Armitage picnic fantasy

[At left: a stack of kosher hot dogs, a food often encountered at Jewish picnics, and the main component of the picnic I went to today. The site from which I stole this photo claims they are glatt kosher — an extra-stringent level of ritual purity required by only a miniscule proportion of the estimated one-sixth of U.S. Jews who observe varying levels of kashrut.]

It being term, despite the sadness of the day, life goes on, and today was the kickoff picnic for Jewish faculty at my campus’ Hillel (Hillel is a national organization for Jewish students on U.S. campuses — and as I learned from that link, operates in some other countries, too). It plays an important role in Jewish life because its main purpose is to address the most pressing problem facing Judaism in the contemporary United States: assimilation. Something like 50 percent of Jews “marry out.” Hillel ensures that if your Jewish child wants to meet another Jew in a non-religious setting, he or she at least has a fighting chance. This role is important because in much of the non-urban U.S. apart from the coasts, no local synagogue may be available to organize student activities — and in my experience, local shuls are usually focused on Hebrew school and facilitating observance of yahrzeits. I don’t mean to denigrate the other activities of Hillels on U.S. campuses — religious services, holiday celebrations, cultural programs, charity, community service, interfaith dialogue, and so on. But the main point is the Jewish socializing on offer.

[At right: a falafel sandwich with tahini sauce, which is what I wish they’d serve at these events. It’s pareve, so you can eat ice cream afterwards.]

Today they tried to extend the same principle a bit further and get Jewish faculty socializing with each other. This goal is not altruistic. The high holidays are coming up, and the campus rabbi would like to see as many faculty as possible because it raises the attractiveness of Hillel events to students. Because it helps students feel at home on campus, the provost would also like to see faculty at these events, and sure enough, a representative from the dean of students was there to chat us up.

Faculty tend to respond with mixed feelings. On the one hand, Jews know about the intermarriage statistics and that, because the important ritual and religious events happen in the Jewish home as opposed to in shul, marrying out endangers not only a culture, but also a religion. Judaism has cultivated a long-standing resistance to converts, and though something like 180,000 Americans convert to some strain of Judaism each year, people like me won’t keep the religion alive. We gotta hang onto the people we already have — people with affective connections to the religion that go beyond conviction and extend to culture and family, affective connections built in places like Hillel. On the other, most faculty don’t seek to spend more time on campus or with undergraduates (and this is a campus with a heavier teaching load than my last one). People with kids are already involved in a synagogue and have little more time to give. That leaves singles and older people, both groups that are socially further separated from postadolescents. And, too, given the dual status of Judaism as a religion and a culture / ethnicity, along with the political issues around the state of Israel, stuff that happens at Hillel ends up being of ambivalent appeal to lots of us. If you’re not already incorporated into a regular synagogue at age 40, odds are you’re going to have some quibble about Hillel, too. I go because I am one of few faculty I know who don’t mind socializing with undergraduates, and because I think it’s probably a mitzvah to try to help out.

Someone I did not encounter at the picnic today, either literally or metaphorically: Richard Armitage as Paul Andrews in Between the Sheets, episode 2. My cap.

I was musing over all of this on the drive over and was wishing a bit archly (I’m not really actively looking for anyone at the moment) I could use Hillel the way undergrads do, to find a partner. In fact, everyone at the picnic who was roughly my age was either married or a woman. Shoot. Reflecting the overall status of assimilation, about half the people there were non-Jewish partners of Jews. Given that, although there’s not even a whiff of Jewishness about Richard Armitage, I could have met him there, I suppose, but odds would have been that, as a non-Jew, he’d have been there with someone else.

Food options I was not offered at the picnic today: Paul Andrews (Richard Armitage) offers Alona a plate of grilled chicken at a party in Between the Sheets, episode 2. My cap.

Sober realist that I am, I pretty much knew ahead of time that I was not going to meet Richard Armitage this afternoon — though it was a nice fantasy — , so I was also musing about the food we might be offered. This is another problem I find with Hillel: the food has to be kosher, which means that they’re limited to certain products (no chicharrones, for example, not that I’d miss them) and that certain food combinations typical at picnics in the U.S. will never occur at a Hillel picnic. They’ll never serve hot dogs and ice cream, for example, because that transgresses the prohibition on consuming dairy and meat products together. Also, because they seek to serve all different observance levels of Jewish students, Hillel kitchens usually hold to the standards of orthodox kashrut, which heavily restricts the prepared products they can serve. Kosher meat costs about three to four times per pound what the same cut costs in the supermarket, assuming you can find a kosher supplier. So I figured we’d get hot dogs, because kosher dogs are available in every supermarket, and that the meat decision would contort the rest of the food available, as prepared products completely without dairy are rare in the U.S., and even if a secular factory makes a cookie or a snack without dairy, they use the same machines to make other things that have those ingredients, which knocks their products out of the running for kosher certification. So kosher snacks that you can eat with meat can get a bit far out from the mainstream — this is what we had today instead of chips, and take my word for it, they’re disgusting, as should be apparent from the ingredient list. Don’t get me wrong — kosher food can be just as delicious as tref. Because of the rules on ingredients and mixtures, most food in the kosher kitchen needs to be prepared from scratch — but that’s exactly what’s most unlikely to happen at a U.S. picnic. I suspect this Hillel knocks itself out for Shabbat meals on Friday nights, which is as it should be, since that’s when the most people come. But a plate of fresh fruit would have been nice.

Well, if wasn’t going to get Richard Armitage, or a great meal, out of the picnic, was there anything else I could hope for?

Paul Andrews (Richard Armitage) and Alona Cunningham (Julie Graham) in a post-orgasmic clinch in Between the Sheets, episode 2. My cap.

All in all, it was a fine event. I talked to the rabbi and a few people I didn’t know introduced themselves. I told the rabbi that lacking other options, I’d probably come for the high holiday services. He said they’d be happy to have me. I was glad I went. But what happened for Paul and Alona did not happen for me, either. Oh, well. Too bad!

~ by Servetus on September 12, 2011.