orientation or self-identity, these estimates are conservative at best!

To understand why this untapped source of life-giving blood has been banished from donating, we must take an extensive look at the causes of the present donation ban, which will then also allow us to discuss possible solutions that can ease the burden of blood supplies while maintaining, if not enhancing, the safety and reliability of our national blood reserves.

The root of the problem comes down to an illness accredited to a few chimpanzees native to west equatorial Africa whose blood most likely infected hunters in the mid-1950s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From there, this illness slowly seeped throughout the world population until it reached the United States in the late seventies and was first detected in 1981, primarily afflicting men who had sex with other men. In 1983 when scientists first identified the virus causing this disease, they called it HTLV-III/LAV, although this was later changed to its present and much more recognizable and infamous name: HIV, human immunodeficiency virus.

Until early 1982, all of the known victims of HIV/AIDS in the United States were gay men and men who had sex with other men, which would later become the preferred descriptor used by the United States Food and Drug Administration. When finally women and heterosexual males were infected, the idea of AIDS being a gay man’s disease slowly began to dissipate through decades of fear of and hostility towards the illness, but even then, the deep-seated stigma would still remain.

Within the first four years of the AIDS epidemic, over 12,000 people had died because of the disease, and since then, more than twenty-five million people have died from HIV/AIDS worldwide. Since HIV is transmitted not through water or air, but through bodily fluids such as semen, vaginal fluid, breastmilk, and especially blood, it is no wonder that laws and regulations would be put into place to protect the blood supply that is intended to save lives from inadvertently taking them. It was for this reason that in 1983 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began deferring gay men and other males who have had sex with men. In 1992, the FDC adopted its current and presently final position on blood donors, that all men who have had any sexual relations with another man, even once, since 1977 (the beginning of the epidemic) are deferred for life from donating blood.

Although it is true that gay men and other men who have sex with men account for 53% of HIV/AIDS cases according to the CDC, we must temper this figure by taking into account that this represents the percentage of HIV/AIDS victims who are gay or have sex with men, not the percentage of this group who has HIV/AIDS. We must also realize that HIV/AIDS now affects as many women and heterosexual males as it does gay males and other men sexually active with men. Although these groups are equally as likely to contract the virus, they are not deferred for life, but are only deferred for a year after being considered high-risk, which includes such factors as having an STD or STI and visiting certain countries.

Furthermore, since it is impossible to know every facet of a partner’s past sexual endeavors, at-risk individuals may not themselves know of their at-risk status and need for deferral. Additionally, since anyone can lie on the questionnaire that precedes blood donations, the safety of the blood supply can be further jeopardized by dishonest individuals who may wrongly believe that they, although high-risk, are healthy and well enough to donate blood. Thankfully, for both of these accounts, the Red Cross tests all donated blood for multiple diseases, including Chagas disease, Hepatitis B and C, West Nile Virus, Syphilis and—of course—HIV-1 and HIV-2, the two dominant strains of the virus.

The lifetime deferral on gays and other men must also be compared to one other figure: HIV incidence by race. Although it’s been shown already that male-to-male sexual contact accounts for 53% of HIV/AIDS cases, 45% of HIV/AIDS victims are African-Americans, male and female. This difference of eight percent is statistically obsolete when we realize that no African-Americans are deferred for life based upon the color of their skin, even though the data clearly shows that they are nearly as high risk as men who have sex with other men. How can a double-standard such as this be justified when the lives of millions are on the line? Certainly, the only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that, if allowing African-American men and women to donate blood is no more dangerous than allowing white men and women to donate blood, then allowing gay men and other men who’ve had sex with men to donate blood is no less dangerous than allowing heterosexuals to donate blood as well.

Now let’s consider a time when all healthy people, regardless of their partners, are able to donate blood. Imagine how many people will have access to the life-saving blood that they need. Imagine that people like my grandmother, desperately in need of blood, won’t be denied what could otherwise save their lives. What steps can we take to get here? What must we do?

I propose a three-step solution that would allow gay, bisexual, and other men who have had sex with men to donate blood while simultaneously enhancing the overall safety of the blood supply by adding additional easy-to-implement safeguards to donor requirements.

The first step, intended to quickly and effectively increase the blood supply while allowing a transitional period between the present and future donor restrictions, would be to reduce the lifetime deferral on these men to only twelve months, the equivalent of deferrals for other persons engaging in various high-risk activities. According to an article in The Advocate entitled “Blood, Sex, and the FDA” written by Steven Thrasher, Argentina, Austria, Hungary, Japan, and Spain have all adopted this one-year deferral policy and none of these countries have experienced any increase in HIV in their blood supply; incredibly, the HIV-infection rate from donated blood has actually decreased in Spain since their policy was changed.

The second step would not only allow many of the men presently barred from blood donations to donate but would also simultaneously further protect the blood supply by requiring that all donors provide up-to-date information on their current STD status, such as the printed results of tests conducted by physicians or STD status cards with the results of tests conducted at nonprofit clinics. Not only would this quickly show the sexual health of the donor during his or her pre-donation examination, allowing for quick deferrals of those unable to donate, it would do this equally for all individuals, not merely those presently considered high-risk.

The use of STD status cards would also set the grounds for a more accurate and affective way of determining donor eligibility by adjusting the current regulations accordingly, leading to the third step of my proposed solution: Instead of deferring men who’ve had sex with other men, the policy would defer only those who have had unprotected sex outside of a monogamous relationship or have had multiple sexual partners since their last set of STD tests. This regulation would also help eliminate potential risks from the heterosexual community, successfully completing the promised results of more eligible donors and safer donation practices.

Of course, to implement the second step of this solution to allow the adoption of the third step would require funds, and probably a lot of them: Not only would everyone wishing to donate blood be required to have multiple STD tests at appropriate intervals, up-to-date and accurate records of these tests would have to be available on easy-to-carry STD status cards. However, the pay-off of this policy would certainly outweigh the costs: Not only would a sustainable blood supply result in faster transfusions that would lead to quicker treatment and faster recovery times, thereby reducing healthcare costs, testing more people for STDs would inevitably reduce the incident rates of STDs, once again lowering healthcare costs.

Undoubtedly a difference would still remain, but this difference could be made up through various private donations currently aimed at HIV/AIDS research and prevention as well as through other nonprofit organizations that also sponsor blood donations and collections. Additionally, gay rights groups would also be likely to donate to allow such a plan to be implemented as it would directly relate to allowing gays to donate blood equally with others.

As we can see, the present ban on donations from men who’ve had sex with men has not always been unfounded, but due to the current accuracy of blood testing, is no longer necessary to ensure the safety of the United States’ blood supply and serves now only to diminish the already critically low supply of blood available to those in need. By reducing the deferral period and by implementing a system requiring STD statuses to be disclosed during the examination process preceding donations, we can both increase the blood available to patients while safeguarding the present supply of blood. Through simple changes that would open blood donations to more people, thousands, if not trillions, of lives can be saved in our lifetimes alone.

(Worked cited list available on request.)

Class: ENG 112 Argument-Based Research
Grade: A
Date: May 2010

Family Matters

Class: ENG 111 Expository Writing

Assignment: Write a argumentative paper on a controversial issue.

Grade: 98/100 (A)

Comment: After taking ENG 112, I was no longer pleased with some of the literary techniques I had failed to originally use (if only my ENG 111 teacher had taught us the beauty of not starting the essay with your thesis) and I decided to rewrite the introduction and make a few minor changes. In my opinion, however, a 98 on an essay I had only five days to write was pretty awesome, and with these changes, I truly believe this essay is worthy of the two points I couldn’t snag.

Date: December 2009

The Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and a Loving Family

You and I are special. We were born into families with mothers and fathers that loved us and took care of us and made the choices we couldn’t make until we came of age and could start to make those choices. More importantly, their love and guidance helped us to grow into men and women capable of making those choices. But for many children, not yet of age, who can’t make these choices, who can’t take care of themselves, this simply isn’t the case.

Every year there are more and more children trapped in foster care that are in need of loving, supportive families; however, fewer than half of these children will ever find permanent homes. And yet, there’s a shortage of families who want to adopt, and against all beliefs, some loving parents are not even allowed to adopt. However, if we simply change our heartless ways and start to allow gays and lesbians to adopt, many more of these children will have a greater chance at finding families that will love and care for them as any child deserves.

Many people are concerned that children raised by gay parents will be brought up with poor values that lead to a skewed sense of what families are and may become gay themselves. Before these concerns can be addressed, however, it is critical to understand why these children are in such dire need of finding homes to take them in and provide them with the care they need.

Children are placed in foster care when their parents are unable or unwilling to adequately care for and raise them, for reasons as varied as physical and emotion abuse to neglect. Although it’s true that some children in foster care return to their birthfamily, many more stay in the foster care system and are shuffled around from home to home.

The number of children in foster care has fallen from 523,000 in 2002 to 463,000 in 2008; however, the number of children in foster care awaiting adoption has remained fairly constant in comparison to that number, only decreasing by one sixth of the total decrease in children in foster care. That means that the percentage of children waiting to be adopted has actually risen since 2002! So dire is the issue that President Barack Obama even declared November 2009 National Adoption Month.

Anyone can see without a second glance that a permanent home is more beneficial to a child than multiple upheavals as he or she is moved throughout the foster care system. A stable placement provides a child not only with adequate time to settle into his or her new living conditions but also the benefits of a long-term home where they can receive the consistent love and support they need. One study conducted on placement stability and the mental health costs of children in foster care found that after a child’s first placement, his or her likelihood to require mental health services grew nearly exponentially with every new family he or she was placed with. There is no arguing that short-term homes only harm the children they house.

Now that the importance of finding good homes for these children is evident, let’s consider the opposition for allowing gays and lesbians to adopt. More than twenty percent of States have taken measures to prevent gays and lesbians from adopting: Both Utah and Arizona prevent unmarried couples from adopting, thereby prohibiting gays, who cannot yet legally be married, from adopting children. Mississippi bans gay and lesbian couples from adopting, whereby allowing single gays and lesbians to adopt. Florida, presently the only state to explicitly ban adoption by all gays and lesbians, still allows them to foster children, ironically enough. Meanwhile, more than fifteen other states still aim to ban gays and lesbians from adopting.

If the legal restrictions on adoption were lifted, how would children be affected by having same-sex parents? According to Focus on the Family, an organization promoting Christian family values run by Dr. James Dobson, children need both a father and a mother for proper development. This opinion is widely held, as many assume that being raised with opposite-sex parents will help teach children proper gender roles. “What kind of image of manhood and fatherhood will little Jacob obtain from being raised by two lesbians?” asked Robert Knight, director of cultural studies for the conservative Family Research Council, echoing the concerns of many Americans. “How will little Anna, who will never know the love of a father, relate to men someday?”

However, the same argument proposed by Knight can also be applied to single-parent homes affected by divorce, death of a spouse, or by not having been married in the first place. Nonetheless, studies have shown that the children raised in same-sex parent homes have been as well-adjusted in society as the children of such “one mother, one father” homes being advocated by groups like Knight’s and Dobson’s. Judith Stacey, a professor of sociology, gender, and sexuality at New York University, asserts that “not a single study has found a difference [between children of gay and straight parents] that you can construe as harmful.”

“I just say I have two moms,” says eight-year-old Madison, the daughter of Stephanie Caraway and Sheri Ciancia. “They’re no different from other parents except that they’re two girls. It’s not like comparing two parents with two trees. It’s comparing two parents with two other parents.” Another study actually finds that gay and lesbian parents are twenty percent more likely than other parents to be involved with their children’s schools. If these statements do not prove that gays and lesbians can be qualified parents, what does?

Another popular concern is that being raised by gay parents will inevitably make children gay themselves. Looking past the logical fallacy that gay parents make gay children but not all straight parents make only straight children (or else there’d be no gay people at all), we can look at numerous studies that find a child is no more likely to be gay if raised by same-sex parents than if he or she were raised by opposite-sex parents. According to researcher Charlotte Patterson, the children of homosexual parents have no higher incidence of homosexuality than the children of heterosexual parents. No studies have ever shown that gay and lesbians parents have any affect on the sexuality of their children.

Furthermore, the children of gays and lesbians benefit more than might be expected by being raised by homosexual parents. COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) reports many surprising findings: Not only are there as many as fourteen million children living with gay parents in the United States, they live in more than ninety-five percent of the counties in the country. There is no evidence that children are psychologically or physically harmed by having homosexual parents, and on the measures of school functioning, psychosocial well-being, and romantic relationships and behaviors, these children are as well-adjusted as their peers from heterosexual-headed families. Other bodies of research also assert that not only are these children more open-minded than those raised by opposite-sex parents, daughters have more self-esteem and sons are less aggressive and more caring when raised by same-sex parents.

What reasons are there left that children awaiting adoption should not be allowed to be adopted by gays and lesbians? Research repeatedly shows that children raised by same-sex parents are no worse-off than those raised by heterosexuals, and on the contrary, research often hails these children as being as loved, as cared for, and as well-adjusted as the children of straight parents. For thousands of kids still seeking families to call their own, should we not let them be adopted by anyone who will provide for them and support them as they deserve to be?

(A works cited list is available on request.)

Gideon

I didn’t write many stellar essays while in Israel. As I mentioned before, this was mostly due to my dislike of essays at the time, and although I’ve since learned how to imbue myself in a formal topic, most of my essays on AMHSI were too structured to be too entertaining: I was given a question, and I answered that question. No bells, no whistle, just facts. Rather boring, like I said.

A few essays, however, turned out rather well, and although I think–if posed with the same questions today–I could write them better, I still appreciate them as they are. They stand out to me as the stepping stones where I placed my feet while crossing the river between inexperience and skill in writing. True, some stories have the potential to demand a rewrite, but for these essays, to do such would undermine the importance of my time in Israel, and that simply is something I will not do. (Besides, changing them now would have no practical purpose, so it’s rather senseless anyways.)

Class: High School in Israel

Topic: Write about the chieftain that had the greatest impact on you.

Date: June 2009

Gideon

The chieftain that made the biggest impact on me was Gideon. A son of Joash the Abiezrite, Gideon is first approached by an angel while safeguarding wheat from the Midianites, under whose power the Israelites are at the time. When the angel speaks to him, he responds by saying, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why has all this befallen us?” His simple question does not doubt the Lord, but merely voices his confusion that the Lord has left them. When the angel says that the Lord has made Gideon his messenger, Gideon asks how he shall deliver Israel when he is from the humblest of tribes, Manasseh, and is the youngest in his family.

Despite his initial hesitation, however, Gideon time and time again does as he is commanded, first giving an offering to the Lord and later bringing down the altar of Baal in his town and erecting in its place an altar of God, for which he was given the name Jerubbaal, “Let Baal contend with him.” This story reminds me of the story of Abraham breaking his father’s idols, that they were only stone and could not act alone—here showing that Baal could not contend with him at all: he was only stone.

When Midian, Amalek, and the Kedemites join forces and God commands Gideon to fight against them, he first proposes two challenges to God, first to make all the dew gather on a sheet of wool during the night, and then to have the wool remain dry throughout the night. These acts seem to portray a doubt in God, but to me they further accentuate Gideon’s doubt in himself: Through repeatedly testing God, he comes to gain faith in himself and learns of his own worth in the eyes of the Lord.

The next day when Gideon is prepared to fight the armies standing against them, God tells him his army is too large and instructs all the timid and fearful to leave—and although timid himself, Gideon remains as their leader. He then gathers three hundred men at God’s command and leads them to the Midianites’ camp during the night. They burn torches and break bottles and cause the armies to flee, chasing and killing only its leaders. Though not without death, this insurgence ended with as few killings as possible, thus showing Gideon’s care for all people, even his enemies.

Later examples further illustrate Gideon’s selflessness as well as his humility, though these alone are plenty to show how much unlike the other chieftains Gideon was: Instead of having unmatched strength, he was timid and shy. Instead of being boastful and impulsive, he was humble and kind. He embodied true leadership skills, and for this, he was the chieftain that has had the greatest influence on me.

Gay Doesn’t Always Mean Happy

Class: ENG 111 Expository Writing

Assignment: Write a concept essay on a controversial issue.

Grade: 98/100 (A)

Date: November 2009

Halakhah and Homosexuality

Jacob is an Orthodox Jew. He thinks Benjamin is attractive, but because the Bible says homosexuality is a sin, he resists his impulses and tries to find his girlfriend Sarah more appealing. Meanwhile, Sam, a Conservative Jew from a nearby congregation, is studying to become a rabbi with the encouragement of his family and his boyfriend Dan. How is it that these two Jewish men lead such similar, yet drastically different lives? What causes Jacob to hide his homosexual feelings but allows Sam to live openly gay?

Jewish law, known as halakhah, is a uniting force among all Jews; however, what stands to be halakhically acceptable can vary greatly between different branches of Judaism. To understand how these two men living so closely to one another can be affected by Jewish law in such different ways today, we must turn back time to the dawn of Judaism and see how its system of law has developed and evolved ever since.

Judaism traces its roots to the time of the first patriarch, Abraham, who is estimated to have lived in the year 1800 BCE; however, the earliest historical record of Abraham’s descendants, then known as the Israelites, does not appear before 1200 BCE. Judaism’s main religious text is the Torah, or the Five Books of Moses in the Old Testament. Additionally, there is an oral Torah compiled in the fifth century that is known as the Talmud and includes multiple levels of commentary on the Torah and its laws. There is no single Jewish document more concerned with Jewish law than the Shulchan Arukh, “the set table,” a code of law written by Joseph Caro in the sixteenth century.

It is from these texts that Jewish law is derived. Known in Hebrew as halakhah, which comes from the verb “to walk,” Jewish law is literally “the path which one walks.” Jewish law governs every part of a Jew’s life, from the food they eat to their business affairs to the people they’re allowed to marry (and the people they’re not allowed to marry, as in Jacob’s and Sam’s cases), and even what roles a husband and wife should play in that marriage. Jewish law is broken into two categories: Halakhah d’oraita comprises the 613 commandments written in the Torah, while halakhah d’rabbanan refers to the laws enacted by Jewish sages and rabbis, beginning with the Talmud and continuing into modern times.

There are three categories of rabbinic law: Gezeirot are laws enacted to build a fence around the Torah; that is, to prevent one from accidentally violating one of the Torah’s 613 commandments. Takkanot are laws unrelated to Biblical laws that have been put into place for the welfare of the community. One such example of a ninth century takkanah is the law forbidding polygyny (taking multiple wives), which was allowed in the Torah but forbidden by the Catholic church in medieval Europe, under whose legislation Jews were ultimate subjected. The last category of halakhah is known as minhag and includes all the customs that have been ingrained into Jewish life even if not written as an official part of halakhah.

When it comes to homosexuality, Jewish law is both d’oraita and d’rabbanan: In Leviticus 18:22, the Bible explicitly says “Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence.” This led medieval rabbis to enact a gezeirah proclaiming it illegal for two gay men to be even physically close, lest it lead them to breaking the Torah’s commandment.

Although halakhah aims to govern every aspect of a Jew’s personal and communal life, in today’s world where there exists no wholly Jewish government (even Israel’s government is riddled with influences of the secular), halakhah has historically been forced to be subordinate to the law of the state in which it is being determined, as has already been seen by the halakhic outlawing of polygyny in the ninth century. This often puts Jews under multiple legal systems, such as Jacob and Sam, residents of New York City, who are subject not only to halakhah, but also to New York state laws and federal laws of the United States of America.

This modern juxtaposition of religious and secular legal systems requires us to compare and contrast the legal positions of both. As has already been stated, traditional halakhah asserts that homosexual acts, including but not limited to sex between two males and same-sex marriages, are explicitly forbidden. New York law, however, differs on both accounts: New York sodomy laws were repealed in 1980 and removed completely in 2000. Furthermore, although same-sex marriages are not yet legal in New York, same-sex marriages performed elsewhere are recognized by state marriage laws. Observant Jews, however, typically follow the halakhic ruling when stricter than that of the governing legislation.

Jewish law differs not just from state law, but also within Judaism, which is why we see Jacob’s and Sam’s responses to being gay as drastically different as they are. Orthodox Jews like Jacob preserve halakhah and Jewish tradition in their most authentic—and thereby most restrictive—forms. In Orthodox communities, Jewish dietary laws are strictly followed, men and women are still separated while praying, and a gay man’s only option is celibacy or so-called reparative therapy. His goal typically remains the same: to have a wife and children.

In the most liberal branches of Judaism—the Reform, Reconstructionist, and Renewal movements—homosexuality has almost become a non-issue it is so widely accepted. According to the movement overviews compiled by Jewish Mosaic: The National Center for Gender and Sexual Diversity, all three movements have ordained gay and lesbian rabbis since the nineties and have universally supported same-sex civil marriages for just as long.

Conservative Jews like Sam have been caught in the middle of such extremes. In 1992, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS), who decide halakhah in the Conservative movement, passed the Consensus Statement on Homosexuality, which welcomed gays into the movement while adhering to the precedent that gays could not become rabbis or be married under Jewish law. It also stated that the decision of whether or not gays could serve on synagogue committees or lead religious services was to be determined by individual rabbis. In 2006, the CJLS revisited the issue and passed three conflicting responses, two favoring the traditional standpoint while the third supporting a greater welcome for gays in the Conservative movement, once more leaving the decision of which path to follow up to individual communities. With these new laws in place, the doors to the rabbinate were finally opened for gay and lesbian Conservative Jews and many rabbinical colleges changed their policies to reflect this.

But what would life be like if Jacob and Sam weren’t Jewish, but belonged some other faith? If they belonged to a liberal Protestant denomination, they might both live as comfortably as Sam does, but if part of a conservative Protestant denomination or Catholicism, they’d still be living like Jacob is. If Muslim, they could even be punished by death.

In conclusion, we can easily see that halakhah has been around since the birth of Judaism nearly four thousand years ago and has continued to evolve ever since. Jacob may continue to struggle with being gay while Sam rejoices in his acceptance into a renowned Jewish seminary, but despite the differences in how they interpret traditional halakhah, Jewish law still connects them to each other and to Jews everywhere around the world.

Addendum: Since writing this essay, I’ve learned that many gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews, although still subscribing to the laws of the Torah, are open about being gay and no longer pursue heterosexual relationships that would ultimately cause pain for both marriage partners. Nonetheless, the openness of these individuals varies greatly from person to person, and although some are comfortable having homosexual relationships, others are not. With something as personal as sexuality, no one standard can be set upon all people and be expected to apply to each of them equally. Hopefully, however, this trend signals a movement toward a more accepting Jewish community, for all Jews, whether Orthodox or otherwise.

(For those interested in reading more, a works cited list is available.)

Classroom Mores

Class: SOC 210 Intro. to Sociology

Topic: Deviance

Assignment: Do something deviant (don’t get arrested) and write about it from a sociological perspective.

Grade: 125/125

Comment: This is easily one of the strongest essays I’ve written in school. In fact, my teacher was so pleased by it that she tried to convince me to become a sociology major solely on account of this essay. Sad to say, she couldn’t convince me to do it.

Date: November, 2009

Classroom Mores: Why It’s Easy to Deviate in College

My deviant act developed entirely by accident, which not only makes for a fun story to tell, but also reinforces how breaking even the smallest expectations is a form of deviance: One Tuesday in history class, I sat a few seats up from where I normally sit.

My intentions were in themselves fueled by ulterior motives (I wanted to sit closer to a classmate I found attractive), and I deviated further to keep my true intentions unknown. When the girl I normally sit in front of asked why I moved away, I did not want to reveal myself, so I instead said I wanted to switch things up for the day, maybe see if our teacher would notice.

That did it. My classmate grinned and had a great idea—we would all switch seats today! She changed seats, as did a couple others, and after they had all moved, everyone else moved as well until no one was sitting in their usual seats.

The reactions this incited were far from what I might have initially expected. First were the reactions from the students: One by one, as they came in, they stopped in the doorway and looked around, confused by what they saw. One person remarked that he thought he’d stepped into the wrong classroom till he recognized the people inside. Our teacher’s reaction was so contrary to our expectations it was almost disappointing: It took him nearly twenty minutes of class time to realize we had switched seats, and when he finally noticed, he asked, “What, did all of you decide to switch seats today?” Needless to say, we all laughed for quite a bit then.

The moral of the story is that deviance bears no fruit: I never did get to sit next to the guy I’d intended to sit beside the entire time. (Ironically, it’s because he was absent that day.)

It’s almost hard to imagine that secondary groups such as college classes can become as ingrained in their habits and expectations for an act like this to yield such drastic results, but such folkways can develop so deeply they in effect become classroom mores. In each of my classes this semester, after only the first two or three days, everyone kept to their own “assigned” seats. The only times when such norms were deviated from were when a student dropped the course and, after remaining empty numerous days, someone else claimed the new territory as their own.

The assignment asked us to intentionally commit a deviant act and then describe how the theories of deviance might apply under normal circumstances, but I was fortunate enough to deviate unintentionally, and that spontaneity allowed me to observe the natural progression and real-time illustration of many theories of deviance in a short period of time.

From a structural-functionalist approach, my deviance showed how much the students in my class value their chosen seats; it was also intended to function as a means to meeting new people and (hopefully) starting new relationships, but such latent functions were instead absent functions. One could also relate the instance to Merton’s strain theory by saying that although I accepted the goal of meeting a new person, I rejected the means of just introducing myself by deciding to be an innovator and move next to his usual seat instead. (That he decided to deviate and skip class that day, choosing instead to be a rebel rather than a conformant, is irrelevant.)

The symbolic-interactionist theories of deviance were especially evident, and even seemed to lead from one into another as the event progressed. Labeling theory even applies to the situation not once, but twice: My primary deviance was sitting in a different seat, and after having gone so far, I committed secondary deviance by concealing my intentions with an outright lie: I hadn’t changed seats to switch things up, but to sit closer to a specific person. However, when I labeled my switching seats as something fun to do, it was no longer deviance in the eyes of others. Speaking of those others specifically, my one classmate who knows me pretty well and took up the cry to have everyone change seats brings to mind the theory of differential association; furthermore, when she encouraged all the people she knew to join us, the circle of association spread even further. What clinched the deal was without a doubt a pristine example of control theory in action: Everyone had the opportunity to join us, and with no foreseeable negative consequences, all of them did so until the entire class was deviating.

In such a small-scale act of deviance as this, there was little room for social-conflict theories to take precedence, but without a doubt, larger acts could easily lead to such ends.

After this experience, I’ve gained a greater appreciation for the importance of societal norms and how fast they can be crossed under the right circumstances. On the one hand, it’s encouraging that small secondary groups such as these can create their own respected mores, but it’s just as startling to imagine how quickly the group mind could be swayed into doing horrible acts far more terrible than just switching seats to sit closer to an attractive guy.

Creation

This past summer when I attended the Alexander Muss High School in Israel program, I did a lot more than just tour the country and have fun. Part of the program was a class about Jewish and Israeli history, and as part of the class I was required to write many essays. Before the trip began, however, merely the mention of the word “essay” made me queasy. I hated the idea of writing anything other than fiction, and I despised the thought of having to write essays over the summer. However, when it came time to write the essays, I found many of them to be rather simple to do, and over the course of the trip, not only did I lose my nervousness about writing essays, I also came to appreciate the usefulness of outlines when properly employed.

This was the first essay we were required to write, and I post it here only for the sake of showing how horribly I wrote essays before I went on AMHSI. The topic was simple and straightforward, and the assignment was equally as so: “Read the Mesopotamian and Jewish creation stories (known as the Enuma Elish and the first few chapters of the book of Genesis, or Breishit in Hebrew, respectively) and answer the following questions: Compare and contrast the two stories. From reading these stories, what would you think about the cultures they came  from? Which story would you rather study? Which story would you rather tell your children?” As you’ll soon see, although topic was simple enough, my essay-writing abilities weren’t nearly refined enough to do it much justice.

Class: High School in Israel

Topic: Creation Stories

Date: June 2009

Creation Myths

In the Enuma Elish story, Apsu and Tiamat give birth to the gods, though they are noisy and Apsu vows to kill them. Tiamat warns her children and they respond by slaying Apsu. Tiamat then marries Kingu, who manipulates her into avenging Apsu’s death and causes her to create an army of monsters and then declare war upon her children.

Anu, the chief of the gods, approaches Marduk, the most powerful of the gods, and Marduk agrees to fight Tiamat if his demand to rule the universe is granted. When this is done, he slays Tiamat and uses her body to create the earth. He then fills it with three hundred gods to tend the land and feed the greater gods.

The three hundred lesser gods complain to Marduk, which prompts him to ask who had enraged Tiamat. Kingu is identified and Marduk slays him, using his blood to create mankind to serve the gods and fulfill the duties of the three hundred.

The Enuma Elish is a violent story full of fighting, murder, and chaos. Only through war and sacrifice is the earth created, and only through death is life born.

The Torah, however, portrays things very differently. In Chapter 1 of Breishit, God speaks and the world is created. Over the course of five more days, God further refines light and darkness into sky and sea, earth and oceans, and then fills the land with living things, birds and sea monsters, insects, and all manners of creatures to walk the land. Among these is man, who God has created to tend to the earth and protect it.

This last point is further elaborated upon in Chapter 2 of Breishit. God has just created the land animals but has not yet created vegetation, and he gathers dust from the earth in the shape of a man and breathes into him the breath of life, creating Adam. God then creates the Garden of Eden and places Adam inside it. However, Adam is still alone, and realizing that it is not good to be alone, God creates Eve to be his companion.

Both creation stories in the Torah are orderly and structured, showcasing a methodical God that exists outside of chaos. He is also portrayed as compassionate, having first created suitable environments for all his creations before placing them upon the earth and also in creating Eve to befriend and accompany Adam.

These two creation stories, the Enuma Elish and the Torah, are incredibly different. Aside from the obvious differences of polytheism and monotheism, the Enuma Elish is full of violence and murder, the taking of life, whereas the Torah is only full of compassion and the giving of life: the creation of flora and fauna, the creation of mankind, and the meticulous manner through which all of it is created. However, we can still see some minor similarities between the two: Both mention the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers which formed the Fertile Crescent and gave life to the area, and in both, mankind is created to tend the earth and serve the gods or God who had created them.

We can assume that the cultures from which these stories originated shared a common sense of life purpose, to serve the gods and master the earth. However, we can also presume that whereas the Mesopotamians exalted war and violence, the followers of Jewish belief found divinity elsewhere, in order and compassion.

I would rather study the Enuma Elish than the story of Breishit. I am already familiar with the latter while I also enjoy learning about the mythology and history of other cultures and religions. That said, when I have children, I would much rather tell them the story of God’s creation than fill them with glorified images of murder and vengeance. Although you could look at the Enuma Elish as a story of overcoming oppression and prevailing over those who wish you harm—both of which are hopeful images worth holding onto throughout life—the more peaceful outlook presented in the Torah is much more suitable for bedtime stories than one full of bloodshed.

Israel vs. the US

Class: SOC 210 Intro. to Sociology

Topic: Society and Culture

Grade: 125/125

Date: September, 2009

Cultural Differences in the United States and Israel

This past summer I spent six week studying abroad in Israel. Although I had not foreseen this assignment then, three weeks of Sociology classes have given me the ability to look back upon my conversations in Israel and evaluate them not merely in the context of students and counselors but also in the context of people from different cultures meeting for the first time. Early in my trip it was hard to distinguish different cultures on the campus where I stayed, surrounded mostly by other Americans in my predominantly Jewish group, but as the program went on and I interacted with more Israelis and observed their customs, I came to discover many viewpoints commonly held by Israelis that are not as commonly held by Americans.

One of the first differences I came across was the fact that the Jewish subculture in Israel is not subcultural at all, but on the contrary quite mainstream. Judaic shops lined the streets in every city I visited, Hasidic Jews in heavy suits and dresses were no uncommon sight even in temperatures above ninety degrees Fahrenheit, and most restaurants had signs proclaiming that they served only kosher food. At the same time, however, the breadth of Judaism in Israel also surprised me. Here in North Carolina, I belong to a Conservative synagogue where most people practice Judaism in similar ways, observing the same Jewish holidays and rituals and generally dressing up to attend services. In Israel, however, many people viewed Judaism much more casually, and one woman I spoke with even went so far as to say she only kept Jewish by living in Israel. Additionally, I was quite surprised when I attended Orthodox services in Jerusalem wearing jeans and a collared t-shirt—and wasn’t the only one dressed so casually! Of the few times I experienced culture shock in Israel, that was among the most memorable.

Another difference between American and Israeli cultures is their respective views on the environment. Americans generally disregard the environment and its needs, often using disposable household goods without considering the consequences. Israelis, on the other hand, tend to be much more environmentally conscious. My counselor Yigal was especially active in promoting recycling on our campus, helping us to sort all of our recyclable goods into appropriate bins and then emptying them frequently. Once one of my classmates told him that she had never recycled batteries before, and his surprise was clearly evident when his eyes widened and he was taken aback for a moment. Yigal explained to us that he was not the only Israeli concerned with the environment, that due to Israel’s small size and limited land resources, the threat of trash piling up and taking over usable land space is on every Israeli’s mind.

Judaism and environmentalism are both examples of material and non-material elements of culture, from the physical (tallit and tefillin; recycling bins) to the immaterial (religious values and respect for the environment), but they are certainly not the only examples of differences between American and Israeli cultures: Israel’s predominant language is Hebrew, which differs from English not only in non-material ways (the words we speak) but also in material ways (Hebrew has its own alphabet and is even written from right to left, the opposite of English).

Israeli food also differs greatly from American food and is a prime example of Israel’s material culture: Instead of macaroni and cheese and pizza, Israel has falafel (crushed chick peas seasoned and fried) and shawarma (meat, usually lamb, cooked on a rotisserie and shaved off to be served), both of which are eaten in pitas like many Middle Eastern dishes, and instead of cakes and pies, Israel has baklava (a layered pastry filled with nuts and syrup or honey) and knaffe (vermicelli-like pastry over sweetened cream cheese covered in syrup) for desserts.

Because Israeli culture is so ingrained with Jewish culture, it was often difficult for me to distinguish between the two. This leant me a more culturally relativistic viewpoint than I might have had in other parts of the world as I was able to look at certain aspects of Israeli culture (such as most shops closing on Shabbat, or the public celebration of Jewish holidays) without being unaware of why such practices are observed (you’re not supposed to work on the Sabbath, for example). There were still times, however, when I did feel especially ethnocentric, such as when teenagers were freely able to buy cigarettes or when, while going through airport security on our way home, we neither had to remove our shoes or have liquids over three ounces confiscated. My being so accustomed to the opposite of such practices in America, I couldn’t help but be taken aback when I saw the norms of my culture completely ignored in theirs. Of course, there were also elements of our culture that some Israelis found odd: Yigal, for example, could not understand the pairing of chocolate and peanut butter that is so popular in the United States.

Perhaps one of the biggest differences between Israeli and American cultures is also a perfect example of how social context shapes our personal decisions. For example, it was my decision to begin college after finishing High School; however, if I were living in Israel, I would not have had the option of going to college after High School but would have joined the army instead, as is mandatory for most citizens in Israel. Yigal, like my three other Israeli counselors, had gone through his army service before our trip and had only just been accepted to college near the time our program ended. What would surprise most Americans even more is that Yigal is already twenty-four, six years older than the expected age of eighteen to start college in the US.

In conclusion, it is now clear to see how two cultures, even when united by common factors, such as religion, can differ extensively in both the material and non-material ways that define them as cultures not just locally, but also globally.

The Other Olympics

This was one of the first essays I had to write for my my first semester in college. Therefore, I find it’s only fitting that it’s the first essay I post here. The topics of my essays vary widely, from personal to political to special interest and beyond, but I’m sure there’ll be something that’ll interest almost anyone in most of my essays. This first one happens to center around sports and patriotism/nationalism, but to make things simpler for casual readers leisurely perusing the blog, I’ll organise all essays written for school according to class, assignment, and grade, as well as date and topic (ordered by tags).

Class: ENG 111 Expository Writing

Assignment: Write a narrative essay about a remembered event.

Grade: 95/100 (A)

Date: September, 2009

The Other Olympics

The stands are packed with waiting fans, men and women forced to the edges of their seats poised with cameras and waving flags in their hands. People from seventy countries have converged for the start of a sporting event that occurs only once every four years. The athletes will come to the field, the President and Prime Minister will speak, the torch will be lit, and the games will begin.

Not in Turin, Italy. Not in Beijing, China. But in Ramat Gan, Israel.

 

Our buses left campus after dinner. A group of more than eighty teenagers from around the US attending a six-week High School program in Israel, we occupied ourselves by playing truth or dare and listening to music, all the while the fact that we were headed to a once-in-a-lifetime experience seeming to elude us, floating just overhead while we talked and laughed.

When we arrived, none of us had quite expected to be there. We’d come to Israel to study its history and to experience its culture, to learn about Judaism and our own history, but none of us had foreseen this. None of us had known we’d be attending the opening ceremonies of the eighteenth Maccabiah, the Maccabbi Games, the Jewish equivalent of the Olympics.

We wound our way through the parking lot towards the gate, all of us wearing matching t-shirts to not lose ourselves in the crowd. Gate seventeen greeted us with a grin, opening its mouth wide as we passed through security one-by-one, our counselors handing us our tickets as we waited to go in. Just inside the gates, smiling ushers passed out programs and miniature Israeli flags to wave in the stands. We climbed the stairs towards our seats and at the top, I staggered forward in surprise, awed by the crater I’d come upon, rows upon rows of chairs carved into its sides and filled with hundreds, if not thousands of people in the stadium. A mile away, a massive stage had been erected, surrounded by colossal video screens broadcasting the entire show. I shook myself from my stupor and found my seat, next to Carrie and Logan, two of my classmates on the trip. While the dusk deepened and we waited for the show to begin, we talked about anything that came to mind and waited less and less patiently for nightfall to come.

At last a hush fell over the stadium and our conversation was cut short. A cheer broke the air as white lights rolled out of the darkness and a parade of bicycles pedaled around the field below, their wheels alight and dazzling as their performance started the show. A dozen camera flashes sparked in the stands like the fluttering stars in the sky above. When the bicycles had wheeled their way off the field, the announcers found their place on the stage and began speaking, first in Hebrew, then in English, then in languages I didn’t even recognize, as they welcomed everyone to the eighteenth Maccabiah. Moments later, the screens behind them came alive as they called the first country’s name and their athletes began to enter the stadium. Everyone clapped, more stars came alive and died in the darkness as people took pictures of their approach, and the first country was joined by a second, and a third, and by the time the fourth one came, Carrie was asking how much longer till it would end. I laughed and told her it goes by faster on TV. Logan agreed and said at least while watching TV we could do other things.

Canada, Columbia, France—Macedonia, Lithuania, Estonia—we cheered for all the countries as their athletes entered, sometimes surprised that there were enough Jews in these unheard of lands that they could be represented here. Argentina, Uruguay, Greece—Jewish athletes from all over the world, and they kept coming and coming.

Once more the stadium fell silent and the announcers called out, “The United States of America.” We leapt up from our seats, jumping and cheering and snapping pictures like crazed paparazzi. We pounded our fists in the air and hollered, “USA! USA!” Even after the thousand athletes had found their place on the field, even after the next country and the next after that had been introduced, we continued to cheer. We cheered until our throats were sore, and as we collapsed back into our seats, I felt a sudden change in myself. I thought back to my home in North Carolina and realized that I had never felt more a part of the US than I did right then. I’d always been a part of a smaller faction, my family, my synagogue, my town, my state, but not until then had I seen myself as a part of my country, loving my country as a whole.

Carrie complained again how long it was taking, and I yawned in my seat next to her, thinking the same thing. Then we saw a white and blue-striped flag enter from the far left of the field and a rush of static ran through the stadium. Before the announcers even had a chance to speak, everyone jumped up and cheered, clapping for our homeland as Israel’s flag marched across the field. Not just the eighty of us from America, or the small group from Spain sitting behind us, or the Australians a few rows down, but all of us, the entire stadium cheering not just for the homeland of native Israelis, but the promised land for all of us, Jews from seventy countries come home to share solidarity through sportsmanship. My connection to Israel grew deeper as the cheering went on, my love of the land grew stronger as the flags waved in the air and thousands of people shared a single moment of connection, a single moment that transcended language and culture and history, and brought us together as a unified people.

Carrie asked, “Is it over yet?” and even before I could answer, the first torch-runner was introduced and began dashing around the field. The torch changed hands twice, a third time to a man in a wheelchair, and then once more to a man at the base of the stairs. He dashed upwards and we turned to watch, lifting our heads as he touched the flame to the altar and the offering burst upward toward heaven, the eighteenth Maccabiah underway, the games begun.

On the bus ride back to our campus in Hod HaSharon, we were quiet and withdrawn. The darkness didn’t lend itself to gameplay, and our voices were still hoarse from all our cheering, our bodies exhausted just the same. Inside, though, I was discovering myself again, going over the scenes once more, reliving that feeling I’d never felt before, that connection not just to a community, but to a kingdom, a new connection to both my homeland and my home.