Chevrei:

I appreciate the time, energy, effort, and thought that all
participants on this list are putting into it--and specifically, the
contributions of those who have recently been addressing the issues of
welcoming/"unwelcoming" the intermarried and their families, whether or
not we see eye to eye.

I also realize that it can be frustrating to be misunderstood, or to
feel that you can scarcely speak because you are trying so hard to
watch what you say. As a participant in this discussion _and_ as
someone who works with words for a living, I want to say a few things
about why it's worthwhile and how it matters--why it's worth having
your say but _really_ getting it right!

On Friday, June 24, 2005, at 02:23 PM, Derek Fields wrote:

> I have started to give a measured response three times today only to
> find that no matter how I put it, what I say will be perceived as
> offensive and off-putting.

All I can say to Derek and to others who have been commenting recently
is that although I may criticize certain choices of terms or of
rhetoric as inaccurate, or unhelpfully broad, or misleading--or, at
times, even as offensive or insulting to me or my family members, I do
not intend by that critique to address anything other than the _effect_
of your words (not the intent behind them), or to invalidate the
content of your comments, or to encourage you to silence yourselves.
What I hope you will do--what I strive to do, though I know I do not
always succeed--is to work as hard as you can to choose the words that
will ring in my ears as they did in your own heads, whose effect on the
hearer will convey your intent and not be lost in translation. If you
feel that what you've written will be perceived as offensive and
off-putting, find the way to say it that has the least chance of being
misperceived!

To that end, I will continue to explain when necessary (when these
terms are used!) why I object to, e.g, language that labels my father
as a "spectator" in synagogue life, or Wendy and myself as "statistical
anomalies," or policies that permit greater participation by the
intermarried as "choreograph[ing] the community’s liturgy to meet their
personal needs."

So I will just say again what I said earlier: remember that you are
speaking to me, as well as to all the other Jews on the list. You are
speaking about my family, as well as about all other kinds of
intermarried families. If that makes you think twice about what you're
saying and how to say it, that's not a bad thing--that's a good thing.
Because if what you were going to say was _intended_ to speak to and
for the whole community, but has the potential _effect_ of creating an
"us" in which you participate and a "them" in which others, whom you
meant to include as part of that whole community, do not -- then you
haven't spoken clearly and carefully enough. (Examples of "us" and
"them" here might include: intramarried Jews vs. intermarried Jews,
married Jews vs. unmarried Jews, born Jews vs. Jews by choice,
heterosexual Jews vs. GLBT Jews, Jewish children of two Jewish parents
vs. Jewish children of one Jewish parent, etc.)

I'm afraid I have a lot to say on this topic, because it matters a
great deal to me both personally (in terms of my investment &
involvement in this particular issue) and professionally (because
inaccurate language or difficulties in communication hurt us all--and I
hope we will all go read or re-read Orwell's great essay "Politics and
the English Language" on this point!--but are often the particular
province of English teachers/profs to worry over). So you can see me
have my say below, edited and at times adjusted from what I've written
off-list to particular people: I invite you all to read it, or to skip
over it if you feel you've absorbed the gist and don't care for
specific illustrations.

I once again thank those who have been having their say, whether I
agree with it or not, and hope we can all move forward in discussing
these topics in language that conveys the writer's intent successfully
and encourages productive discussion for us all!

B'shalom,
Becca

• On Fred Passman's recent post:

(I have not commented on it on-list beforehand, so let me say that I
feel that I understand the position that is being put forth; agree with
some and disagree with others of its specifics, on grounds that can be
discussed later [but can pretty much be inferred from my earlier
response to Derek re: why I don't reject having non-Jews on the bimah
in roles that are not halakhically prohibited to them, e.g., reading
appropriate non-denominational prayer in English]; but, as I explain
below, find some of its rhetoric unnecessarily and unhelpfully
dismissive of the opposing possibilities which in fact constitute the
policy & practice of many other Conservative shuls, including those in
which my family has or has had membership.)

Not banning my mother from synagogue office is not tantamount to giving
her "permi[ssion] to choreograph the community's liturgy to meet [her]
personal needs." [...] Her being on the synagogue board hasn't made my
father eligible for minyan or leyning, so I sincerely wish that others
wouldn't discuss halakhic requirements of chiuv in the same breath with
synagogue policy specifications that have no direct bearing on those
matters. (I already voiced this objection to Derek's earlier posts, and
I'm repeating it here with regard to several passages in Fred's.) I
_am_ listening to what people are saying, but I don't think that such
commentators truly remember that they're talking to me as well as to
everyone else.

I want to say to them:
"I haven't asked to choreograph the community's liturgy to meet my
personal needs, so please don't talk as though that's what I'm doing
[if/when I object to the types of shul policies that are discussed in
his post].
In my own community, other people's personal needs _and_ halakhic
obligations get met because my husband and I are up there, Shabbat
after Shabbat, chag after chag, leading the davening and doing the
leyning and organizing to make sure that minyan happens and that things
are done right. Because my mother and father raised me to be a good
Conservative Jew, and my husband decided to be one too.
But if I'd grown up hearing some of the things people are saying on
the list, in the way that they're saying them, maybe I too would have
decided that I didn't need Conservative Judaism if _that's_ what it
thought of my mother, my father, my family."
They need to think about those consequences, too.

• On Derek's post, re: "statistical anomaly" ("You and Rebecca and the
hundreds of other committed Jews whose parents are not both Jewish are
statistical anomalies."):

American Heritage dictionary gives 2 main meanings (before a 3rd one
relevant to astronomy, which is not what we're talking about
here!)--you [Derek] may be right in sense 1, and I may be right in
sense 2:

1. Deviation or departure from the normal or common order, form, or
rule.
2. One that is peculiar, irregular, abnormal, or difficult to classify:
“Both men are anomalies: they have . . . likable personalities but each
has made his reputation as a heavy” (David Pauly).
3. Astronomy The angular deviation, as observed from the sun, of a
planet from its perihelion.
(http://www.bartleby.com/61/8/A0320800.html)

My issue with your use of the term basically boils down to a potential
conflict between meaning 1 and meaning 2:
meaning 1 can be a matter of fact, but meaning 2 is almost necessarily
a matter of opinion:
what is "peculiar, irregular, abnormal, or difficult to classify"
(even in the realm of data & the phrase "statistical anomaly") depends
on what you define as usual, regular, normal, or easy to classify.

I agree that Wendy and I may be anomalies in sense 1, but not _always_
in sense 2: one of the things I'm interested in is what classifications
(factors in background, education, experiences, etc.) might allow us to
understand what might distinguish Wendy and me and others like us, who
are committed Conservative Jews from intermarried families, from the
larger group of children of intermarriage who are not commited
Conservative Jews. Once we're looking from within a given explanatory
context, we might not be anomalous in sense 2 at all!
(Note the final bit forwarded below--assuming the image comes though
(apologies it it doesn't)--re: "statistical flukes or anomalies" in
data sets, using the 2 terms as synonymous. I concede that I may be an
anomaly in dictionary meaning 1, but I deny that I + Wendy + others
like us are "statistical flukes or anomalies." The problem of how to
construe such a term is precisely why I was advocating for a less
ambiguous one, like "minority," or for #s when we have them... But
again: the current focus of the discussion was not how anomalous we are
or aren't, but how best to deal with intermarried families in
Conservative Jewish life to achieve the aims that are stated as the
goal of the Shefa list. If we keep focused on that matter, even if we
know we are going to disagree about the specifics, then we won't get as
sidetracked into things like, er, this business of semantics that I've
taken up here, if/when the statistical issues are not immediately
germane to the matters "bein ish l'khaveiro" & "bein ish
l'ishto"--matters of human relations, including in synagogue
settings--that are what constitute the main focus of my remarks and, as
I understand them, Wendy's & Robert's...)
[I then included my stats-minded dad's e-mails to me in response to my
query to him on use of the term "anomaly," which I will excerpt only
part of here:]

> One other thought -- An "anomaly" is not just intrinsically rare, but
> rare out of proportion to what we would think would happen.
>
> If you choose one person, that person will be an "anomaly" in some
> sense -- it's not implausible that he will be a minority, even a small
> minority in some way.
>
> It's when , as noted above, you get things happening repeatedly at way
> above expected frequencies (maybe 3-4 SDs
[Standard Deviations]
> out??)
>
>
> Thus, 30 years ago, to have a Jewish mother with an adopted Chinese
> Baby would be a real anomaly -- today. it would only be , (making up
> numbers)
> 3% of adopted babies by Jews, only .x% of all new baby families --
> but, It's no longer really "anomalous" -- we understand how and why it
> is happening, and can assign reasonable probabilities to it.
>
> Another example -- every lottery winner is a minority -- yet it is not
> "anomalous" for SOMEONE to win the lottery.
>
> If 3 straight national winners were sold in Louisville, THAT would be
> "anomalous"

> A quick another thought -- an anomaly is something that needs
> explaining, beyond the explanations you already know about.
>
> It would be an anomaly
> for people from Wyoming to win spelling bees -- until you know that
> they are all from one family of nerds
>
> A world-class Black tennis player was once an anomaly, until you
> started to get inner-city programs, Richard Williams, etc.
>
> They are still rare, but not "an anomaly" in common parlance.

A quote