Red Sox vs. Yankees

RISHON LEZION, Israel — The Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees will play on Opening Day on April 4. I am eager for revenge because, after the World Series victory by the Evil Empire, I owe a friend a steak dinner at El Gaucho in Israel.

Muslim Veils

Here is one Bostonian woman’s experience — good and bad — with wearing a hijab in public.

Addendum: Many Jewish women would agree with her comments on the benefits of modest clothing.

Chanukah 2009/5770

JERUSALEM — The Jewish holiday of Chanukah begins at sundown today. Here are two past writings of mine on the topic: Is Chanukah a Right-Wing Holiday? and Chanukah and Christopher Hitchens.

I also wanted to post another original writing. This is a short paper I wrote while I was a master’s student in Jewish Studies at Hebrew College in Boston. Enjoy!

When Secular and Religious Sources Conflict: Jewish Assimilation and the Maccabees

The story of Chanukah, detailed in the non-canonical books of Maccabees as well as in the writings of various secular historians, is one example of how different accounts — religious and secular — can cloud the history and memory of what actually occurred. The story related in Maccabees is essentially one of Jewish civil war. One faction wanted to adopt various ancient Greek customs since that culture was the dominant force in the Middle East (particularly when King Antiochus gained control of Judea). The other side viewed those practices as assimilation and heresy.

The writers of 1 Maccabees, when introducing the story, side with the latter group, portraying those who chose to assimilate as “wicked men” (1 Macc. 1:12) who profane the Sabbath and allow Antiochus to defile the Temple. When the Maccabees won, the writers viewed the victory in hindsight as a triumph of the faithful over the wicked. Right at the beginning of this account of the conflict, the pro-assimilation Judeans actively chose to side with Greek culture without any specific prompting or coercion:

In those days certain renegades came out from Israel and misled many, saying, ‘Let us go and make a covenant with the Gentiles around us, for since we separated from them many disasters have come upon us.’ This proposal pleased them, and some of the people eagerly went to the king, who authorized them to observe the ordinances of the Gentiles. So they build a gymnasium in Jerusalem, according to Gentile custom, and removed the marks of circumcision, and abandoned the holy covenant. They joined with the Gentiles and sold themselves to do evil. (1 Macc. 1:11-15)

1 Maccabees paints the conflict in stark, black-and-white, religious terms. The fact that the writers portray the pro-assimilation Judeans as wanting to form a new “covenant” with the Greeks is especially damning since, to the Maccabees, the only covenant Jews should have is the one with God that was formed at Sinai.

The ancient historian Josephus Flavius, however, portrayed the account differently. To him, Antiochus originally treated the Jews well because they sided with him during the king’s war against Ptolemy over who would control Judea. To thank the Jews, Antiochus gave them appropriate animals to sacrifice, along with wine, oil, frankincense, silver, flour, wheat, and salt. More significantly, he wrote to Ptolemy to command that “all of that nation live according to the laws of their own country” (Antiquities, Book XII, Chapter III, Part III).

However, Antiochus eventually decided to invade Jerusalem following a failed effort to take Egypt. Josephus writes that the king, in contrast to his earlier policy of toleration, now wanted to impose Greek culture upon the Jews:

[Antiochus] compelled them to forsake the worship which they paid their own God, and to adore those whom he took to be gods; and made them build temples, and raise idol altars in every city and village, and offer swine upon them every day. He also commanded them not to circumcise their sons, and threatened to punish any that should be found to have transgressed his injunction. He also appointed overseers, who should compel them to do what he commanded. (Antiquities, Book XII, Chapter V, Part IV).

According to Josephus, the punishments for violating Antiochus’ decrees were harsh: “they were whipped with rods, and their bodies were torn to pieces, and were crucified, while they were still alive, and breathed. They also strangled those women and their sons whom they had circumcised, as the king had appointed, hanging their sons about their necks as they were upon the crosses” (ibid).

One of the differences between the accounts in 1 Maccabees and Antiquties is in the motivations they attribute to the Jews who choose to adopt Greek culture. In 1 Maccabees, the Judeans assimilate — for seemingly no other reason than because they were wicked — before Antiochus imposes his harsh rule. In Antiquities, the king forces assimilation onto the Judeans under pain of death, and then some Jews assimilate to save their lives.

This difference is an example of the difficulty in surmising accurate social histories from religious texts. History is written by the victors, and 1 Maccabees is one such case. One of the authors’ purposes was to demonize those Jews who chose to assimilate into Greek culture by adopting some of its practices. Antiochus’ decrees in occupied Jerusalem were of secondary importance. If the writers of 1 Maccabees had stated that the Jews who had adopted Greek customs were coerced, then that statement would have hurt their argument that any Jews who assimilate are inherently wicked.

All writers of history naturally have their personal biases, but authors of religious texts are less interested in communicating objective accounts at all — they want to convince their readers of certain theological points. Persuasion is primary; accuracy is secondary.

Related: The White House’s Chanukah party was criticized politically as well. It seems that nothing can be taken lightly anymore.

On Sarah Palin

BELLEVILLE, Illinois — I know more than a few conservative, hard-right women here in the midwestern United States, and many of them dislike the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate as much as your typical Bostonian liberal.

I never understood why. But then I read this reader’s comment to Andrew Sullivan on why many women do not like Palin:

Sarah Palin is the peppy cheerleader in high school all the boys thought was so sweet but the girls knew was really a vicious shrew. She’s the new girl in the office who wears tight shirts and three-inch heels, is super-friendly to her male superiors, ignores the other women, and gets promoted sooner than her more capable and hard working peers. She’s the outgoing PTA mom all of the other women are scared to cross because they will find themselves put on the worst committees. Only a woman knows how to give another woman a sweet smile and at the same time cut her down to size with an artfully crafted “compliment” without male observers having a clue about what just happened. It’s like a dog whistle.

It sounds reasonable. Readers — especially those who are conservatives and/or women — what say you?

The Berlin Wall

I just watched a History Channel documentary on the night — 11 November 1989 — that the Berlin Wall fell. I was nine at the time. Here is a real-politik reflection on the event by Stratfor Global Analysis.

I was too young to understand the significance at the time, but I will always remember the event in hindsight as the start of millions of people gaining their freedom over the next several years, concluding with the fall of the Soviet Union. I would have given anything to be, like Tom Brokaw, a reporter at the scene. The closest I have ever been to a historically-significant event — regardless of how one feels about it personally — was when I covered the first same-sex marriage in Massachusetts when I was editor-in-chief of Spare Change News.

I will always prefer to associate 9/11 with the fall of the Berlin Wall — when written with European dating — rather than with the terrorist attacks in New York, which happened during my last semester of college. The most important historical event to occur in one’s lifetime should be something positive.

Baseball

Since my two favorite teams are the Boston Red Sox and Whoever is Playing the Yankees, I must say: Go Phillies!

Older Women, Younger Men

The New York Times looks at the supposed explosion of cougardom:

Newsweek, taking stock of the explosion of on-screen romances between older women and younger men, declared 2009 “the year of the cougar,” but then concluded in the June article that “by this time next year, the cougar will be extinct.”

Maybe so — if you’re talking about television or the box office. But behind the unleashing of cougars in pop culture is what a growing number of sociologists say is a real demographic shift, driven by new choices that women over 40 are making as they redefine the concept of a suitable mate.

The loosening of relationship conventions, which is not limited to age but also includes race, religion and economic status, appears to be particularly evident among female baby boomers, sociologists say, who are faced with the tightest “marriage squeeze” — the smallest pool of compatible men as conventionally defined, those two to three years older, of similar background and higher levels of education and income. The reason is that as women have delayed marriage, men still have a tendency to date and marry younger women.

I read this with equal parts amusement and understanding. Read this quote from the Times article by Christie Nightingale, the founder of Premier Match dating service: “There are younger men who are sick and tired of women their age — they want a woman who is more grounded and more mature.”

From the age of high school through most of their twenties, women are generally insane. They try to navigate the conflicting messages, hormones, and desires that come from their brains, their bodies, and feminist indoctrination. As I wrote in a lengthy essay, the modern dating world for young people in the West is increasingly complicated as a result of the unintended consequences of feminism over the past several decades. It is perfectly natural for men, as a result, to want to date older women, who generally create much less drama. Men are simple creatures. (I write this as someone who dated a 30-year-old in Boston when I was twenty-three.)

However, the natural reality is that older-woman-younger-man relationships do not generally last (a few celebrity couples notwithstanding). My 30-year-old girlfriend broke up with me because I was too immature and did not want to get married. The laws of evolutionary psychology cannot usually be broken. As the Times article itself notes, these pairings are still rare despite a small uptick in the numbers.

Cougars who date younger men are setting themselves up for disappointment and unhappiness. As a study referenced in the Times article notes, “men were more strongly drawn to the relationships at the start because of physical attraction.” In less-polite terms, younger men fancy these older women because it is kinky and exciting. It is not a stable foundation for a relationship.

Moreover, older women in this context — especially the generation of the Baby Boomers — are typically acting in a selfish manner. As Dr. Louann Brizendine notes in her groundbreaking book “The Female Brain,” most divorces in middle age are initiated by women rather than men. Middle-aged women are much more likely to focus on themselves and their needs by starting anew through divorce after years spent sacrificing their needs for those of their families. Hence the reason that more older women can be seen — as I did in Boston — in bars and clubs drinking and hooking-up with the boy-toy of the night.

The sad reality is that many of these women likely dumped their marriages and husbands — or they intentionally delayed marriage and serious relationships for too much time to get a husband — for the illusion of being a care-free twentysomething. From younger men who want to brag to their friends about nailing a cougar to older women who cannot let go of their youth, it is clear that this trend will quickly die. And that will be healthier for society.

Let’s Go, Red Sox!

Yours truly sounding the battle-cry for the 2009 baseball playoffs, Israeli-style. I had just bought my first shofar in Jerusalem.

Baseball from Israel

RISHON LEZION, Israel — On my first trip to Israel three years ago, I was leaving the Holocaust Memorial when a passerby in the parking lot yelled out, “Go Yankees!”

I was wearing my Red Sox hat at the time. It seems that the Greatest Rivalry in All of Sports follows you anywhere, even ten thousand miles away from the East Coast and outside the somber remembrance of the greatest massacre in human history.

[Conversely, the opposite happened when I was traveling in Egypt. Near the Sphinx, I saw a guy wearing a Yankees hat, and I yelled, "Go Red Sox!" He gave me a puzzled look. "Not American?" I asked. "Uh, no," he replied in a German accent. "Never mind," I replied. Evidently, he was one of those foreigners who wears a Yankees hat only because the team is supposedly synonymous with the United States. Talk about good branding.]

The baseball playoffs are occuring this month, and the Red Sox and Yankees have clinched the AL Wild Card and AL East respectively. But the games will be difficult to watch — night ones start between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. here. Still, I will be excited to see the Red Sox beat the Angels (as they always do in the playoffs) and then face the Evil Empire. But I will need a lot of קפה.

Peter Pan, Meet Harry Potter

The New York Times reports that the children who grew up reading the “Harry Potter” books are now graduating college and entering the workforce:

Indie rock bands have sprung up inspired by their obsession, with names like Harry and the Potters, the Half Bloods, and Voldie and the Wiz Kidz, playing songs inspired by Potter lore.

Last fall, teams from Princeton, Vassar, Boston University [my alma mater!] and a dozen other schools competed in the Quidditch World Cup, in which students play a real-life version of the soccer-like contact sport featured in the books and films. (They can’t fly, but still compete with brooms between their legs.)

The continuing pull of all things Potter is a testament to the franchise’s enduring sway. But it also seems like something else: the advent of Generation Y nostalgia.

Chronologically, I am sandwiched between Generations X and Y since I was born in 1980. As a result, I came to “Harry Potter” later than most people. I was living in London and interning for a magazine in the summer of 2001, and I decided to pick up the first book to see what all the fuss was about. I never looked back. (I discovered later that the American books had been changed slightly — “mum” became “mom” and “lorries” became “trucks.” I guess the publisher decided that children are too stupid to learn words from other countries.) I am excited that the latest film adaptation should be coming to Israel soon.

Still, the Times notes an interesting aspect behind Pottermania:

Even though nostalgia hits every generation, it seems awfully early for 28-year-olds to be looking back. One possible explanation, say authors who focus on generational identity, is the impact of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The political and economic climate of the late ’90s had been as soothing as a Backstreet Boys ballad: no wars, unemployment as low as 4 percent, a $120 billion federal surplus.

Neil Howe, an author of several books on what he calls the Millennials (another term for Gen Y), draws a parallel between this nostalgic wave and the one boomers embraced with the film “American Graffiti” in 1973. That movie depicted the recent past, the early ’60s, which seemed to have vanished forever.

“It’s instant nostalgia before a huge change in the nation’s mood,” Mr. Howe said. “ ‘American Graffiti’ was nostalgia for the boomers for a world before everything changed after J.F.K.’s assassination.

“Millennials see the world before Sept. 11 as a period of innocence. Our biggest worry was the Y2K bug. That all seems a world away now.”

I completely understand. An uncle of mine always told me that college would be the best years of my life, and I am afraid that he might have been correct. I entered college in 1998 — close to the height of the dot-com craze and the Nasdaq. The world looked to be my generation’s digital oyster.

And then, September 11 occurred four months before I graduated in January 2002. I entered the journalism world after the dot-com bubble had burst and newspapers were starting their downward trajectories. Along with everyone else my age, I was burdened by crushing debt from student loans and credit cards at a time when decent job prospects looked — and still look — incredibly remote. And then came the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the re-election of one of the worst presidents in modern times, the housing-bubble collapse, and the current financial meltdown.

I could use a nice game of Quidditch. “Harry Potter” was the last pop-culture sensation that I experienced before my college-student dreams and optimistic outlook were shattered.

Related: Why My Generation is Pissed Off

Death of Nation-States

Coming Anarchy offers a hypothetical map of how Europe may look in ten years:

Even if only a few of these microstates were to be born, it could have serious consequences regionally, transatlantically and globally. In Europe, it would suddenly create a host of rich and poor states, which their previous host states balanced out. Northern Germany will get poorer and the two southern states stay very rich for example. Over time, the lack of wealth transfer from southern to northern Germany, or from northern to southern Italy will likely create less developed and poorer states within Europe no longer able to stay afloat. As an Italian friend once joked, without the north, southern Italy would turn into a Catholic Pakistan. As reader DJ noted, now more than ever, regions of today’s states are trying to maximize the economic benefits of globalization while minimizing the social costs, leading to richer regions breaking from poorer ones.

So what will independence look like? It won’t have the same meaning that we think of today. At the local level, these newly minted states will enjoy previously unparalleled independence, flexibility and likely prosperity. However, at the same time, they will be subservient to the European Union on international matters such as defense, some foreign policy, trade agreements, transportation and environmental issues. Also and perhaps most importantly, a credible Europe wide defense would have to exist to make the creation of new states viable.

As I have noted in prior posts here, here, and here, the nation-state is dying a slow death as the two forces of globalization and localization pull it in opposite directions. The intertwining of all countries’ economies necessitates that all nation-states work with each other, and another result is that all governments can fall victim to forces beyond their control as well. The Internet is also creating an infinite number of niche markets and communities within societies worldwide through the mass-segmentation of the cultural market. Mass immigration — Latin Americans into the United States as well as Arabs and eastern Europeans into western Europe are two prominent examples — is changing the ethnic characters of nation-states as well. France is becoming less “French,” and the United States is becoming less “white” and Protestant.

As one example, the United States — a country that was never entirely a nation since its population has always been comprised of people from various ethnic groups — is slowing being ripped apart on religious, ethnic, and political lines. People who are conservative and Christian get their news from Fox News and other right-wing outlets; liberals and others watch MSNBC and read The New York Times. Two collective groups of people are creating entirely different mindsets and worldviews based on the specific media each group consumes. Texans denigrate Bostonians as intellectual, liberal elitists; Bostonians view Texans as gun-touting, evolution-denying extremists. Is such a cultural situation tenable? If Coming Anarchy is correct about Europe, then the United States might follow in the continent’s footsteps.

Update: A commenter, Jeff, asks a question that I should have answered earlier: “Clearly, you think this half-millennium old system is about to die, but what do you THINK about that?”

Well, I have several thoughts. The first is the present international order of large, complex nation-states is giving way to a globalized world consisting of hundreds of small, ethnic republics or regions. Think of the planet as becoming a gigantic, patchwork quilt.

On an idealistic level, this is something beneficial. People have a subconscious desire to live among those similar to them (cities, for example, self-segregate themselves into ethnic neighborhoods), and they want the right to choose to do so. Russia is a perfect example. The country is comprised of dozens of ethnic peoples essentially held together by force — first by the czars, and then by the communist dictatorship. When Russia breaks apart — and its demographic decline is a accurate precursor — the people in the resulting republics will be much happier, and life will be more free. The same holds true for the Basques in France and Spain as well as other peoples elsewhere. Liberal nation-states always champion the freedom of democracy enjoyed by their citizens — as long as some do not want to use that right to demand a country of their own.

So, in the end, such a devolution will be beneficial. But the path there is fraught with danger and instability. Nation-states, like people and corporations, are individual entities writ large that place a primary emphasis on self-preservation. The United States had a civil war when several states wanted to secede. Russia uses force to keep a death-grip on Chechnya while the far-flung eastern part is increasingly under the influence of China. The United Kingdom does not want Scotland or Wales to become independent from England even though no one can explain what it means to be “British” any longer. Modern-day Iran consists of several peoples who were united by the sword of the ancient Persian empire. Israelis, after more than sixty years of independence, are intensely divided and cannot reconcile their three competing desires to be a Jewish state, a democratic state, and a state in all of so-called Greater Israel. (I would not be entirely surprised if the the county ends up dividing itself into a secular and religious republics in forthcoming decades — though this would eerily resemble biblical history repeating itself.) All of these countries are facing crises of identity, and many may not survive as they currently exist.

A globalized order consisting of a patchwork quilt of ethnic enclaves may lead to greater peace and prosperity — why, after all, would Wales go to war with England to conquer territory that was not Welsh — but the path to that end will be very unstable as complex nation-states fight a doomed battle to save themselves.

Building on one of my favorite subjects, devolution, the decline of the state and the proliferation of microstates, I’ve put together a map of the future of Europe in 2020. It is purely speculative and in no way a firm prediction, but rather a sketch of the possibilities and list of the most likely cases. It is by no means exhaustive and you’ll notice seemingly obvious states such as Wales, Sicily, Crete and others are not listed. This is in part because I will argue that two local conditions are necessary for a viable movement and successful independence.

Live Sports

Rick Reilly posts the top ten sporting events that people should see in person. I’ve seen the Boston Red Sox play at Fenway Park (though not against the New York Yankees) during the nine years that I lived in Boston, and I went to Wimbledon when I lived in London in 2001. But I have yet to see the rest.

Still, I am skeptical of some of his choices. Golf, at least to me, is boring enough on television. Is it any better live? And how can Reilly not include the World Cup? International soccer is essentially warfare by other means.

Inhuman Resources

Jack Welch offers some cutting thoughts on HR departments:

In the wide-ranging Q-and-A with Claire Shipman, Welch took HR professionals to task for playing the victim a little too often. “I’ve seen too many organizations where HR whines about their role,” Welch said.

If you want senior management to take you seriously, he said, “get out of the picnic, birthday card, and insurance forms business.”

Instead, he told the crowd, their focus should be on building trust throughout the company and developing recruitment and retention strategies that attract the best workers in good times and bad. “Your job is to raise the quality of the team.”

I have frequently been very underwhelmed by the personnel human-resources departments at many companies — large and small — for whom I have worked in the United States and Israel. Too many of them have been essentially useless, if not downright harmful.

It starts, perhaps logically, with the hiring function. One Massachusetts hospital fired me from my marketing management position on my second day because I had the audacity to ask a few pointed questions during the orientation rather than be a nice, little sponge like everyone else and absorb the cliche speeches and videos. (They hired a former journalist, for crying out loud.) “The hospital” had “determined” that my personality was not good match for the corporate culture. And don’t get me started on the farcical sexual-harassment video.

At one high-tech company in Tel Aviv, a person in HR took me and another new hire out to lunch. Officially, it was a getting-to-know-you thing, but I was sure the manager went back with a full report on our personalities and capabilities. The hiring interviews were enough pressure — HR should leave the schmooze-based analysis for my boss. They did not even know what I did on a day-to-day basis. HR managers usually cannot do what the employee of a given department does on a day-to-day basis, especially in fields like high-tech and finance.

But it goes beyond my personal experiences. I recently read an article (which I cannot find now) reporting that people were dumbing-down their resumes because many large corporations have changed their resume-filtering software to exclude former C-level employees because are overqualified. (In this economy, even erstwhile CEOs need a job!)

HR usually makes the first cull of potential job applicants, whether through computers or eyeballs. But they always stick ruthlessly to pointless checklists — no one, for example, without a college degree is worthy of an entry-level position — that may rob a department of someone who could be tailored into a great asset and resource. When a person looks at dozens of resumes every day, it is too easy to see the person and instead reduce every CV to a collection of yes-he-has or no-he-does-not-have checkmarks.

When I was the director of a sales department here in Israel, I went through every CV myself. I made the time to do it. The manager of a department knows exactly what he needs; HR does not.

But if HR should not play a significant role in hiring, what is left for them to do? Every HR person I have ever known has told me that they went into the field because they like working with people. But, in reality, their jobs seem to involve looking at pieces of paper, keeping abreast of labor law, and acting as enforcers of company codes. What fun.

I have always envisioned HR departments as being something similar to the ombudsmen that most major newspapers have. In journalism, the ombudsman represents the readers. He is appointed by the editor or publisher to a specific term of office, investigates complaints about stories (or whatever), and writes an impartial critique of the situations. Most importantly, he criticizes the newspaper — and even individual writers and editors — whenever he thinks it is justified.

Since labor unions are increasingly irrelevant, HR departments could transition to being the ones who represent the employees. If a manager treats an employee badly, HR could investigate in a neutral manner and make a ruling. Most importantly, HR could have the power to decide that the company or manager acted wrongly — even if making such a decision would go against the best interests of the company as a whole. The CEO or chairman of the board could appoint the vice president of HR to a specific term of office during which he could not be fired (except in special cases, like doing something illegal). Now that would inspire workplace morale! And HR managers would finally fulfill their dreams of working with people rather than pieces of paper.

I hate seeing HR managers as the police as much as anyone, but employees frequently have nowhere to turn when the boss slams any given door in their face. Perhaps a revolution in human-resources is needed.

Guilty Bystanders

This incident shakes my faith in humanity:

A 26-year-old convenience store clerk was shot and killed in broad daylight in Gary, Ind., and police say witnesses stood by and did nothing…

But Titus says what’s even more senseless [than the murder] is the apparent inaction of bystanders standing near the front door almost the whole time.

Police say there were several customers walking around the store after the crime. But only one called 911 for help.

When asked what he finds most disturbing about the surveillance footage, Titus said, “The fact that people went in and out of the store and didn’t call police. There is a man laying there. Nobody thinks to dial 911 or check to see if he’s OK or anything.”

I was mugged twice when I lived in Boston, and no one did anything each time. Something like this would never happen in Israel.

Journalism Versus Marketing

SEOmoz offers some humorous jokes through which people can know whether their writings are influenced by the Internet. The comments are amusing, but I wanted to address one related conflict that I have found between my prior career as a journalist and my current one as an Internet marketer.

I have written this blog since 2006, when I was a newspaper editor and publisher in Boston. By using various Internet utilities, I have always known the common search terms, links, and keywords through which people have found this blog. But, after I know this information, I have a conflict over whether to use it.

For example, here are the top-three search terms through which people have found my blog since I started writing three years ago:

holocaust — 53,261 visitors

universe — 22,187 visitors

dollar — 20,108 visitors

If I merely wanted to increase my traffic (in pursuit of advertising or fame), then I would write more posts about the relevance of the Holocaust to today, the science the Big Bang versus the creation of the universe in the Bible, and the future of the dollar in relation to today’s financial crisis. But the journalist in me, of course, might rather want to write about other subjects that are timely or about which I am passionate. The subjects that are popular are not always the ones that are desirable.

Traditional media outlets have always faced a similar dilemma. I cannot remember any specific data or a source because it was years ago, but I heard this story from a journalism professor back in college at Boston University: Whenever the Boston Herald, the major tabloid in the city, would publish a picture of Ted Williams on its front page, the newspaper would sell something like tens of thousands of more copies. So the editor, of course, would face a dilemma: publish a picture of Williams even if it was not timely (and please his boss, the publisher, by selling more papers) or put something else on the front page the was more relevant and timely to the news of the day even though fewer copies would be sold.

SEOmoz was making a joke in its post, but the issue raised by the writer is actually quite serious. When bloggers and other Web 2.0 writers decide what content to publish and what headlines to put on their posts, they must choose whether to discuss interesting topics and use “punny” headlines (as newspapers have always done) or publish content that draws as many readers as possible and use simple headlines consisting solely of popular keywords that attract search engines.

In more ways than one, new media providers are facing the same delimmas faced by traditional outlets. It is a choice between authenticity or popularity, between journalism and marketing. It will be interesting to see which route the Web 2.0 world takes.

Hate-Crime Laws

A U.S. state has become the first to provide special protections to homeless people:

Maryland became the first state in the nation to extend hate-crimes protection to homeless people under a bill signed Thursday by Gov. Martin O’Malley.

The bill adds homelessness to the protected categories under Maryland’s hate-crimes law, which allows prosecutors to seek tougher penalties for those who target people because of factors such as race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation.

Between 1999 and 2007, there were 774 violent attacks on homeless people in the United States, and 217 people died as a result, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless.

As the former editor and executive director of Spare Change News, a non-profit newspaper in Boston, it might be surprising to read this: I oppose hate-crime laws in general, even against homelessness. Hate-crime laws dehumanize the groups they are supposed to protect and make them seem inherently more vulnerable and weak.

Moreover, the statutes make one murder seem less wrong than another just because of the identity of the victim. The death of any human being is the death of a human being.

Immigration and Assimilation

A divide in the conservative world raises some interesting philosophical and political questions:

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, jazz musician and Web designer Charles Johnson has devoted his blog, Little Green Footballs, to exposing Muslim extremism in and outside the United States…

But in the early days of Barack Obama’s presidency, LGF has become better known for the various fights it picks with many on the right — including conservative bloggers, critics of Islamic extremism, and critics of Islam in general who used to be Johnson’s fellow travelers…

Johnson worries, in conversation and on his blog, that his old allies have been duped by far-right European political parties and have bought into wild attacks on the president that discredit their own causes.

“I don’t think there is an anti-jihadist movement anymore,” Johnson said. “It’s all a bunch of kooks. I’ve watch some people who I thought were reputable, and who I trusted, hook up with racists and Nazis. I see a lot of them promoting stories and causes that I think are completely nuts.”

Johnson’s disgust with the terrorism-focused conservative blogosphere has had a traumatic effect on a dogged and dogmatic community of bloggers and scholars. When Johnson began blogging about Islam and terrorism after 9/11, he inspired untold other supporters of an aggressive war on terror to start their own Websites, link up, and push back against “Dhimmitude” — organizations and foreign policy decision makers that were “soft” on terrorism. Now, some of his followers have started blogs that track Johnson’s “madness,” while a video that portrays Johnson as Adolf Hitler going mad in his bunker makes the rounds.

Many conservatives — most famously, Mark Steyn — have long argued that Europe is becoming increasingly Islamic due to immigration from Muslim countries, low birthrates among native Europeans, and high birthrates among the new arrivals.

My point here is not to argue whether this is correct. I have not lived in Europe for years, so I have no first-hand observations. (Steyn’s anecdotes and demographic data are convincing, but a recent report may indicate that native Europeans are now having more children while European Muslims are having fewer, seemingly as a result of assimilation.)

But many on the right, justifiably or not, still believe in their thesis of a forthcoming Eurabia. For the sake of argument, let’s suppose that they are correct. Now, two questions arise: 1.) Is a Europe comprised of a majority of Muslims a bad thing? and 2.) If so, what is the proper response?

The idea of the nation-state — the cornerstone of international relations since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 — is based on two ideas: the nation and the state. The nation refers to a population of people based on common ethnicity (such as the Franks in France and the Jews in Israel). The state refers to a government that has the sole right — known as sovereignty — to rule within its borders. When these two terms are combined, what results are the sovereign nation-states of countries like France and Israel. (Interestingly enough, the United States is a state but not a nation since it has historically been comprised of various ethnic groups as a result of immigration.)

The nation-state made practical sense for hundreds of years. Following the Thirty Years’ War between Catholics and Protestants in Europe, the idea that each country should be left alone to determine, among other things, its religious policy has likely saved many lives. Moreover, people of a common ethnicity have tended to live among themselves since the dawn of humanity. The nation-state was a common-sense method to incorporate these two principles.

But the core questions are: Is the idea of a nation-state inherently better than any other conceivable system? Is it worth fighting to preserve? Do peoples, through their governments, have the right to enforce some degree of a homogeneous society?

Yes. Despite what well-meaning idealists believe, people tend to want to live among their own. Most neighborhoods in cities are self-segregating. In Boston, for example, Brookline is the Jewish neighborhood, the North End is the Italian neighborhood, and Southie is the Irish neighborhood. I am sure that the same is true for all major American cities. When I graduated from Boston University, I ended up moving to Brookline because that was where I felt comfortable: my synagogue was there, and my favorite Jewish deli was there. And so on.

When most places become ethnically diverse, there is an increased likelihood of tension and conflict. It could be racism, it could be anger over the public benefits that the poorer community receives, or it could be the service jobs that the immigrants are likely to receive. When I lived in East Boston, residents of the formerly Irish and Italian neighborhood would frequently grumble about the increase in Hispanic and Latin American immigrants in the neighborhood, as well as about the increase in drug use, violent crime, and prostitution that they associated, fairly or not, with them. As a recent study by noted sociologist Robert Putnam revealed, an increase in diversity generally leads to a decrease in the closeness of a civil society. (The most notorious example is Africa, a continent where the national boundries of many countries were foolishly drawn by European colonial powers to include competing tribes and ethnic groups. The result, of course, has been endless civil war and conflict.)

Societies formed of people of a common ethnicity make sense. Governments, in a sense, have always known this, and they have always tried to preserve their characters as a result. Israel grants automatic citizenship to anyone who is at least one-quarter Jewish by ethnicity. In the heyday of the 1990s economic boom, Ireland offered an easy path to citizenship for anyone who was at least one-quarter Irish and wanted to move there. Many European countries have laws favoring immigrants who share the destination country’s ethnicities.

Of course, the United States is an exception, of sorts. It is the one country in which immigrants, for the most part, have helped the country grow and prosper. But this is because the United States is the only country on the planet that never intended to be comprised of a single ethnicity. Anyone can assimilate because the country was founded on ideas, not on a national peoplehood. Problems, like my East Boston example, arise only when a significant immigrant community arrives and does not assimilate into the greater culture. But in nation-states, an increase in diversity inherently creates problems. (This is why the idea among many left-wing Israelis to create a binational state — in which all Jews and Arabs from the Gaza Strip to Israel proper to the West Bank have a single vote — would certainly lead to civil war.)

However, the problem arises when one must determine how to preserve a society that is ethnically homogenous, and this is the debate that is occuring between center-right and far-right conservatives who see the problems that may occur in a Europe that is increasingly Muslim. Those on the far-right seek to emulate neo-Nazi parties by expelling Muslims (and probably Arabs as well) from European countries. This, of course, is a horrendous idea.

But those on the center-right have few solutions of their own. Commentators like Steyn seemingly have thrown in the European towel and wish to build a Fortress America to protect against the forthcoming Eurabia. But I would argue that there are other centrist solutions that Europe can take — namely, enforce the rule of law, take legal action against any potentially violent or treasonous behavior, and show that any intimidation by extreme Islamists will not be tolerated. In such an environment, those Muslims who are radical will likely leave Europe — or, if they are immigrants, be deported — and then the number of Muslims will decline, creating relative peace. In a globalized world, the labor force, through immigration, will always ebb and flow in every country, but that does not mean it needs to be a sociological problem.

Related: The Future of the Nation-State

Managing the Young

Gary Hamel posts some ideas on managing the so-called Facebook Generation:

The experience of growing up online will profoundly shape the workplace expectations of “Generation F” – the Facebook Generation. At a minimum, they’ll expect the social environment of work to reflect the social context of the Web, rather than as is currently the case, a mid-20th-century Weberian bureaucracy.

If your company hopes to attract the most creative and energetic members of Gen F, it will need to understand these Internet-derived expectations, and then reinvent its management practices accordingly. Sure, it’s a buyer’s market for talent right now, but that won’t always be the case—and in the future, any company that lacks a vital core of Gen F employees will soon find itself stuck in the mud.

With that in mind, I compiled a list of 12 work-relevant characteristics of online life. These are the post-bureaucratic realities that tomorrow’s employees will use as yardsticks in determining whether your company is “with it” or “past it.” In assembling this short list, I haven’t tried to catalog every salient feature of the Web’s social milieu, only those that are most at odds with the legacy practices found in large companies.

Let’s look at his list. Hamel writes explanations of the following, but I have added my own thoughts on several of his points as well:

1. All ideas compete on an equal footing.
3. Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed.
6. Groups are self-defining and -organizing.

In an age of instant communication, anyone at a company can talk to anyone in seconds. With one search of the corporate website or employee database, anyone can talk directly to someone in accounting, finance, and marketing — as well as even the CEO himself. A person can e-mail an idea to anyone in any department without going through his boss, then his boss, and so on. Every idea from every employee can be considered rather than risk being shot down by lower management on its way to the top.

As a result, successful firms will be those that become less naturally hierarchical and instead comprised more of fluid, collaborative sets of teams across the organizational structure.

This increased, creative anarchy will annoy and frustrate older managers who are used to a chain-of-command environment, but young people are rapidly moving away from that mindset. And that brings us to the next point.

Moreover, job descriptions will be increasingly less static. In a hyper-individualized world, every young person has a varying set of abilities and interests. So, it may not be best for one person to work on only one aspect of marketing all day long. He might spend a few hours helping sales, a few hours on marketing, and a few more assisting the director of accounting. (For example: My personal interests range from communications to marketing to business strategy. I could work for three different managers on three different projects.)

2. Contribution counts for more than credentials.

Of course, young people have always felt entitled and eager to take the world by the proverbial storm. But it is even more true with the s0-called Facebook Generation. As a result of recent cultural shifts like helicopter parenting, intense focuses on self-esteem in childhood education, and intense individualism borne out of the Internet, twenty-somethings believe in themselves intensely (and sometimes to a degree that is neither realistic nor healthy).

As a result, younger workers will demand that their contributions be considered on equal footing with older veterans. They will not care what degreed letters a person has after his name; they want to see results. Moreover, in an age when every individual can tailor (and market) himself on tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace, every views himself as a unique individual with something to offer. No one wants to be just another clog in the machine.

4. Leaders serve rather than preside.

The best leaders have always served rather than preside. But the manner in which they lead will change, and that is the focus of the next point.

5. Tasks are chosen, not assigned.

Younger people are immensely creative and passionate, particularly when it comes to the Internet. As a result, leaders at the top will dictate from the top less often; rather, those at the bottom will continually generate ideas and possibilities naturally, and they will percolate to the top. Leaders may not choose the ideas based only on what they think is best; they will see which ones generate the most enthusiasm from the organization. The best leaders will be those who do not implement their decisions well — they will be the ones who can inspire everyone to be as creative and innovative as possible.

As Hamel notes, “the Web is an opt-in economy.” Every employee, of course, should focus on his core competencies: writers should write, accountants should count, and managers should manage. In the past, management would generally decide where a person’s abilities lie and place him there. But in the Internet Age, people have a greater ability to follow their passions online and ignore everything else. If I like to write (which I do), I might want to update the company’s marketing blog rather than supervise a team of accountants. More than ever, employees and managers need to communicate on what is best for the worker to do.

8. Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it.

On many television crime dramas, much of the tension comes from competing departments: Who has jurisdiction: state police, local police, or the FBI? The CIA does not tell Homeland Security some vital piece of information. And so on.

The same occurs in large corporations. Who is responsible for a specific issue: marketing or sales? Each department has its own office history, culture, and (of course) politics, and different parts of a company can compete with each other for large budgets, recognition, and even the best incoming talent. Competition can bring out the best in people and organizations, but it frequently leads to secrets and inefficiency.

This cannot occur in the Information Age. Information needs to be shared instantly because the workplace is now 24/7/365 in twenty-four different time zones around the world. Companies need to embrace Business Intelligence, a developing practice that, among other things, ensures that  top management knows what every division is doing at all times.

In addition, companies need to understand that inter-organization secrets will never last and will usually be detrimental. I once worked in the marketing department of a Massachusetts hospital, and the division was under orders not to tell anyone else that the facility was considering a change of name to improve its branding. In the Facebook Generation, the entire company will want to know something as important as that proposal, and all employees will want to offer their opinions rather than just leave it up to a vote by the board of directors.

11. Intrinsic rewards matter most.

Hamel writes: “Money’s great, but so is recognition and the joy of accomplishment.” Yes, everyone wants to be praised for their work, but I think many pundits overemphasize the alleged tendency of the younger generation to eschew monetary benefits in exchange for other, intangible ones.

Generation Facebook is young and single, so they are not thinking about marriage, children, and mortgages. But they will someday. Moreover, twenty-somethings — at least in the United States — have immense student loans hanging over their heads, as well as a pessimistic outlook since more and more companies are cutting health-insurance and retirement programs. Many doubt that Social Security will exist when we retire. So do not dismiss the desire for decent compensation in addition to work-life balance and other benefits. We are trying to have the life that the prior generation enjoyed, but we doubt whether we will ever have it.

12. Hackers are heroes.

Hamel writes: “Large organizations tend to make life uncomfortable for activists and rabble-rousers—however constructive they may be. In contrast, online communities frequently embrace those with strong anti-authoritarian views.”

I was talking once with a person who works as a human-resources manager, and she said that employees are frequently classified based on personality. A person who was dependable and did what he was told would be well-suited for a low-level position that accepted and followed orders. A person with an extroverted personality and confident presence might be geared for management. A person who is highly individualistic with a so-called wild-card streak and a propensity for disregarding management would be good at founding a business of his own (in other words, human resources determined that he was not suitable for that conservative company).

In a company that adapts to the Internet Age, the third person might be kept at the company, if not even embraced.

The best managers in the future will be those who can adapt their organizations to these realities of Web 2.0 and the young people who develop their lives around it.

Neo-Yellow Journalism

Jack Shafer wonders if modern journalists should strive to emulate the so-called “yellow journalism” of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries:

Campbell cites as favorable the views of media historian Frank Luther Mott, who said yellow journalism “must not be considered as synonymous with sensationalism.” In Mott’s mind, the essence of yellow journalism—or the essences, if you prefer—were its subjects: crime, scandal, gossip, divorce, sex, disasters, and sports.

Presentation played a role, too. Headlines that “screamed excitement, often about comparatively unimportant news,” heavy use of pictures, a Sunday supplement and color comics, sympathy with the “underdog” and “campaigns against abuses suffered by the common people”—they all cut to the heart that was yellow journalism. The one completely irredeemable part of the yellow journalism package was its dependence on faked interviews and stories.

Campbell cites a range of authorities to dispel the yellow-journalism caricatures. Far from being a flavor consumed by only the poor and immigrants, yellow newspapers enjoyed wide readership across class, sex, and age lines. Media historian John D. Stevens found that the yellow papers “published a fair amount of sober financial, political, and diplomatic information.” They crusaded against the privileged and the powerful; they exposed corruption in government and corporations and “probably encouraged the rise of magazine muckraking in the early twentieth century.” The yellow papers also paid reporters well, which is a big plus in their favor…

The purest forms of civic journalism and Hearst-ian journalism of action have always given me palpations of distrust because I’m never sure how far either camp has skewed coverage to fit a predetermined agenda. And yet, paging through Campbell’s two books, I found myself yearning for the sort of vital newspapers that were common in the Hearst-Pulitzer heyday.

“The yellow press possessed an effervescence, a visceral and essential appeal that newspapers 100 years later seem desperate to recapture,” Campbell writes in Yellow Journalism. Have the hell-bent professionalization of journalism and the erection of a complex ethical code for its practitioners sapped from newspapers their life force? Can yellow journalism be reinvented—tamed and respiced, perhaps—in a way that preserves its best elements, subtracts the worst, and still glows? Is there a place in the newspaper world for saffron journalism?

Although the stereotype of the populist, crusading journalist strikes an emotional cord for me since I was a Boston reporter and editor for five years, I would still worry about the fate of my former craft if newspapers were to revert to their former selves.

With each passing decade, the attention spans of Americans, particularly among the young, have become shorter and shorter as a result of video games, fast-paced media, and the Internet. Now, as a result, most people in their twenties and younger get their news from the likes of Jon Stewart and David Letterman. Unfortunately, it seems that more and more people cannot pay attention to serious subjects unless there is a comedic edge to maintain their attention. In newspaper format, this would mean large headlines, salacious stories, and activist journalism.

A return to “yellow journalism” may be successful in this current climate since so many media are competing for everyone’s attention. In addition, many journalists have already become activist — see Fox News on the right and MSNBC on the left — so that reporting that strives to be neutral and fair is increasingly non-existent. News reports have also become more sensationalized from the missing-white-girl-of-the-month to evil-Chinese-products-that-may-kill-you to the sexual-predators-in-your-neighborhood stories that pander to the most primal instincts in people.

In fact, depending on one’s definition of “yellow journalism,” it might be accurate to say that Shafer’s wish — for better or for worse — has already come true.

Curt Schilling

While announcing his retirement, the Red Sox pitching ace said he has “zero regrets.” Nor should he. In the nine years that I lived in Boston, he was my favorite player. I am sure that many current and former Bostonians would agree. Hopefully, Schilling will continue to blog.

Non-Profit Newspapers

David Swensen and Michael Schmidt are calling for major newspapers to turn into non-profit organizations:

Today, we are dangerously close to having a government without newspapers. American newspapers shoulder the burden of considerable indebtedness with little cash on hand, as their profit margins have diminished or disappeared. Readers turn increasingly to the Internet for information — even though the Internet has the potential to be, in the words of the chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt, “a cesspool” of false information. If Jefferson was right that a well-informed citizenry is the foundation of our democracy, then newspapers must be saved.

Although the problems that the newspaper industry faces are well known, no one has offered a satisfactory solution. But there is an option that might not only save newspapers but also make them stronger: Turn them into nonprofit, endowed institutions — like colleges and universities. Endowments would enhance newspapers’ autonomy while shielding them from the economic forces that are now tearing them down.

As a former editor and publisher of Spare Change News, a non-profit newspaper in Boston that aims to help the homeless, I found this idea to be very interesting. As the authors note in the op-ed column, newspaper circulation and advertising revenue have fallen dramatically for years as a result of the Internet. More importantly, no one has determined a way to generate significant revenue from online advertising. This new approach would eliminate the need to create large profits for stakeholders — income, in theory, would only need to match expenses each year.

However, there are some important questions. As longtime Boston media observer Dan Kennedy says, non-profit newspapers would, theoretically, be unable to endorse candidates for political office, and reporters and columnists could be charged with partisanship and influencing public policy. (Kennedy proposes other business models for newspapers here.)

Still, my experience at SCN sheds some additional light on the proposal. Non-profit organizations are at the mercy of their donors. When I was promoted from editor to publisher and later hired a new editor, I spent most of my time fundraising because our funds were always tight. I doubt that Boston Globe publisher P. Steven Ainsley — or anyone in his position at any newspaper — would like to spend most of his day asking people for money. As a journalist at heart, I certainly did not.

Salaries at non-profit organizations are small compared to other industries. Everyone at SCN — from myself to the editor to reporters to the advertising representative — was paid low wages compared to what people earn at for-profit newspapers. Many were volunteers because they cared about the mission of the newspaper (to report on and help end homelessness). And the old adage proved true: you get what you pay for. Although everyone at the SCN worked as hard as possible to create a professional-quality newspaper, we were severely limited in what we could do. I would fear what would happen to The New York Times if its capacity were diminished in this way.

Non-profit organizations are also extremely vulnerable to recessions. When an economic downturn strikes, the first expenses that people usually cut are charitable donations. (After the September 11 attacks and the following recession, SCN sales decreased more and more each year. Although I was laid off in 2007, I presume this is still a problem.) Grants and donations — not to mention advertising — are also generally harder to obtain in these rough times.

Moreover, fewer and fewer journalists are able to survive on the low wages that newspapers already pay. Most, if not all, publications require reporters to have a bachelor’s degree, and the skyrocketing cost of higher education leaves young reporters with so much debt that I am unsure whether they could afford to work at a non-profit newspaper. Someone who graduates from Boston University (my alma mater) with a B.S. in journalism this year has paid roughly $200,000 (before financial aid that does not need to be repaid) for the degree. What kind of jobs are these students going to be forced to take? I am not sure they could work for a non-profit publication that pays low salaries, even for the newspaper industry.

Still, although Swensen and Schmidt’s idea may have some problems, I am not sure that there is a better alternative in this business and media climate.

Earlier: How to Save The Boston Globe and The Boston Globe Should Be Privately Owned

Letter from Israel: Sex and Feminism

Tenth in an ongoing series

RISHON LEZION, Israel — So I was starting my first day at my first full-time job in Tel Aviv where I was an English-language marketing writer for a high-tech company. I was sitting in a room with two other employees, and the department head came inside to wish everyone a good morning.

After the usual pleasantries, the 40-ish boss turned to my coworker, a 19-year-old student from Canada whose father is Israeli, and made a comment that shocked me: “Hey, your breasts look bigger today.” I did not know what to expect. My colleague genuinely laughed. “Yeah, I’m wearing a different bra today,” she said with a smile and a shrug. Then everyone started talking about the day’s work as if nothing strange had happened. If the boss had said something like that in the United States, he would have faced lawsuits and termination.

Israel has various cultural norms regarding sex and relations between the genders that shock new arrivals from the Western world, and this was my first introduction to them. Later, the same boss asked me if I had spoken with “the MILF” in human resources. I laughed and shrugged it off.

—

Back in Boston

Before I moved from Beantown to Illinois and then to Israel, I worked briefly as a marketing manager at a Massachusetts hospital. During the daylong orientation, a group of twenty new employees had to meet with human resources, listen to various speakers, and watch a series of videos. (Obviously, the job did not work out.)

I was sitting next to the only other guy in the room since all of the other new recruits were female nurses. Soon, the HR manager presented a video on sexual harassment in the workplace: A woman ran to a female colleague to complain that the guy who refills the vending machines had asked her out. “I felt so akward!” she whined to her friend. “I feel so uncomfortable, and I don’t know what to do!”

The friend advised her to talk to her boss or make a complaint to human resources. At this point in the film, the other guy and I started laughing to ourselves. It was completely absurd — God forbid that a guy tries to ask someone out on a date! The woman could have simply told him, “No, thank you.”

I think about that video whenever I observe the differences between American and Israeli women. In such a situation like the one in the video, an Israeli girl would have turned him down, probably very rudely. If he persisted, an Israeli woman would have hit him or kicked him in the crotch. No one here would run and cry to management.

—

Tough Cookies

Israeli women are rough. They drink, smoke, and curse. They yell and argue. They are ruthlessly blunt and usually cynical. They know how to fix cars and fire weapons. Part of the reason is that life is harder here, especially during the first several decades since Israel was founded. Everyone pitches in equally. Everyone — men and women — serves in the military for a few years. Everyone works in the fields, stables, and factories on collective farms named kibbutzim. I know several women who have turned down Israeli guys whom they deem to be “too sensitive.” A bartender friend of mine, a woman, once gave me advice on meeting Israel women: “Don’t be so American!” (“American” is the code word that people use for “nice” when they talk to me.) An Israeli woman will work hard all day, then make dinner and clean house at night.

Israel is far ahead of the Western world in terms of the sexes being treated equally. But as I have always written, everything in the Middle East is a paradox. In other ways, Israel is far behind the West as well.

Part of the reason is that Israeli women are very “macho” is that they need to defend themselves against many Israeli guys. Men here, like many of their Arab cousins in other Middle Eastern countries, are not very nice to women in general. Men throughout the country act like guys on a construction site whenever they see a beautiful woman. Men have no shame when they are trying to get into a woman’s pants. Israeli guys think that I am a “friar” (the Hebrew word for “sucker”) when I refuse to try to pick up girls who are extremely drunk in bars. Israeli guys have no rules in the persuit of — well, you know. A later boss of mine at a different job told me not to recruit any female candidates for a position because “they get sick more often, and they get pregnant.” Women need to be tough to succeed in such a society.

Israeli, in many respects, is a conservative country. Women are generally expected to do the cooking and cleaning. Whenever I am a guest for dinner, I always offer to help with the dishes or the clean-up, but the woman of the house will threaten to hit me unless I go watch television with the other guys. And she will only be half-joking.

—

Different Views of Sex

The important thing to remember about Israel is that it is a Jewish country, and Judaism is more than just “Christianity without the Jesus.” It is an entirely different mindset and culture — and one important distinction is how people here view sex.

Christianity originally viewed sex as a necessary evil. The Apostle Paul, who expected Jesus to return soon and whom some historians believe to have been a misogynist, wrote that a chaste life is better in preparation for the Second Coming and that marriage is the less-ideal option (1 Corinthians 7:1-2, 8-9, 32-34):

It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband… I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I [celibate]. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn… He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

In addition, the Roman Catholic Church still celebrates the eternal virginity of Mary (something that I doubt Joseph had allowed to remain for their entire lives). Later, Europeans and later Americans changed their view: sex was something not to be acknowledged or discussed in public and polite company.

These opinions on sex did not come from Judaism. Secular and religious Jews view sex as something beautiful and as natural as eating and drinking. To them, it is a fact of life — so why make a fuss about it? Jewish people are immensely blunt and practical.

When the mother of Avivit, a female friend of mine, introduced me to Avivit’s seven- and three-year-old nieces, I mistakenly told them that I was a “haver” (boyfriend) of Avivit. The mother corrected my Hebrew: I was a “yedid” (male friend) of Avivit. Then, Avivit’s mother told the girls the difference: “He is a boy-friend who does not sleep with Avivit.” And the girls understood what she meant!

Whenever families eat or visit together, the topic of sex always comes up because someone is always trying to set someone else up on a date, and parents always want their children to get married and have grandchildren. But they will always end up talking and joking about sex — in vulgar Hebrew — even if children are around. It is just part of a culture that has few hang-ups about sex, regardless of the time and place.

You can imagine what people my age say among themselve at bars and clubs. I was told my bartender friend that I always liked it when she worked rather than another male bartender. Her joke in response: “Yeah, I have breasts!” And that is a tame example.

—

Religion and Sex

Israel, however, is not one big brothel. As a half-American friend of mine told me, Israeli girls tend to lose their virginity at 18 or 19 — not 16 or younger as is typical in many parts of the United States. The rate of teenage pregnancy is also lower — in addition to Israelis having sex later, I imagine it is also because birth control is not viewed as immoral as many Christians believe it to be. Still, Israelis tend to be either very liberal or very conservative on pre-marital sex. As I wrote in a prior letter, an 18-year-old girl whom I had just met asked me in blunt English: “Do you want to fuck tonight?” (I politely declined.) On the other hand, many girls I know will wait months to have sex with their boyfriends (even if they talk bluntly about sex all of the time). Just like everything else in Israel, there is not a lot of middle ground.

Even among Orthodox Jews in Israel, sex is not viewed in the same way as many Christians. Most Orthodox Jews observe the law of “shomer negiah” — that no two adults or teenagers of opposite genders are allowed to have physical contact, not even a hug or a handshake, unless they are either married or close relatives. Still, this does not mean that sex is a forbidden subject. Traditional Jewish law discusses dating, marriage, and sex at great length. Orthodox Jews talk about sex as bluntly and frankly as secular Jews — even if they are very observant and will do nothing until they are married. As I heard one person put it: Religious Jews are modest; they are not prudish.

(Interestingly, some Orthodox girls discreetly experiment with lesbianism before marriage because a literal reading of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, bans only male-male sex — it says nothing about female-female. Orthodox rabbis discourage this behavior, but they cannot ban it.)

—

A Sexual Paradox

When it comes to sex and feminism, Israel is liberal and feminist, yet conservative and misogynistic. Israelis are blunt and vulgar when they discuss sex, yet many of them will not even touch someone of opposite sex until they are married. Israeli women are tougher than most American men because many Israeli men act like “barbarians,” but they turn down men who are too “nice” or “sensitive.” Secular girls will either have sex the same night they meet someone, or they will wait for months.

Sex is a paradox in Israel — just like everything else in the Middle East.

Prior letter: The Gaza Conflict

Karaoke Rage

Salon uncovers a new alleged “rage” that is supposedly pervasive in many cultures:

In August 2007, a Seattle man was assaulted onstage during a karaoke rendition of Coldplay’s “Yellow,” while last December, a San Diego man encored his karaoke set by walking toward the crowd and attacking an audience member. And in Asia, there’s been a string of karaoke-bar stabbings and shootings, including a horrific incident in Bangkok in which eight amateur singers were murdered by their neighbor, reportedly due in part to his hatred of John Denver’s “Country Roads…”

One explanation for this uptick in karaoke rage is that karaoke bars bring together several socially combustible elements. Fill a room with 30 or so exhibitionists, ply them with alcohol and wireless microphones, and it’s only a matter of time before all the forced interaction results in conflict.

I have never witnessed any “karaoke rage,” but I think I came close once while I was celebrating my twenty-fourth birthday at a Japanese-themed karaoke club in Boston. After drinking more than my fair share of sake, I decided to sing “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond — but with a twist in honor of the ongoing playoff series between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. I told everyone to substitute “Yank-ees suck!” in place of the “Bum-bum-bum!” that everyone traditionally yells following “Sweet Caroline” in the refrain.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the performance (as much as I can recall), but I did not know that there was a Yankees fan from New York in the audience who was wearing a T-shirt in support of the Evil Empire. A few songs later, he went on stage to perform some angry rap song by an artist I did not know. In the middle of the song, he started shouting and cursing the people who were sitting at my table — my friends, myself, and two random eighteen-year-old girls in Red Sox shirts. I do not remember what he said, but I was so angry that I started to stand up. My friends rushed over, and convinced me to sit down. Everyone in the bar watched in shock at what the guy was doing, and soon his significant other got him off the stage and out of the bar. (I was still angry, so when I sang the last song of the night, I did “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana — and afterwards I was unable to speak until the following morning as a result of the shouting.)

If “karaoke rage” does, in fact, exist, I think it is a result of the fact that music touches something special and spiritual deep inside each person. For example, witness any debate between two friends over which person’s favorite band is better. It is impossible to quantify something that is completely subjective, but everyone is usually convinced that he truly knows what is the best type of music and the best artist in that genre. When someone insults a person’s favorite band, he is insulting something deep inside the person himself.

Hooking Up

PETACH TIKVA, Israel — Charles Blow realizes what young people have, unfortunately, known for years:

It turns out that everything is the opposite of what I remember. Under the old model, you dated a few times and, if you really liked the person, you might consider having sex. Under the new model, you hook up a few times and, if you really like the person, you might consider going on a date.

I asked her to explain the pros and cons of this strange culture. According to her, the pros are that hooking up emphasizes group friendships over the one-pair model of dating, and, therefore, removes the negative stigma from those who can’t get a date. As she put it, “It used to be that if you couldn’t get a date, you were a loser.” Now, she said, you just hang out with your friends and hope that something happens.

The cons center on the issues of gender inequity. Girls get tired of hooking up because they want it to lead to a relationship (the guys don’t), and, as they get older, they start to realize that it’s not a good way to find a spouse. Also, there’s an increased likelihood of sexual assaults because hooking up is often fueled by alcohol.

Since I am twenty-eight years old, I have had a foot in the dating worlds of yesterday and today. I must say that yesterday is much better physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Emotional intimacy used to come before physical intimacy. Now, however, the opposite is true for people in the dating scene. When I was a sophomore in college in Boston in 1998, I once told a friend that I was going out with a girl that evening. Her response: “You go on dates?” I didn’t know what to say; I did not know that an alternative even existed. (Perhaps it was because I was from the Midwest.)

The primary reason that the hook-up culture has a negative effect on people is that it is impossible to separate physical intimacy from emotional intimacy completely. Anyone who says that something was “just sex” is wrong — even if they firmly believe it themselves. In Jewish mystical thought, the prism through which I view this particular subject, sex is a a spiritual union in which two people become one. When a person has sex with countless partners for years, his or her spirit will become increasingly fractured. This is why those who sleep around the most are usually the people who are the most unhappy (although other psychological factors come into play as well).

When the hook-up culture is combined with the additional trend of marrying later and later in life, the only result is a generation of young people who are bitter and broken. Although every bad relationship and casual encounter teaches people lessons, it also damages them emotionally and spiritually. How many times can a person have his or her heart broken? Moreover, girls who frequently engage in this behavior risk many future consequences in addition to pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases — mainly, what respectable guy would marry someone who was a “slut” for years?

The only “positive” aspect that Blow’s interviewee describes is that hooking-up supposedly “removes the negative stigma from those who can’t get a date.” Hogwash. In every circle of friends, everyone knows who gets to hook-up regularly and who does not. There is not a single good side to the hook-up culture.

The Velvet Rope

PITACH TIKVA, Israel — There are many things I miss about Boston, but this was not one of them:

Boston’s dance clubs can be a harsh place for a guy who tries to wear something besides the standard thick-soled shoes and untucked dress shirts that are the nightlife norm. Most of the city’s dance clubs have a list of verboten clothing, which usually includes sneakers, baseball hats, work boots, and team jerseys.

Except for the trendiest hangouts in Tel Aviv and a few other cities, most people in Israel do not care what another person wears. A former boss of mine at a high-tech company routinely wore sweatpants and a sweatshirt to work. I wore jeans and a T-shirt. No one — and I mean no one — wears a suit unless he is an attorney or the prime minister. Nearly everyone I know in his twenties and thirties will dress casually when going out. “Dressing up” for an important event — even a wedding — simply involves a long-sleeve shirt and dark-colored jeans.

There are many things to love about Israel, but one of the best is the fact that most people trend to be “chill” about issues like this. It is not a country where people are overly concerned about outward appearances of status — unlike in Beantown, where class is always present but never discussed.