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On Jews Turning to Science
BY RABBI DR. SHMULY YANKLOWITZ
AS THE COVID-19 pandemic
rages on to do untold damage
and send society back into
petrifying uncertainty, the role
of science in our lives is about
to be, perhaps, even more
important than ever.

And while some seek
comfort right now in ignoring
what science has to say about
how we ought to move forward
in defending the dignity and
safety of all people, we know
that the Jewish tradition gives
us not only the obligation to
do what the science tells us is
right, but also a long history of
science as a key element in our
understanding of the world.

Our great sage Moses
Maimonides, in addition
to writing the “Mishneh
Torah” and “The Guide for
the Perplexed,” was a highly
accomplished scientist and
physician. And the medieval
rabbis Abraham Ibn Ezra
and Levi ben Gershon were
so well remembered for their
contributions to mathematics
and astronomy that they both
now have craters on the moon
named after them.

For far too long, the spoken
relationship between science
and religion has been one of
clash; either one must be right
or the other. But Judaism is
pro-science, and thus we need
to shift that discourse to one
of synergy and constructive
relationship. “If science is about the world
that is, and religion is about the
world that ought to be, then
religion needs science,” Rabbi
Jonathan Sacks, of blessed
memory, wrote in his 2011
book “The Great Partnership:
God, Science and the Search
for Meaning,” “because we
cannot apply God’s will to the
world if we do not understand
the world.”
In April, I had the oppor-
tunity to interview the public
intellectual and Harvard
professor Steven Pinker
as part of the “Scientists in
Synagogues” project of the
nationwide Sinai and Synapses
program. In that discussion
Pinker noted that, in a world in
which we all took science more
seriously, we’d be much better
equipped to identify where our
justice work is most needed,
and to know specifically the
best ways for us to protect the
lives of all people.

“We’d be perhaps less
whipsawed by the headline of
the morning, by the anecdote,
by the outrage, by the vivid
narrative, and more cognizant
of trends that affect millions
... billions of people,” he said.

“We would track things like
extreme poverty worldwide
... deaths in warfare, different
categories of violence, like
homicide and police shootings
and terrorism and war and
genocide — and allocate our
effort, our resources, our moral
energy to where the most
people get hurt and where the
most people can get helped.”
Pinker pointed out that our
engagement in science and
technology plays a pivotal role
in our work to repair the world,
perhaps even more important
than our political and social
action. “Progress doesn’t happen by
itself,” he said. “It is only the
result of human agency ... That
doesn’t always mean protest
activism. Sometimes it does,
but sometimes it means science
and technology, developing
artificial fertilizers, developing
antibiotics and vaccines and
public health measures.”
In recent years, our Scottsdale,
Arizona-based organization,
Valley Beit Midrash, has adopted
a robust learning approach on
science and Judaism that has
invited scientists to present their
findings and for us to consider
those ideas in a Jewish context.

Selected as a partner of the Sinai
and Synapses initiative, in the
past year or so we’ve hosted scien-
tist-led learning events on topics
such as cosmology, psychology
and extraterrestrial life.

More generally, our integra-
tion of science into our Jewish
learning has several purposes.

One goal is to lift up the
voices of Jewish scientists in the
Jewish community. The Jewish
community is often willing
to listen to rabbis and theolo-
gians, and we want to bring
scientists into the communal
discourse as well. Scientists
provide immense value to us,
and we want to value them in
return. A second objective is to
bring in unengaged Jews who
have a particular interest in
science. It’s no secret that a
significant percentage of Jews
are not involved in Jewish
religious life. However, many
of them find intellectual, if not
spiritual, fulfillment in science,
which of course is a part of the
Jewish project. Science can be
their way into Judaism.

Also, we need to enhance
the whole communal learning
experience by adding science
to the offerings provided, thus
expanding the Torah’s reach.

Now, thanks to a micro-grant
from the Jewish Community
Foundation of Greater Phoenix,
we are continuing that work.

We hope that you’ll join us
in our upcoming science and
Judaism learning programs.

It’s only by recognizing
religion and science, not as
opposing forces, but as related
facets in an all-encompassing
pursuit of truth, that we can
bring both endeavors to their
full potential. l
Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the
president and dean of Valley Beit
Midrash of Scottsdale, Arizona and
the author of more than 20 books
on Jewish ethics.

‘Licorice Pizza’ Captures the Moment When Pop Culture
Finally Started to See Jewish Women as Beautiful
BY STEPHEN SILVER
THIS YEAR, everyone seemed
to have an opinion about how
the entertainment industry
views Jewish women.

The comedian
Sarah Silverman and others openly
inveighed against what she
deemed “Jewface,” or the
trend of casting non-Jewish
actresses as (Ashkenazi) Jewish
women; a plotline on this
year’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”
season mocked a similar idea
by having Larry David cast
14 JANUARY 6, 2022
a Latina actress as a Jewish
character on a show about his
childhood. Whether you agree with
Silverman or not, it’s hard
to hear a term like “Jewface”
and not think about the way
Jewish characters have histor-
ically looked onscreen. For
much of the 20th century, show
business and popular culture
considered stereotypical
“Jewish” traits — curly hair,
olive skin, a prominent nose —
either “exotic,” comic or worse,
inspiring countless Jewish
women to undergo rhinoplasty.

It wasn’t until Barbra Streisand
flaunted her “Jewish” looks
beginning in the late 1960s —
as Bette Midler would a few
years later — that the culture
began to shift. Streisand, writes
her biographer Neal Gabler,
“had somehow managed to
change the entire definition of
beauty.” Now, at the end of 2021,
along comes a film set in the
1970s with a female Jewish
protagonist who is not only
played by a Jewish actress,
JEWISH EXPONENT
but is also portrayed as a sex
symbol. The film is “Licorice Pizza,”
the latest from acclaimed
writer-director Paul Thomas
Anderson, and it opened wide
in theaters on Christmas
after several weeks of limited
release. And the character is
Alana Kane, played by singer
Alana Haim of the band Haim,
making her screen debut.

In the film, Alana is
an aimless, guileless San
Fernando Valley 20-something
who gains maturity and an
entrepreneurial spirit after
befriending Gary Valentine,
an overconfident child actor
(Cooper Hoffman, son of
Philip Seymour Hoffman) who
enlists her in various business
schemes and convinces her to
make a go at acting. The two
of them enter a teasy, flirty
codependency — Gary, not
even 16, makes his attraction to
Alana known early and often,
especially when the two open
a waterbed business together
and he instructs her to “act
sexy” when selling the kitschy
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relics over the phone.

But it’s not just Gary.

Seemingly everyone in the
movie, from lecherous older
industry veterans to upstart
young politicos, is obsessed
with Alana — not in spite of her
obviously Jewish appearance,
but because of it. Anderson
plays up Haim’s physical paral-
lels to the Jewish beauties of the
era: a casting director (Harriet
Sansom Harris) gushes over
her “Jewish nose,” which she
notes is a very in-demand
look, while real-life producer
Jon Peters (played by Bradley
Cooper as a manic, sex-crazed
lunatic), gets very handsy
with Alana — after pointedly
bragging that Streisand is his
girlfriend. “Licorice Pizza” is in line
with ideas espoused in Henry
Bial’s 2005 book “Acting Jewish:
Negotiating Ethnicity on the
American Stage and Screen,”
particularly its chapter on the
’70s, which Bial described as
the period when “Jews became
sexy.” Streisand, at the time
of her Broadway debut in the
early ’60s, was described in
reviews as a “homely frump”
and “a sloe-eyed creature with
folding ankles.” But by the
’70s, bolstered by her immense
charisma and no-apolo-
gies attitude toward her own
stardom, she was one of
popular culture’s greatest sex
symbols, even appearing on
the cover of Playboy in 1977
— the year after starring in
and producing her own “A Star
is Born” remake. Her physical
appearance didn’t change in
the intervening time; only the
public’s reactions to it did.

Anderson himself was born
in 1970, so the teenaged adven-
tures in the film aren’t his
memories specifically — they’re
mostly those of his friend Gary
Goetzman, a former child actor
who lived through many of the
episodes depicted in the movie.

And Anderson himself is not
Jewish, though his longtime
partner Maya Rudolph, who
has a small part in the film, is.

Yet perhaps by virtue of being
born into a world in which
Jewish women were suddenly
being considered
sexy, Anderson seems to innately
understand the period-specific
sexual, cultural and spiritual
dynamics that would lead to
someone like Alana being
celebrated for her looks.

Anderson wasn’t immune to
those dynamics. As a child he
had a crush on Alana Haim’s
mother, Donna Rose, who
was his art teacher: “I was in
love with her as a young boy,
absolutely smitten,” he told
The New York Times, waxing
rhapsodic about her “long,
beautiful, flowing brown hair.”
For much of the film, Alana
is unsure whether or how to
leverage her sex appeal, as she
also tries to figure out what she
wants to do with her life. An
attempt to respect the wishes
of her traditional family (the
other Haims, including their
real parents, play the Kane clan)
by dating a nice, successful,
age-appropriate Jewish guy
ends in disaster at a Shabbat
dinner when the guy himself,
Lance (Skyler Gisondo), refuses
to say the “hamotzi” prayer.

The scene also touches on
the debate over “religious” vs.

“cultural” Judaism that has
been raging in American Jewish
circles since at least the time
period when the film is set. While
acknowledging he was “raised in
the Jewish tradition,” Lance cites
“Vietnam” as the reason why he
now identifies as an atheist and
can’t bring himself to recite a
blessing. In response, Alana gets
him to admit he’s circumcised
before declaring, “Then you’re
a f–king Jew!”
The moral of the scene might
be the movie’s biggest lesson
to impart about Judaism: It’s
not just a belief system. It’s an
innate part of you, affecting
everything from your hair to
your nose to your genitals. It
can make you be perceived
as ugly in one decade, and a
bombshell in the next. l
Stephen Silver writes for JTA.

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KVETCH ’N’ KVELL
Article Overlooked Past Leaders
CONGRATULATIONS TO JUDY GRONER on her retirement
and her many accomplishments at PJDS (“Perelman Day School
Leader to Retire,” Dec. 23).

It is unfortunate that the article failed to acknowledge
the many achievements of previous administrations and the
dedicated faculty who laid the foundation that enabled Perelman
to continue growing. Much work and many devoted people made
Perelman the institution it is today.

Rita Ross | Wynnewood
Student Debt and the American Dream
In Rabbi Emily Cohen’s op-ed about student debt relief (“We’re
in a Shmita Year. So Why Aren’t American Jews Talking More
About Student Debt Relief?”, Dec. 23), she describes herself as
“unbelievably lucky” that her parents paid her undergraduate
education costs “due to generational wealth resulting from many
Jews being coded as white after World War II.”
As a parent who paid the undergraduate costs of my children,
I would be extremely offended if they felt the same. Luck has
nothing to do with it and neither does being “coded as white.”
Parents set priorities, and in Jewish families, education is at the
top of the list. We worked hard, eschewed fancy cars and extrav-
agant vacations and put away money for our children’s education
from the day they were born.

My family didn’t automatically accrue “generational wealth,”
and I would be quite surprised if Rabbi Cohen’s family somehow
did. There is no shame coming from a family that works hard to
realize the American dream.

Neil Shapiro | Blue Bell
Loans Are Meant to be Repaid
Rabbi Cohen’s op-ed (“We’re in a Shmita Year. So Why Aren’t
American Jews Talking More About Student Debt Relief?”, Dec,
23) points out that she has been lucky with her student debt and
many are not as fortunate. But there are several points she does
not address.

The first is simple. If you take out a loan you are expected,
legally and morally, to repay it. Rights come with responsibilities,
and usually the latter is not mentioned. Secondly, the lender has
debts to pay that are contingent upon the borrower living up to
their end of the bargain. Thirdly, there are many ways to offset
debt, including employer repayment plans (as part of a compen-
sation packet); and joining the military to get GI Bill-type
subsidies (which paid for my graduate degree).

Another option is skipping college and learning a trade, which
is much cheaper and often pays better. And if one decides to go to
college, get a degree with some value to potential employers, thus
broadening future employment prospects.

A good lesson in life is to pay your way, not allowing yourself
to be a victim. It would make for a much better life down the
line in most cases. Before looking for student loan relief, look at
the many options available before you decide to assume it but do
not make someone else pay for your questionable decision. As a
society, we would all be better for it. l
Matt Segal | Cary, North Carolina
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JANUARY 6, 2022
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