eSefarad Noticias del Mundo Sefaradi
This is the weekly column of David Shasha in eSefarad.
The following article was published in the Sephardic Heritage Udate #592
The Stale Winds of Summer: “The Idiot Sephardim” Refuse to Get Off the Titanic
by David Shasha
As we enter into the annual Summer vacation season, the Brooklyn Syrian Jewish community makes its usual mass move to the New Jersey Shore enclave of Deal and with it begins the jockeying for social standing and religious brinkmanship.
I have in the recent past castigated the community for its self-inflicted culturecide that has effectively destroyed the classical Sephardic tradition and its noble heritage of Religious Humanism. The internal dynamic of the community today has pitted Modern Orthodox Ashkenazified Sephardim against Ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazified Sephardim.
What it so interesting about this contentiousness is that it has grown in a climate of a deeply materialistic and morally corrupt community whose historic leader, Isaac Shalom, removed the traditional rabbis from their leadership roles and instituted a system of lay leadership whose moral character has over time proven itself to be corrupt and unreliable. But with the vast financial wealth of many members of the community and their lavish lifestyles, it has proven to be impossible to raise any real awareness within the community that it lacks both intelligence and cultural sophistication.
A current series of laudatory but intellectually vapid and culturally empty documentary films on the history of the American Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn allows the community to applaud itself without any serious engagement with its historic collapse as it has lost its religious leadership and its moral compass. A self-anointed, unelected group of leaders calling itself the Sephardic Community Alliance promotes classes with rabbis and teacher with no connection to the classical Sephardic heritage, but with a keen eye towards socio-economic advancement.
The deep attachment to Ashkenazi Orthodoxy and institutional Zionism that was instilled in the community by Isaac Shalom has led to a failed pedagogical system that shows no signs of removing itself from the mainstream community institutions; even as the Ultra-Orthodox revolution has now essentially re-aligned the community’s socio-religious life. The Yeshiva University-aligned faction continues to impose itself as rabbis and laypeople continue to opt out – a number of rabbis have taken jobs outside the community while each and every day the ranks of Modern Orthodox defectors grows.
What amazes me is how militant the Modern Orthodox faction remains. Classes and religious programs continue to be rolled out even as the personal corruption and hypocrisies of the rabbis and institutional leaders remains an open secret. Money remains the only metric for the religious leadership, as was seen a few summers ago when the Shlomo Dwek scandal led to a number of arrests of mainstream rabbinic leaders in the community. The mainstream community has continued to double-down on its failed strategies at the same time that the Ultra-Orthodox faction has increased its power and number among the rank-and-file.
At the center of the historic collapse of Sephardic culture is the figure of Hakham Matloub Abadi whose ministry was cut short by Isaac Shalom and has essentially been forgotten by the community in an attempt to ignore its responsibilities to its illustrious heritage.
I have written a few articles which I take the liberty of re-sending with this posting that address the key role played by YeshivaUniversity and its Modern Orthodox Judaism in the destruction of the Sephardic tradition in our community. In spite of the collapse of Modern Orthodoxy in the Jewish world, the Syrian-Sephardic community has continued to militantly attach itself to the losing ship. Just like the rich elites who went down with the Titanic, so too the Syrian Jews have made their peace with this failure and have intensified their attachment to Ashkenazi Modern Orthodoxy.
In many ways, as my articles try to argue, it is a truly incomprehensible move given the utter contempt that Ashkenazi Modern Orthodoxy has for the Sephardic tradition. The abuse that Sephardim are forced to take from the Ashkenazim has not at all forced them into rethinking their allegiances. In fact, the Ashkenazified Syrian Jews, flush with money and power, mercilessly attack anyone who presents the tradition in its classical form and express their vicious contempt for moralists who accuse the community members of losing their ethical sense.
Torah values mean financial values; those with the most money being given the most honor. The religious and institutional leadership follows the money trail and has in the process become corrupted to the point where any individual can be bought and sold if the price is right. Moral rectitude has no chance when money is thrown around. A multitude of sins can be covered up and made clean by the right payment placed into the right hands.
The fear of Hakham Matloub Abadi and the rabbinical leadership style he represented was most certainly warranted. The ongoing attempt to demean and profane Hakham Matloub Abadi by purposely distorting his biography to comport with the warped values of Modern Orthodoxy and the materialist values of a corrupt community continues apace – as I discuss in the articles reproduced below.
The close ties between the corrupt rabbinic leadership – which we now see beginning to scatter and leave the Brooklyn community for greener pastures – and the world of Modern Orthodoxy has created a militant identification of the Sephardic tradition with that of Eastern Europe. While the Modern Orthodox Sephardim excitedly skewer the Ultra-Orthodox Sephardim, it seems that they cannot look at themselves in the mirror to see that they too have taken on the characteristics of the Ashkenazim.
We are now dealing in the Brooklyn Sephardic community with a lethal combination of anti-intellectual barbarism and materialistic excess. The antagonism towards books and learning is fully matched by the obsessive need to amass more and more wealth which it is thought will make the individual more powerful and respected in the community.
This power, as would be expected, is wielded like a heavy club in order to secure the supremacy of the individual at the expense of his fellow community members. Shady dealings permeate the community’s business culture and it is this that ultimately clouds the entire religious-pedagogical system that I discuss in my writings.
The personal invective and vicious attacks on my work are applauded by a leadership that has essentially destroyed the moral balance of the community and has instituted a form of religious hypocrisy that would have been deeply anathema to the rabbinic leadership that was destroyed a long time ago. The new rabbinic leaders are more docile and compromising, allowing the moral corruption to flourish. The contempt for knowledge has reached an all-time peak and is reflected in a youth culture that acts in robotic fashion to parrot the standard values of the community and to deflect any attempt at self-criticism and intellectual creativity.
The displacement of the traditional system has been effected by a close working relationship between the Ashkenazim who have shown nothing but contempt for Sephardim and for the Sephardic tradition, and those lackey self-hating Sephardim whose stupidity knows no bounds. What I have called “The Idiot Sephardim” have turned their ignorance of Sephardic heritage into a form of self-flagellation which has been rigidly programmed to attack any serious attempt to revive and restore the Sephardic heritage. The process has often been ugly, but is a natural outgrowth of a system that devalues ethical behavior and the dignity of the human being.
The irony in all this is that, as I have said before, the persecuting system of Modern Orthodoxy has become a Titanic-like disaster and shows no real signs of maintaining its authority in the community. But as Modern Orthodoxy has given way to Ultra-Orthodoxy, it continues to insist that it alone can run the institutions of the community. The Haredi Sephardim in Brooklyn and Deal have created an alternative institutional network and have gleefully watched as the mainstream Modern Orthodox institutions have stultified and collapsed.
One would think that there would be some creative leader who would at least make some attempt to find another option to beat back the Haredim. And yet the echo-chamber mentality of the community refuses to permit any modifications to the system. It seems that the leadership is indeed intent on following the Titanic model: No matter how much the system has failed, no matter how the Ashkenazi Modern Orthodox humiliate and castigate us and our noble tradition – it makes no difference, we continue to stick with them.
The leadership and their pathetic lackeys follow the same pre-set script and prefer to viciously stamp out a possible return to the Sephardic tradition as a means to renew and revive religious life in the community in the face of the Lakewood onslaught.
The failure is a lethal combination of Ashkenazi racism and Sephardi insecurity and weakness. Sephardim do not seem to grasp that they are way behind the cultural and intellectual curve and falsely believe that social advancement is solely based on monetary wealth rather than on the hallowed values of Torah and knowledge.
David Shasha
Background Articles
“The Idiot Sephardim”
“Stealing Torah and Slandering the Pious”
“A Broken Frame”
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by David Shasha to eSefarad.
Copyright David Shasha & eSefarad all rights reserved
Copyright David Shasha & eSefarad todos los derechos reservados.
David Shasha is the founder and director of the Center for Sephardic Heritage in Brooklyn, New York designed to raise awareness of the history and culture of Arab Jews. He publishes the Sephardic Heritage Update, a weekly e-mail newsletter available on Google Groups. He has written for publications such as the Huffington Post, Tikkun magazine, The Progressive Christian, and The American Muslim. You can contact him at david.shasha.shu@gmail.com
