Jewish group debates tattoos and traditions

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Jewish group debates tattoos and traditions
April 2, 2011
By Jaweed Kaleem'
Miami-Dade

When her daughter turned 13, Melinda Cowen sat her down to dole out some important advice.

“She’s never really expressed interest,” Cowen said, but nonetheless, she told the girl sternly: “Don’t ever get a tattoo.”

A Reform temple-attending Jew who works as a graphic designer, Cowen, 58, had strong words to describe the body art: “disgusting,” and “trashy.”

“It creeps me out,” she added recently. “It reminds me of the Holocaust – to me that’s just wrong.”

Cowen is one side of a debate that rabbis and scholars say is bound to grow over the cultural – and, by some interpretations, religious– ban on tattoos among Jews as aging parents’ views on norms grow further from that of their offspring.

Tattoos were one of several topics that a growing cultural group that meets at Temple Israel near downtown Miami touched upon recently as part of an initiative that launched last summer and has steadily gained steam.

Next@19th aims to break religious and cultural boundaries and regularly meets for debates and discussions covering sticky topics as well as lighter events such as music and art.

“There’s no lecture, no panelist,” says Liz Schwartz, an attorney who is one of the group’s organizers.

The group picks apart matters with what looks like a game of musical chairs.

At the recent discussion on tattoos, 50 attendees – from non-religious cultural Jews to those who had a dabbled in living according to Orthodox traditions – sprang from seat to seat, showing excitement, grave offense and sometimes disgust as they moved about the room, an event hall away from the temple’s sanctuary.

The format was loosely based upon the Sanhedrin, the ancient high court of Jewish law, except without rabbis. Attendees were invited to debate and stretch their minds, moving from one corner of the space to another depending upon how their views on tattoos changed through the night.

“The old adage goes that if you have a tattoo, you can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery,” Schwartz told them.

There is no Jewish law that says people with tattoos cannot be buried, but a minority of cemeteries do prohibit those with tattoos. The ban is instead traditionally traced to Leviticus 19:28: “You shall not make any gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.”

But as with many aspects of the Torah, there are different interpretations.

Maimonides, a famed and often-cited medieval rabbi, saw the rule against tattoos as one against worshipping idols, since ancient pagan tribes were known to mark their bodies as an act of worship. Yet, he concluded that tattoos were prohibited regardless of intent.

On the other hand, contemporary scholars have said it’s unclear if that line bans tattoos that specifically refer to a god or if it outlaws any kind of tattoo. There’s also Deuteronomy 4:15, in which Jews are told to take care of their bodies. That could potentially make a host of activities, from smoking to drinking in excess, to be violations.

At Temple Israel, as the group that spanned from unadorned 20-somethings to a tattooed 65-year-old scurried about the room, a range of questions arose.

Are Hebrew or religious tattoos OK or at least better than others? If a Jew gets a tattoo, does it disrespect survivors of the Holocaust, where prisoners of Auschwitz had their arms forcibly tattooed with codes?

Or, as Maxwell Kirsner, a 24-year-old in the audience, asked: “What laws do we decide are reasonable and which are not?”

There are 613 Mitzvot, or commandments, from the Torah, from rules about the Sabbath to diet, grooming and sex. Most Jews at Next@19th events break a number of them. But the tattoo stigma prevails.

According to a 2007 survey from the Pew Research Center, more than one-third of 18-to-25-year olds and 40-percent of 26- to 40-year-olds are tattooed. Another survey found that72-percent of tattooed adults don’t regularly show them.

No group keeps data specifically on Jews and tattoos, but anecdotes abound.

“My family all freaked out when I got my first tattoo at 17,” said Lissette Mendez, 39, who over the years developed the decorations into a sleeve of tattoos on her arm. “I say to each his own.”

Aside from a heated exchange on circumcision at a recent event and another recent event on the role of women at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Next@19th also hosts lighter events: a monthly Jewish music festival called the Guava Rugelach Lounge, a recent klezmer jam and, coming up, a performance of “Heebster CHAIkus” during the upcoming O, Miami poetry festival. Also coming up: a debate on end-of-life issues.

“We want to look outside of Judaism, inside of it, chew on it and think of how it works individually,” said Jenni Person, a founding member. “We want to celebrate Jewish culture.”

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