by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, April 30th, 2003
Pearl Gluck and Basya Shechter’s installation, Trance, opened tonight at the Eldridge St. Project. The installation, which features Ms. Gluck’s camerwork accompanied by Ms. Shechter’s audio arrangements, vividly interprets Jewish life on New York’s Lower East Side. The show runs through July 30th.
Pearl Gluck exhibits “People of the Book”—a video collage displayed on an LCD screen inset into a book holder by the synagogue’s Aron Kodesh—to a group of Buddhist monks.
“Trance,” a piece depicting interspersed closeups of an elderly woman, is inset into the synagogue’s Bimah.
“Pickles” is a virtual visit to a Kosher deli, oddly enough within the synagogue’s retired lavatory. A WC “within the sanctuary of a synagogue is not a typical occurence in the construction of temples.”
by shamirpower [➚] · Monday, April 28th, 2003
Tonight marks the beginning of Yom Hashoah, “Holocaust Memorial Day.” This year Tuesday, April 29, 2003 corresponds with 27 Nisan 5763, and the twelfth day of the omer. This day was set aside by the Israeli Knesset in 1951 to be observed as Yom Hashoah v’Haguvrah, Day of the Destruction and Heroism. Though the reason for marking this particular day is not known, it is likely that it was specifically place during the omer which is already a mournful period in the Jewish year. One possibility is that it symbolized the fall of the Warsaw Ghetto, just a few weeks after the anniversary of the uprising. In Israel, places of entertainment are closed on the evening of Yom Hashoah.
Many people observe the holiday remembering the six million Jews who were murdered in the Shoah by attending special memorial services or candlelight vigils. With them we should also remember Chasidei Umot Ha-olam, the righteous non-Jews who gave their lives in attempts to save members of the Jewish people.
*This site was created by Anagraztov in 1997 for ThinkQuest, an international High School web design competition.
by shamirpower [➚] · Monday, April 28th, 2003
First there was kosher meat. Then there was kosher cheese. Kosher pickles are also big in the markets. And did you remember to get that kosher soap the last time you went to market?
Well now there’s a free kosher search engine, Koogle, self defined as a “parody…[that]..is in no way affiliated with the fine folks at Google. Nevertheless, Koogle is a real & effective Index/search engine targeted for the Jewish & Israeli community on the web.”
And for Kosher content filtering, you can check out safelines.net, formerly “Koshernet,” which I came across in a book about the laws of passover, in the alphabetical index under “I” for “internet.” Offering both a Business Version and a Family Version, the claim that it is, “it’s everything you could possibly want, minus everything you don’t.” They also offer many Jewish links from their main page. Their service is $21.95 per month.
by Mobius [➚] · Sunday, April 27th, 2003
Three years after his initial intentions to do so, Wu-Tang’s token Jewish guy, Remedy, is finally touring Israel this Summer. (c/o KlezmerShack)
For those of you unfamiliar with the drama between the MC and myself (here’s my interview with him), check the August 10th post on my old blog. Oddly enough, he’s trying to put together some shows with one of the groups I webmaster for and promote now, Regenerated Headpiece. Can’t wait to run into him backstage… I’ve never been assaulted by a celebrity before.
Yeah, yeah… It’s loshn hora, I know, I know. I just don’t like the idea that this guy is being touted as a role model for Jewish children while his rhymes objectify women, glorify gang violence and drug dealing, and furthermore, when his knowledge of Judaism is limited to Schindler’s List and other pop-culture Judaica. He may as well layn tefillin with Madonna. When I asked him about what he’s doing on a label with notoriously anti-Semitic 5 Percenters, citing Killah Priest’s album View From Masada and his reference to killing a rabbi after fucking his wife, as well as Wu-Tang’s repeated self-comparison to and glorification of the PLO (that is to say, they consider themselves “lyrical terrorists”), his response was little more than apologetic. Some role model. I say, don’t be fooled: The man’s a hustler and Jewish kids are market he’s looking to exploit. It’s disappointing really…
by Mobius [➚] · Saturday, April 26th, 2003
The Bible includes countless tales of raw, forbidden sex. We’ve gathered some of the best bible sex stories here, filling in what you didn’t learn in Sunday school.
Would you like some sacrilidge with your coffee? Check out Bible Sex Stories.
by Mobius [➚] · Friday, April 25th, 2003
Since the intifada broke out a couple years back, there’s been a surge in anti-Semitism on campuses across the continent:
While the ADL may oft be full of it, this type of scenario seems to be becoming the norm these days.
In response, Jewish student groups are now organizing to combat the proliferation of this anti-Semitism-masked-as-anti-Zionism across the nation’s campuses. One byproduct of this effort offered by the Jewish Agency for Israel, in collaboration with the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is “The Ambassador” online training course which will “empower [students] both in the facts of the conflict, the tools to understand Palestinian propaganda/media bias and the means to advocate Israel.” I believe the general idea is to make it easier for Jewish students to jump down the throat of anyone they catch rocking a kaffiyeh or a Palestinian flag lapel pin.
Mmmm… Zionist propagandist training. Just what we needed. Chas v’shalom we should be offered courses in conflict resolution or something progressive like that.
*Update 4/26 1:30 pm More indepth coverage of this incident can be found here. Nods to Meryl.
by Mobius [➚] · Thursday, April 24th, 2003
“It’s really mixed. Either you’ve got some foundations saying that absolutely, we have to be giving more because people are having a hard time, or others are saying our assets have been really crushed by the stock market and we’re not giving.”
Jewish non-profits feel the crunch of a failing economy.
by Mobius [➚] · Thursday, April 24th, 2003
It looks like putting up an eruv is the least of worries for Williamsburg’s chosidishe community. The Brooklyn neighborhood’s Latino community is deeply concerned with abuses of power by the local Shomrim (otherwise known as the Williamsburg Saftey Patrol Unit), a NYPD-sanctioned neighborhood watch composed of Hasidic volunteers, similar in organization to Hatzalah. Apparently some incidents between the Shomrim and Latino youths have bordered on explosive, inciting animosity between the groups. Such allegations come at an inopportune time, when the trial of Lemrick Nelson, Jr., who killed Yankel Rosenbaum in 1991′s racially-charged Crown Heights riots, is back in the news.
Obviously, since September 11, 2001, in the face of increased anti-Semitic violence in New York City which culminated in a Hasidic man being pushed from a subway platform towards an oncoming train, a heightened awareness and responsiveness is necessary to safeguard the Jewish community. But are the Shomrim going too far and allowing their power go to their heads?
…Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
by Douglas [➚] · Wednesday, April 23rd, 2003
My wife, the gorgeous and inimitable Barbara Rushkoff, will be exhibited starting this Friday night at the Philadelphia Jewish Museum. We’ll both be there at the opening, Friday evening, to celebrate. Come if you can!
by Douglas [➚] · Tuesday, April 22nd, 2003
“Whether you like the classics of Fiddler on the Roof or the more modern Eurovision winner Dana International, the UK’s first and only Jewish ringtone and logo service is bringing the Jewish flavour to mobile phone users.”
by Mobius [➚] · Tuesday, April 22nd, 2003
Commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
by Mobius [➚] · Tuesday, April 22nd, 2003
Likely to further cement the radical-Left’s disdain for the Israeli government, and perhaps bolster quite a few “Zionist Campaign Against Iraq” conspiracy theories*, the US is now brokering a deal to run a pipeline from Iraq to Israel. The proposed Haifa pipeline would of course strengthen Israel’s energy market as well as give the US a surefire ally in the Middle Eastern oil trade.
But this comes at a cost, no? Namely, the lives of 2,500 Iraqi civillians, perhaps the rule of International Law, and the glory of American democracy. Or so some believe, myself included. Still, perhaps this is just retribution for all the suicide bombers Saddam Hussein awarded with cash payoffs to their surviving family members. Either way, the US will reveal its real interests when we find out which Bush family friend gets the contract to build the pipeline. You can bet that company’s not gonna be owned by a Jew.
*Perhaps garnering this sort of reaction is really part of a greater Right-Wing Christian Conservative conspiracy to make the world dangerously unsafe for Jews so that they’ll all move to Israel, fulfilling a biblical prophecy that ends with the resurrection Christ. Perhaps said maniacs need to see Rowan Atkinson’s devil sketch.
by Mobius [➚] · Monday, April 21st, 2003
Widely popular on the Internet since the early days of Usenet, fan fiction is a genre of literature in which fans of a particular film, television show, or book, create original stories that sort of pick up where their obsession left off, using the same characters and settings as the works to which they pay homage. And of course, the Internet being what it is, the most prominent ‘fanfic’ to date seems to be homoerotic Star Trek and X-Files episodes. Be that as it may, a new breed of fanfic has been cropping up as of late, one with a peculiar twist: As if you didn’t get enough the first time, additions to The Diary of Anne Frank are growing in abundance. Ugh. A strange obsession for sure. So much for authenticity. (c/o memepool)
by Mobius [➚] · Monday, April 21st, 2003
Having helped master the art of cashing in on Kabbalah, the material girl herself, Madonna—recently depicted wrapping tefillin in a music video*—is now writing Kabbalistic children’s books.
“Now I’m starting to read to my son, but I couldn’t believe how vapid and vacant and empty all the stories were,” said the singer.
That’s just what we need from the shiksa author of the Sex book—children’s tales imparting Jewish moral values. Oy.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: You pretty much know your fucked when Madonna starts co-opting your culture. We need OSJ now, more than ever.
*Hell, it’s not as bad as Leonard Nimoy’s tefillin-laden nudes, but then again, he was trying to capture the essence of shekhinah. She’s just trying to look cool.
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, April 16th, 2003
A gut yomtov to you and yours from all of us at Jew*School.
Need to spice up your seder? Check out Bang It Out’s 2003 Seder Sidekick, a Haggadah supplement which offers outrageously decadent humor, as well as sincerely provoking Rabbinic insight into the seder’s meaning.
Hell, at least it’s more appropriate than the BDSM Haggadah.
by shamirpower [➚] · Wednesday, April 16th, 2003
A collaboration of both United Jewish Israel Appeal and TotallyJewish.com, Jewsreunited.com, a site operated out of the UK, aims to serve as a meeting point for reconnecting with your Jewish buddies from Hebrew school, synagogue, university, Israel trips, and more.
Unfortunately, when I tried to join, there was a severe lack of American Jewish organizations. This site may only be for British Jews to reconnect. All 100 of them.
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, April 16th, 2003
One month after delivering a speech at a Harvard Square church on reconciliation in the Middle East, Jewish educator Martin Federman is facing charges of trespassing and disorderly conduct at a synagogue where the Rev. Pat Robertson was speaking about his support for Israel. Federman, cochairman of Visions of Peace with Justice in Israel/Palestine and a former Hillel director at Northeastern University, pleaded not guilty yesterday in Framingham District Court to charges that stem from his protest Sunday at Temple Beth Sholom in Framingham. According to the police report, Federman refused to leave the synagogue despite repeated requests by police and resisted arrest when he was being cuffed. (c/o Jewsweek)
by shamirpower [➚] · Tuesday, April 15th, 2003
The Palestinian Canadian Student Society at the University of Calgary hosted a panel discussion between Anti-Zionist Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of Neturei Karta International and paramedic Shane Dabrowski (who worked in Jenin this past year as a volunteer with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society).
Check out the apparent typo of “Toran” instead of “Torah” halfway through the page, starting with “Weiss explained that, according to the Toran…” Do these Anti-Zionist, Pro-Palestine Jews believe in some sort of morph between a Torah and a Koran?
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