Go, Be, Do.

Have you heard that phrase used? Man. I'm just hearing it now really, its asinine. Go, Be, Do... as in Stylist; "Is this about the pant?" Nanny creative director; "This one is totally editorial, we aren't selling anything so Go, Be, Do!" like we don't have to make that sweater look good so finally you can do whatever your heart desires with the hair! Ive heard it used offset too and it just rubs me the wrong way. Its like quoting an inspirational mug.

Its impossible for me to be on time to the salon on Sundays if I take the bus cause the schedule changes and it either drops me off 20 mins before anyone gets there to open the door or ten mins after we open. I can take the train but I have to walk a few long blocks and when its really cold that sucks. For that reason, and because he took pity on me on my 11th straight day of work, Ben took me to the salon yesterday. And its a good thing he did, because we were privy to a very interesting slice of the Brooklyn pie on our way. Its very hard to find parking in our hood, so we were walkin the couple blocks to his car when I noticed a crowd of people holding signs up ahead. As we got closer it looked like they were all Orthodox Jews! Which makes everything so much weirder and more entertaining. I was ecstatic, protesting Hasids on our block; pretty much the best day ever. They were chanting something unintelligible but to get on the right street we were going to have to drive through the crowd. Sure enough, they were all orthodox (or Hasidim I'm not exactly sure which) chanting "Shlomo Blumenkrantz Shame on YOU! Shlomo Blumenkrantz Shame on YOU!" and holding signs that read "Shlomo Blumenkrantz stop abusing halakha." Which Ben thought was his wife, but I informed him was Jewish law. Thanks Prof Jaffee. So they re all on one side of the street and there are a couple of private rent a cop types on the other. I asked one of the security tools what this was about, he said "they re protesting." No shit Sherlock, what are they protesting? "This guy." He said and motioned towards the large house across the street. What did he do? 'You gonna havta aks dem!" I turned and looked at the angry bewigged and bespectacled mob, was suddenly overcome with guilt for driving on shabbos (i forgot Shabbos was over on sunday, even worse) and decided id better get to work. Luckily, Ben is the king of Internet research and sussed out this info on shlomo. Apparently there is a rising problem in "the community" with women who are seeking a get, a Jewish divorce, from their husbands and are denied,even if it was the husband who left! This leaves the woman alone but technically married and therefore untouchable by any other man, an agunah or chained woman. Of course in the USA anyone can get a divorce in a civil court but without the get, no other marriage is halakhically recognized and the the successive children will be considered bastards. Poor bastards.

The rabbis of the couples community are supposed to decree a Yeger Seruv, a social castigation technique supposed to coerce the man using pressure and shame, excluding him from community events and ignoring him in synagogue (who needs the death penalty? we can just start ignoring people in synagogue! man, what century are these people living in?) but, surprisingly, this method no longer seems to work, either the community doesn't exert enough pressure or the man just doesn't care.

Now the other part of the problem is that there are a few rabbis who ENCOURAGE men to deny their ex-wives a get, stating that women who do not fulfill their marriage vows are wicked and do not deserve a second chance. This lovely position is where Shlomo Blumenkrantz comes in. He is one of these fine men of the cloth whose misogyny extends even beyond that of regular hasids, who are up in arms and seeking, rather successfully, human rights concern even outside the immediate community.

for more info check out these links.

http://www.forward.com/articles/11989/
http://users.aol.com/agunah/plight.htm
http://www.lilith.org/blog/?p=108

Good times in kensington. Imagine what their Bangladeshi and Mexican next-door neighbors must have thought being awakened on Sunday morning by a mob of angry Jews calling for shame!!?? Brooklyn is amazing. In other seemingly impossible and hilarious news, Ben spent last evening helping our landlady (the obese and somewhat nutty Jewish woman who works doing animal therapy with kids, court ordered crazy people and at nursing homes and who used to play drums for Lionel Hampton but now takes 15 mins to walk up a short flight of stairs) by re hooking up the speakers on her computer so she could listen to this one song that she had had a hankering to hear. She had been calling us to help her with it for DAYS...take a guess. Turns out its Gangster's Paradise by Coolio. Shes dying to listen to Gangsters Paradise. For the next couple hours after he came up we could hear the bassline over and over. I mean, imagine the stuff that goes on around here that we DON'T know about??
Brooklyn, Go, Be, Do.

Merry Christmas! Remember, Buy nothing and vote for Obama!