NOT A PIECE OF FLUFF

Recently a horrible video was going around, sent originally by PETA, of an angora rabbit screaming while its fur was being pulled out by the handful by a worker in a Chinese production facility. I'm not that squeamish but I couldn't watch it through. It turns out that the angora that you see in some garments is not, as I thought, shorn from angora goats, but from rabbits who are generally plucked every few months for several years before being killed and skinned. After the torture, they are tossed into their small cages to recover. Sometimes they are shorn, by cruel and clumsy workers from the look of the pictures, but apparently the plucking method results in better quality fur.

I'm not a big fan of PETA and some of the more extreme activism which it advocates, but this left me in shock. We have seen so much evidence in recent years of cruel and careless handling of animals destined for slaughter, whether sheep in live exports, or cattle in Indonesian abattoirs. I'm also not a fan of the anti-shechita brigade, not because I relish the death of an animal for my plate, but because anti-shechita is usually tied up more with an anti-Semitic agenda than true concern about ethical handling of animals. There is no doubt that shechita, while in theory being a humane way to slaughter animals, is in reality often not done in a careful, mindful way. The shochet may be trained to have clean and fast technique and a holy mental outlook, but meanwhile the poor beast is hoisted and chained and flipped upside down; the coup de grace might be quick and painless, but the preparations are usually not. Ditto the handling of chickens.

Seeing the mass handling of meat poultry is also appalling. The first time I saw a kosher shechita line, in Israel at Mifalei HaEmek where the local kibbutzim send their poultry for processing, I was affected enough to become vegetarian for a few years; but I've seen a lot worse since then. (I even had a thing about fish for a while because, while working in the kibbutz kitchen, I had to cut the heads off fish that had been freshly netted out of the ponds; when I severed the spinal cord, the fish jerked in my hand. Very off-putting to an 18 year old, even if I was a medical student at the time.) And the non kosher lines are even worse because despite the stunning that is supposed to render the bird or beast insensate, it doesn't always work; and then the bird is plunged into boiling water so that the feathers are easy to remove.

But, despite all of the above, the rabbit thing was far worse to see. The animal screams and screams, then goes into shock. Then has to endure this time and time again. And for what? A fluffy sweater. At least the poor cows and sheep and chickens only have to go through it once. (Caged chickens might not have the best lives, but nobody is ripping out their feathers while they are alive. But wait! They do that to ducks and geese for their down, it turns out.) I can almost condone poor animal handling for food, but for fancy clothing, not so much.

I confess to be conflicted re meat-eating and I find myself eating less meat than I used to, choosing fish instead, because I have tried vegetarianism and I just feel like crap and tend to get bloated on the legumes. But I enjoy meat. Especially the offal. Which I guess means that I feel better not wasting the non-muscle part of the animal. I also take great pains not to waste meat; it's bad enough to kill the creature for our nourishment and pleasure, but then to throw it away?

But what goes through the mind of the worker, usually in China as that's where these industries are based,  as he straddles the screaming rabbit and tears out its fur, or the struggling goose as he rips the down off its breast? Or the worker that stuffs the corn mush down the funnel forced down the neck of the goose, so that we can eat foie gras? Just another day, another dollar.

One of the 7 Noahide Laws relates to avoiding cruelty to animals. Jewish law also says not to take 'Ever min haChai', a limb from a living animal.  And this is why. We have to be TOLD not to do it. If we don't get told we just do it without a thought. What an indictment of humanity.

There's no end to this and there's no clean and easy answer. We can't all be canvas-shoe-wearing vegans, and vegetarian self-righteousness is just so irksome to me. All I know is I'm not buying anything with angora in it. I can still hear the screaming.

Lashed by Mascara

For the next few weeks I'm in between the sad days of Yom HaShoa / Yom HaZikaron, and the next sad days for me, namely, my mother's yahrzeit, 10th Sivan, and my other brother Marvin's on 2nd Sivan- so one before and one after Shavuot, which effectively screws Shavuot for me, by the way.

I have to get my mind off all this loss and sadness, and the best way I know how is to be really annoyed about something trivial! So here goes:

MASCARA. I have almost given up on mascara.

Right now, this is what I have. Now, aficionados  of mascara will look and say, huh, well, what do you expect, there are 2 cheapy-cheapy Maybellines, one Kirkland- Costco!- one Rimmel and one- what 's that? Arbonne. (That's a company like Amway crossed with Nutrimetics, on steroids, and I do use their products which I get through my dealer, and it's all good EXCEPT for the mascara, which is not. Despite her enthusiastic endorsements.)

None of them is any good. They DON'T go on smoothly. They DON'T cover every teeny lash. They DON'T last a working day. They DO shed little particles which irritate my eyes.
Even though they are cheap (ish) they make promises. And they should keep them, but they don't.
AND I have used many fancy-pants mascaras with funny brushes. I can't even list all the brands but I don't need to because they are all disappointing.
Revlon can't make a good one to save its life. Fancy designer ones - Guerlain and whatnot- not worth it. I think I had a good Orlane one once, but when I went to find one again, I couldn't.

So right now it's not too 'shvartz far'n oigen' ('black before my eyes' - i.e., sad, tragic) but it's 'shvartz unter der oigen' - black UNDER my eyes, and it's enough already!

I have gone back to my Ageing Rock Chick sort of look with a line of Kohl on my lower lid line, and I DON'T CARE, it looks better than crumbling mascara flecks on my under-eye pouches and it's less irritating.

BUT. If there are any readers out there who can suggest a brand I haven't tried, I'm still listening.

Yom HaShoa 2014

The Melbourne Yom HaShoa commemoration is an important fixture in the calendar. Seeing that Melbourne is home to the largest population of Holocaust survivors, outside Israel, it would seem fitting that we have a well-attended evening.

There is a formula to the proceedings, with the testimony of a survivor being the most important part, I think, as well as the lighting of 6 candles by 6 survivors and a family member. There are children's choirs, representing the Jewish day schools, there is a speech from the Israeli ambassador and there is Kaddish recited, tehillim, El Melei Rachamim, the Partisans' Song, and we start with the Australian national anthem and end with HaTikvah. In our city with about 55,000 Jews, about 1,000+ come to the commemoration evening. It goes for about 2 hours.

This year there was focus on the story of the destruction of Hungarian Jewry, which took place from close to the end of the war, 1944, when the Nazis knew that were losing; yet they ploughed on ahead with the Final Solution. They were losing the war to the Allies, but they diverted time and resources to at least win their war on the Jews.

In something like 8 weeks, around half a million Hungarian Jews were murdered. Amidst the horrors of the Holocaust, this intensity of murder is a standout. While Jews were being liberated on one front, the Hungarians Jews were being obliterated on another.

I won't nit pick about the evening itself and about what could have been edited (but I will say that at last, the candle lighting was done electronically with a remote control clicker, or 'kvetcher' as I refer to such things, and we didn't have to sit on the edge of our seats in suspense, waiting to see if the match would strike or if the candle would stay lit etc. So that was an improvement.).

The schools represented by choirs or readings are Mt Scopus (Modern Orthodox) Yavneh (Dati Leumi- Zionist Orthodox) Sholem Aleichem (Yiddishist- they have a strong presence despite the small size of the school- the Bund is alive and well in Melbourne, the last stronghold) and I'm pretty sure the other schools are there too- King David (Reform) and Bialik (not sure how they are classified, but Jewish)... I think I got them all, I apologise to any I missed.
Beth Rivkah, Orthodox, Chabad, has a young girls' choir that sings at the beginning of the proceedings; their youth means that the laws of Tzniut are upheld, plus they sing alone so they aren't in a mixed choir; for years it has been thus and everyone is OK with it.
Yeshivah college boys, ditto Chabad, in the past have read Kapitel 20 of Tehillim in Hebrew and English and sometimes, Yiddish. (This year, inexplicably, it was Psalm 23, which doesn't really fit, and it was read by 2 girls, not by Yeshivah boys, so I don't know what happened there.)

But every year, among all the community groups, there is one that is missing; the Haredim.
It seems that Chabad is the only Haredi/Orthodox group that does the heavy lifting, or any lifting at all. The other Orthodox groups, I guess in Melbourne I'm talking about Adass Israel, are never there. This year it was particularly poignant, as there is a strong Hungarian history in the Adass congregation, with quite a few survivors' families making up the congregation. Another small school, such as Yesodei HaTorah, has been around long enough to field a choir, I would think; but also a no-show.

I need someone to explain this to me. It's not just in Melbourne either. On my last trip to Yad Vashem in 2012, the director of the English Language desk, Searle Brajtman, said that they were just starting to see Haredi couples and youths coming in to look around; it was as if they had just discovered the Shoa.

In 2011 I attended the incredibly moving Yom HaShoa commemoration in Jerusalem, and again, I don't remember seeing any Haredim there, in a crowd of about 2000 people.

I don't get this. I would think that the Shoa has meaning for all Jews, especially Ashkenazim, especially in Israel and Melbourne, with such strong historic links to Europe. Hitler did not differentiate between the 'frum' and the assimilated, or between the traditional or the intermarried or the converted, or full Jews or 'mischlings'. All were targeted, all were murdered.

Whatever it is that is stopping Haredim from attending the Yom HaShoa night in an official and visible way, it must be put aside. If they want to cloister themselves and live in a self-created shtetl in Melbourne, well, fine; but this is a night where community counts above all. After all, we have much more in common than we have differences. This deserves recognition.

We are all descendants of the 6 million martyrs and the surviving remnant of European Jewry.
May their memories be blessed- by all of us, in togetherness.