Remember the Husband of the Non-Jewish Korean Woman?

He's written a book.

THE FALL AND RISE OF THE ISLAMIC STATE

From a review:-

Which brings us to Noah Feldman’s “Fall and Rise of the Islamic State.” The book begins in daring fashion, acknowledging the plight of the region and suggesting it might be saved by Islamic law. That’s right: Shariah...

Well now, that’s a provocative assertion. At a glance, you might think Feldman, a professor at Harvard Law School, drew the most difficult card at a college debating tournament...I was eager to see how Feldman would pull off such a novel and unorthodox argument.

And he does not. Or not very convincingly, anyway. Feldman provides an interesting history of the Islamic legal system that prevailed over the Middle East and North Africa, including, in particular, the variant practiced by the Ottomans until the collapse of their empire following World War I. Feldman shows that, through a delicately balanced arrangement that relied on an unelected group of scholars to interpret the Koran and other religious texts, Shariah provided an orderly and predictable legal system that checked the power of the empire’s rulers. And he shows how that system collapsed, thereby speeding the decline of the empire by removing checks on executive power.

But that was then, and this is now. In today’s world Feldman’s argument runs out of steam. How could it not? As Roy points out, modern attempts to impose Shariah have failed wherever they have been tried — whether in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia or Iran. Failed, that is, in Roy’s words, at “instigating effective and legitimate political institutions and social justice, and guaranteeing economic development.” Feldman is correct in pointing out that Islamist ideas will play an increasingly prominent role in the Middle East, but he avoids the critical questions. What about women? What about Muslims who leave the faith? Of these, Feldman says almost nothing.

Maybe Shariah will save the Middle East. But based on the evidence we have, waiting for it to blossom into a humane and modern legal system is to engage in wishful thinking. Feldman seems to recognize this himself, and ends his book by calling on the West to help majority Muslim countries build “institutions that perceive themselves and are perceived by the public as committed to the rule of law.” Nation-building, in other words.

Ya-aleh v'Yavo (Arise and Come)

Ya-aleh v'Yavo are the recognizable words that signal the special New Month prayer added to the Amidah and translate as "Arise and Come".

Their specific relevance?

Well, as I just recently posted, Jews have this tendencey to argue and divide over emphasized differences.

And now this elevator story which reminded me of arise and come:-

Century Village unit criticized for spending $11,000 to alter elevator for Sabbath

and excerpts -

Most of the 56 owners in Berkshire E are Orthodox Jews barred for religious reasons from pushing the buttons on their elevator during the Sabbath, which runs from Friday evening to Saturday evening. They persuaded their board to spend $11,000 to convert the elevator so it automatically stops on each of the four floors during the Sabbath.

But two of the owners, who are also Jewish, are angry their money will be used for a religious accommodation. "I respect their desires, but why does the building have to pay for this?" asked snowbird Nicki Goldstein, 69, from her New York City home.

By law, however, everyone who buys in a condo community agrees to submit to the will of the majority. About 85 percent of the owners are Orthodox. On the Sabbath, they are not allowed to do anything that would create energy, such as drive a car, turn on a light or push an elevator button.

Those owners purposely bought in Berkshire E because it is an easy walk to Young Israel synagogue of Deerfield Beach, said association president Mark Sussman, who isn't Orthodox.

...Steven D. Rubin, chairman of a Palm Beach County Bar Association real estate committee, thinks the board may have overstepped its boundaries.

"I don't think the board should take a position on spending association funds for religious purposes, regardless of what the majority wants," he said.

But state condo ombudsman Danille R. Carroll said, "There is nothing in the statutes that would not allow a board to do that. It's at the board's discretion. "And the way they did it is a good thing; you want a board to get input from owners," she said.

What constitutes improper backing of a religious activity by a condo or homeowner association has been debated for years. Every case is different. Two years ago, a federal judge ruled a Port St. Lucie homeowner association was within its rights to ban religious services in its clubhouse as long as it was applied equally to all religious groups.

Last year, the Sun of Baltimore reported a brouhaha over an attempt to convert one of two elevators to a Sabbath elevator. After the board voted 5-3 against it, a Baltimore council member in May introduced a bill to prohibit buildings from adopting rules that deny reasonable accommodation for practicing one's religion. No decision has been made.

Sandra Bronner, a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, doesn't want to pay for the Sabbath elevator in Berkshire E.

"It doesn't matter if I have to push the button or not," the snowbird said from her home in Toronto. "If a majority of people are religious, let them pay for it. And I'm Orthodox."

...Rabbi Pesach Lerner, executive vice president of the National Council of Young Israel, the New York-based organization that coordinates 150 Orthodox synagogues in the country, said the minority must submit to the majority in condos.

"The definition of condominium is communal living," he said. "If a board decides to paint a building, I may not want it painted but everyone must pay so I have to pay. A majority of people voted for the elevator. I think it's unfortunate that people can't accommodate their neighbors."

And how many eruv stories can we tell, starting with Noah Feldman who pro-bonoed to fight the Tenafly eruv.

Feldman Gets Floored (in my opinion) - UPDATED

Noah Feldman, brilliant law professor, was peeved that his Korean wife, who did not convert, was not accepted into his Yeshiva high school class reunion group photo.

It happens.

But Noah, who is at Harvard and maybe has some friends at the New York Times, what Wonkette mistakenly thinks is the 'Jew-York Times', you should pardon me for spreading about a bit of Judeophobia filth from that left-wing, radical blog, wrote a big asrticle about his problem for their Sunday Magazine.

Here are three good letters in reaction:

Beyond serving as a forum for graduates to keep up with one another, a school alumni newsletter is a powerful marketing tool that showcases for potential students the accomplishments of the school’s graduates. For Noah Feldman to expect his Jewish day school to report on news of his marrying outside the Jewish faith is, effectively, asking his school to publish the following promotional ad: “Come spend 12 years steeped in Jewish religious texts and Jewish identity-building, and you, too, may become successful and intermarry.”

Bluma Zuckerbrot-Finkelstein

Memphis

I am a Korean-American who converted to Judaism (mikvah included) when I married my Jewish husband. We are active members of our conservative synagogue, and our children go to Jewish day schools. During the 17 years since my conversion, I have been fully accepted into the Jewish community as a Jew, including the ultra-Orthodox community. Judaism dictates that descendants are the religion of the mother. I believe that this tenet is crucial to the survival of the Jewish religion in the ever-increasing numbers of interracial marriages.

Leona Kim Schluger, M.D.

Millwood, N.Y.

Feldman’s article could have inspired discussion of the issue of intermarriage in the modern Orthodox Jewish world, but his presentation precludes such discourse. Like any expert litigator, he has selectively emphasized certain facts to misrepresent the truth. He speaks of Baruch Goldstein at length, ignoring that the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jews condemned his massacre of Palestinians as morally repugnant. Even Feldman’s portrayal of Joe Lieberman seems like a backhanded jab at modern Orthodoxy. After ostensibly glorifying Lieberman’s “overt normalcy,” why compare his phylacteries to the cilice of Opus Dei? Why encourage people to wonder what kind of backward, medieval man lurks within the senator’s suit?

Jenny Brenner

Efrat, Israel

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and this just in:-

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.

The photographer, Lenny Eisenberg, told The Jewish Week Monday that he had difficulty capturing as many as 60 reunion participants within a single frame. Eisenberg ended up taking several shots from one side, then the other, and several people on the far side -- not just Feldman and his fiancee -- happened to be out of the picture when it finally appeared in the newsletter...

...Eisenberg, who is now based in New York, said the Times "paid my way to go back to [his Boston studio] and find the negative. They wanted to run the [reunion] picture to illustrate" Feldman's claim of being discriminated against because of his relationship with a non-Jew. Eisenberg returned with the photo but the Times opted not to publish it, he said, when it became obvious that there was no cropping but simply an overflowing of reunion participants beyond the camera's range.

Come to think of it, if he had testified on the stand at a trial like this, he would have been held for pejury.

Nice going, Feldman.

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And nice going David Frum.

Can't You Just Plotz?

Noah Feldman's bewailing in the NYTimes' Sunday Magazine - he married out, to a Korean, about his treatment by his former Orthodox educational institution and Rabbi is the only time an Orthodox Jew can get into this paper.

Funny enough, his classmate spent this Shabbat next door to me at Shiloh as she's Rav Dov Berkovits' niece.