Raphael Haim Golb arrested

Last summer I wrote about a panel on Women and Qumran at a conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls that was held at the Israel Museum. In the comments to the posting I received a couple of comments by "Museum Ethics Controversy" and "peter.kaufman2," claiming that there was a deliberate attempt at this conference and others to suppress the views of those disagreeing with the majority scholarly consensus that identifies the scrolls as having belonged to the library of the sect quartered at Qumran, who are generally agreed to be the Essenes whom Josephus wrote about (although there are important scholarly disagreements about this proposition).

It turns out that these comments were probably made by Raphael Haim Golb, who has been posting under many different aliases with the aim of forwarding his father's theories (Norman Golb) about the origins of the scrolls. Robert Cargill has documented Golb's aliases (by the way, in his article, he carefully does not identify the person who posted under all of the aliases, but instead demonstrates that all of the aliases were the same person), including Peter Kaufman. Raphael Golb was just arrested in New York City for identity theft, impersonation (of Dr. Lawrence Schiffman), and harassment.

The defendant, RAPHAEL HAIM GOLB, was arrested on charges of identity theft, criminal impersonation and aggravated harassment. The crimes in the Criminal Court Complaint occurred during the period of July to December of 2008.

The investigation leading to today’s arrest revealed that GOLB engaged in a systematic scheme on the Internet, using dozens of Internet aliases, in order to influence and affect debate on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in order to harass Dead Sea Scrolls scholars who disagree with his viewpoint. GOLB used computers at New York University (NYU) in an attempt to mask his true identity when conducting this Internet scheme. He gained access to NYU computers by virtue of being a graduate of the university, and having made donations to its library fund.

For more information, see the article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, which also explains how Cargill became involved in the issue.

Robert R. Cargill, an instructional technology coordinator at the University of California at Los Angeles's Center for Digital Humanities, has for the last two years been tracking the activity of an academic cyberbully who, writing under as many as 60 different aliases, has been waging a campaign to harass and defame opponents of Norman Golb's theories about the origin of the 2,000-year-old scrolls.

He said that by tracking the Internet protocol addresses attached to a number of e-mail messages, blog posts, and other Web activities, he was able to conclude with reasonable certainty that the perpetrator was working from a series of computers at the Bobst Library. (An IP address is a unique number, assigned by Internet-service providers, that identifies every connection to the Internet.)

Mr. Cargill, who has carefully refrained from making any direct accusations against Raphael Golb or his father, Norman Golb, declined to say whether he had assisted the district attorney's investigation.

Mr. Cargill began tracking the cyberbully—whom he calls the "Puppet Master"—two years ago after he himself was targeted. At the time, he was a doctoral student at UCLA helping to produce a film about Khirbet Qumran—the site in present-day Israel where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered—and its inhabitants for an exhibit on the scrolls at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Mr. Cargill said it was then that the aliases began attacking him and his film, both in e-mail messages to his superiors and on various Web forums, for failing to give credence to Norman Golb's long-held theory about the origin of the scrolls and how they came to Khirbet Qumran.

I had wondered why the commenter was so vehement in his assertions on my blog. I rarely post on the Qumran scrolls and didn't expect to find a reply that dealt with such a specific issue of controversy.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef rules women may chant Scroll of Esther for men

This is a fascinating story and halakhic decision from the most prominent Sephardic rabbinic authority in Israel today. Rabbi Ovadia rules women may chant Scroll of Esther for men.

Women are allowed to chant the Scroll of Esther on behalf of men if no competent men are available, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Israel's Sephardi community, ruled last week in a landmark decision liable to outrage many of his Ashkenazi counterparts.

Esther is traditionally read in synagogue on the holiday of Purim, which this year falls next week. And while some rabbis have long permitted women to read the megillah, or scroll, for other women, most do not allow women to read on behalf of men.

In his weekly Torah class on Saturday night, however, Yosef discussed the rules of reading the megillah and ruled that not only may women read it in front of men, but the men will thereby have fulfilled their obligation to hear the scroll read.

"It is permissible for a woman to fulfill this obligation on behalf of men," he said, because the obligation to hear the megillah falls equally on men and women.

Yosef said that most rabbis forbid women to read the megillah on the grounds that men are forbidden to listen to women sing, because a woman's singing voice can stimulate sexual arousal. However, he said, he does not agree that a woman chanting a sacred text is the kind of singing that stimulates sexual arousal. The analogy rabbis have drawn between singing and chanting sacred texts has "no value," he declared.

Yosef said women should not read for men if there are men capable of doing the reading. But in a "small community" where there are no men capable of chanting the text properly, it is permissible to bring a woman to read, he ruled.

Yosef also said that women could write a kosher Scroll of Esther - another task that most rabbis say can be done only by men. He said that ancient megillahs written by women have been found in Yemen, and it would be permissible for women to do so today as well, "to earn a living for their household," since women "were part of the miracle" that the megillah describes.

However, he admitted wryly, it is an open question "whether anyone would buy it."

In both cases, Yosef's rulings were specific to Megillat Esther and do not necessarily apply to other sacred texts, such as the Torah.

Jewish women mystics

I just sent in my paper proposal for the Society of Biblical Literature meeting this fall:

Female Jewish mystics in late antiquity: real women or literary construction?

The Egyptian Jewish philosopher Philo reports on the Therapeutics, a first-century C.E. Jewish monastic group with both male and female members, who engaged in allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures and ecstatic ritual celebrations. The Testament of Job, a retelling in Greek of the book of Job, describes Job’s three daughters as hymning God in the languages of the angels, and Joseph and Aseneth, an expansion in Greek of the biblical story of Joseph’s marriage to Aseneth, describes how Aseneth’s prayers invoke the angelic captain of the heavenly host. Why could these works depict the contact between women and angels in a positive fashion? What factors made it possible for the Testament of Job and Joseph and Aseneth to portray a mystical ideal for women as well as for men? Do these works offer any evidence that real women engaged in mystical contemplation, or do they simply explore the exegetical possibilities through literary depictions? Does Philo’s account of the Therapeutics provide any guidance towards the social setting of composition of the Testament of Job or Joseph and Aseneth, or hint towards the type of woman likely to be involved in mystical contemplation?

Last summer in Israel I did quite a bit of research on Joseph and Aseneth and discovered how thorny the questions are about its composition. There is a real difference of opinion between those who think that it's probably a first century BCE or CE Egyptian Jewish work, and those who think it's much later and may be of Christian provenance (Ross Kraemer argues that the book is later). One problem has to do with the manuscripts and figuring out the recensions and which one might be older than the others. Kraemer argues that a shorter recension is earlier and more original, while other scholars like Christian Burchard argue that the longer recension is the earlier one. I tentatively decided to follow their lead, because their arguments seemed better, but I have the sense that it's very hard to tell without devoting a couple of years to going through all the manuscripts and trying to figure out the process of recension myself, something which I don't have the time to do.

It is really a fascinating book, however, and regardless of when it was written or by whom, it's well worth spending time on it and trying to figure out what's going on in it.

Avigdor Lieberman's epic chutzpah

Surprisingly enough, a Christopher Hitchens column about Israel that I actually agree with, on Avigdor Lieberman.

Now we have to watch the rise of a thug and a demagogue who has called with relish for the execution of elected Arab members of Israel's parliament if they meet with Hamas, who has demanded the drowning of Palestinian prisoners in the Dead Sea, whose supporters chant "Death to the Arabs" at their rallies, and who has materialized the worst fears of those Arabs who have made the longest-lasting accommodation with the Jewish state. Avigdor Lieberman's essentially totalitarian and Inquisitionist style, though, may be even more manifest in his insistence that non-Zionist haredim, or pious Jews, also either take an oath of loyalty or forfeit their citizenship. This takes the ax to the root of the idea that Jews have a presence in Jerusalem from time immemorial and that their resulting rights are not derived from, or dependent on, any state or any ideology. Shame on Benjamin Netanyahu if he makes even a temporary alliance with Lieberman. As questionable as the "right to return" may already be, it certainly cannot confer the right to expel.

I knew about the racism, the call for the execution of Arab members of Knesset who meet with Hamas (what about Israeli officials who are actually negotiating with Hamas right now?) and the threat to Israeli Arabs' citizenship. I hadn't known that he made the same threat to the non-Zionist haredim. No wonder Rav Ovadya Yosef (the leader of Shas, the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party) warned that a vote for Lieberman was a vote for Satan: "Whoever votes for Lieberman gives strength to Satan."

I haven't written earlier about the results of the Israeli election on Feb. 10 because frankly I find them so depressing. Any election in which Bibi Netanyahu is not the worst choice elected is really a bad sign.