Jewish Themes in Star Trek --
Link launcher to explore the Trekjews universe

A page created by Rabbi Yonassan Gershom

There's quite a bit of material on the Web discussing Jews and Star Trek -- much of it repetitious. Just about every page on Leonard Nimoy mentions the Vulcan Salute and its origins in Jewish ritual. Second in line for number of hits are pages debating whether or not the Ferengi are supposed to represent Jews. On this page I have tried to present the best of what I found, without too much duplication.

Bimah Me Up, Scotty! from the Arts section of The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles discusses a performance of the Chanukkah story that Leonard Nimoy narrated for the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble on December 14, 2004. And of course, Nimoy also discusses the origins of the Vulcan salute. (For those who are not Jewish, "Bimah Me Up" is not bad Italian, it's a pun on Hebrew. a bimah is a synagogue pulpit.) You can buy a CD of an earlier 2002 performance of this program with Nimoy and the Wind Ensemble, Chanukkah in Story and Song on Amazon.com. Ordering info...

The Jewish Origin of the Vulcan Salute by Rabbi Yonassan Gershom (webmaster of this link list.) After reading so many incomplete refs to this topic all over the Net, I decided to post my own in-depth explanation. Read the Trek history of the salute, the Jewish history and meaning of the Blessing gesture it is based on, etc. There's also a diagram of how the hand forms the Hebrew letter Shin when you make the salute. (Nimoy has mentioned this many times but, if you don't know Hebrew, you need a visual, right?)

Attention Jewish Trekkers: Check out this "Shalom Hand" jewelry in a variety of styles (necklaces, pins, tie clips, etc.) exclusive original design from Dor L'Dor, (from generation to generation). Dor L'Dor is an educational resource center which creates learning materials for special needs Jewish children. Their Shalom Hand design not only is like the Vulcan salute, it also spells out "Shalom" (peace) in Hebrew letters. And it comes in either left or right hand versions! Click here to go directly to their Blessing Hands jewelry page.

The Sum of His Parts: A good word about the evil inclination by David Holzel explores the TOS episode, "The Enemy Within" in light of Jewish teachings about the yetzer ha-ra (evil inclination) and the yetzer tov (good inclination), and how we need BOTH to be complete beings.

Spock's Spectacular Voyage by Robert Leiter of The Jewish World Review relates how, for many years, Leonard Nimoy had refused to go to Trek conventions in Germany because of the country's Nazi past. (He is not alone in this --many Jews still refuse to set foot on German soil.) In 1999 he finally did go to a convention -- and came face-to-face with his own prejudices. Could this really be a new Germany? he asks himself...

Astronaut lifted nation's spirits from the Jerusalem Post (January 22, 2003), is the text of a transmission by Ilan Ramon to Israel from space, telling the story of the miniature Torah scroll he took with him aboard the space shuttle Columbia. It's not really a Star Trek article, but I thought it belongs here, because it's about a Jew in space. Look very carefully at this accompanying photo (see left)<<-- I was amazed at how tiny That's Ramon's hand holding that Torah. (See the article for the entire photo.)

Highly Offensive Ferengi: Racial Issues and Star Trek's Multicultural Deep Space Nine in Film -- There are tons of sites all over the net which discuss whether or not the Ferengi are based on antisemitic stereotypes. This article is among the best. In-depth and well-researched (footnoted even!), it not only explores the Ferengi, but discusses several other Trek races as well.

The Ferengi: Star Trek's Court Jesters by Julia Houston presents yet another view of the Ferengi as outsider commentators on Federation society. (In medieval Europe, the jester was often a wise man who, under the guise of humor, gave honest feedback to the king. As a certified "fool" he was safe from reprisal.)

At last, a Star Trek character admits she's Jewish... is Rabbi Gershom's Amazon review of the Trek novel Well of Souls, which features a Jewish character, Darya Bat-Levi. In this review, he analyzes the accuracy (?) of her ideas about Jewish theology and the afterlife as presented in a four-page section of the book.

Trek-cochavim is the Internet's oldest Jewish Star Trek listserv discussion group. Their name means "Star Trek" in Hebrew. Not to worry -- the list itself is in English. It's unmoderated, with hot-and-heavy debate in the Talmudic tradition, so wear a flak jacket if you are sensitive to flames. Or you can just search their archives.

The TrekJews Newsletter on Yahoo Groups is Rabbi Gershom's monthly (sort of) email list for trekjews.com. (Not to worry -- You won't be be spammed -- he does not sell or share his mailing lists.) The archives there are public, so you can read the back issues for in-jokes, sneak previews, essays, book reviews, etc. even if you don't join the list itself.

Star Trek novels with (maybe) Jewish characters is a Listmania list on Amazon.com, created by Rabbi Gershom. Each listing has a short comment identifying the Jew(s) in the novel.

If Jews were on Star Trek, by Jim Rosenberg is a hilarious satire subtitled "The Wrath of Cohen." Read this at your next Purim party!

Couples go in search of marital bliss aboard Hilton's Starship Enterprise tells about some interesting Trek weddings in Las Vegas. The Jewish ones are performed by Rabbi Gary Golbart of Adat Ari El congregation in Las Vegas. (He is a longtime fan.)

The Search for Jews in Outer Space Continues by Jonathan S. Tobin (executive editor of the Jewish Exponent was first published right before Star Wars Phantom Menace hit the theaters. The article discusses the lack of Jews in SF movies and TV shows (including Star Trek) and the question of whether this is deliberate antisemitism, or are Jews reading too much into it?

Human Names in Star Trek lists all the last names of Human Trek characters so far, with the complaint that the vast majority are British/Irish and that this does not reflect the population of Earth. However, the compiler mis-guessed "Kaplan," which he classifies as "uncertain origin" when I know darned well that Kaplan is a Jewish name! Green can also be a Jewish name -- for example Arthur Green, a major Jewish theologian. Not to mention that David Ben-Gurion's last name was originally Green. Still, it's a good place to guess who might be Jewish.

He said, She said: The search for God on Star Trek by Steve Johnson and Michelle Erica Green is a sort of dialogue betwen two writers about the lack of any religious references in much of science fiction (Star Trek included), the pervasiveness of cultural stereotypes when Jews and Catholics are portrayed anywhere on TV, etc. A bit of a rant in places, but well worth reading. And, yes, Ms. Green is Jewish (see my comment about names in the entry above this one).

Disappointingly, Jewishsf.com is not a science fiction site. (sigh) The SF in their domain name stands for San Francisco. It's a general Jewish site that may have occasional SF articles (which is how I found it in a Google search). You can search their archives.

More to come...

gershom613@yahoo.com

Be sure to include the word Trekjews somewhere in the subject line, so my auto-sort program will find it among the tons of spam I get (sigh). I'll try to answer ASAP, but I don't log on every day, so please be patient.

Live long and prosper!

Rabbi Yonassan Gershom

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