by shamirpower [➚] · Wednesday, January 25th, 2006
Celebrate Tu Bishvat with a night of inspiring music, great people, and simcha while supporting the inspiring work of the Teva Learning Center, which affects the lives of over 1000 students and adults each year, teaching Jewish and environmental values in the woods, at retreat centers, and even in the city.
Featuring:
Tevalution
Changing the world one beat at a time
$54 Donation / $20 Student and Limited-income
Light Snacks * Cash bar * Silent Auction
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Ansche Chesed Synagogue
251 West 100th St. New York, NY
9 – 11:00 PM
Tickets can be bought online, at the door, or by calling the office at 212-807-6376.
by Jewish Robot [➚] · Wednesday, January 25th, 2006
To celebrate their 500th marriage, the folks at Frumster.com are running a musical Flash cartoon, “We Need A Mensch“, animated by yours truly.
NB: The cartoon is much tamer than it would have been had I written the song and script, so this one is Rated G, safe for everyone … unless you cannot listen to a woman singing.
by Benyamin [➚] · Wednesday, January 25th, 2006
- It seems with New Line’s just-announced Virgin Mary, we’re going to get a prequel to The Passion of the Christ.
- Jesus is on the cover of the new Rolling Stone. Sort of.
- Pork soup and homeless Muslims. What … are there no homeless Jews in France?
- God Almighty vs. the almighty dollar. Let’s get ready to rumble.
- Christian groups are dictating what we watch on TV: First this, and now this.
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, January 25th, 2006
The boys at Kumah have been busted for ballot stuffing in the JIBs. Tsk, tsk.
by BZ [➚] · Tuesday, January 24th, 2006
The course descriptions are here for the 2006 NHC Summer Institute!!! The Institute (August 7-13, 2006, Franklin Pierce College, Rindge NH) is a week of multigenerational nondenominational Jewish learning where every teacher is a student and every student is a teacher. More »
by Mobius [➚] · Tuesday, January 24th, 2006
Today begins the final round of voting in the Jewish & Israeli Blog Awards. Please show your support for Jewschool and Orthodox Anarchist. And don’t forget, you can vote once every three days.
by Benyamin [➚] · Tuesday, January 24th, 2006
- Hands down, The Pity Card is the funniest Holocaust movie you’ll ever see. Enjoy.
- Shia LaBeouf is already garnering critical acclaim for his role in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, a 1980s coming-of-age drama.
- Munich scribe Tony Kushner was hoping his flick would induce matzo ball flinging.
- And speaking of Munich, an Olympic orphan portrays his own father in the film. Cue the collective “Aw.”
Cross-posted on the Yada Blog.
by Mobius [➚] · Tuesday, January 24th, 2006
In my latest endeavor to do something useful, I am pleased to announce the launch of Radical Torah.
Radical Torah is a weblog which features multiple takes on parshat hashavua (the weekly Torah portion), as seen through the lens of progressive religious and political viewpoints. The project seeks to create a resource of authentically Jewish responses to pertinent social justice issues, timed in accordance with their relevancy to the Jewish calendar.
Browsable by parsha, topic, holiday, and Hebrew calendar month, the goal is to put “radical Torah” at the fingertips of the Jewish social action community for which there are limited resources accessible on- and offline.
Many secular Jews who identify strongly with the Jewish social action tradition often feel alienated and repressed by our religious tradition. One of the primary aims of Radical Torah is to provide this group with Torah that is empowering and which confirms their deepest convictions towards issues of social justice. Thus, for the secular Jewish activist, Radical Torah can be a catalyst for Jewish engagement.
For the observant Jewish activist, the website can be a useful research tool and educational forum, as well as a community hub for “social action scholars” that transcends the confines of institutions and locales.
At this stage we are seeking qualified* contributors who are able to provide commentaries on the weekly Torah portion in relation to these topic areas, on a weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly basis. If you or somone you know may be interested in contributing, please contact us at editor at radicaltorah dot org.
*”Qualified” in this context suggests one who holds legitimate smicha, Rabbinical ordination, a degree in Jewish education, or has had three–five years of experience teaching in a Jewish setting.
by sarah [➚] · Tuesday, January 24th, 2006
As some of you know, I’m travelling in Israel right now. (And by travelling, I mean stuffing my face.)
Last night was all about kabobs. My friend Ran is sitting at this Tel Aviv restaurant counter with me indulgently, watching the TV over our heads while I devour this really good laffa sandwich. This show comes on, Mi Rotzeh Lihiyot Yehudi? (Who Wants to be a Jew?) Ran explains to me that it’s a funny Jewish talk show/game show type deal with this has-been stand up comic named Gil Kopash and his band, the Jewish Joint. OMG-D! It’s a Jewish hipster TV show! I drop my sandwich (this is saying a lot) and deuptize him as translator.
More »
by Benyamin [➚] · Tuesday, January 24th, 2006
- A Mormon movie without Napoleon Dynamite.
- Comics to battle for truth, justice and the Islamic way.
- Scientology blames 9/11 on psychiatry … sort of.
- Could a documentary about silent Monks (with only two minutes of dialogue in the whole film) really be the next March of the Penguins?
by David Kelsey [➚] · Monday, January 23rd, 2006
This past year hasn’t been too good for the cradle of American Jewry, New York’s Lower East Side. The 2nd avenue Deli is closed. Starbuck’s opened. They tore the tenements town on the east side of Orchard Street on the block south of Houston, and they are building all sorts of modern luxury buildings, and they are building much too high.
So I filled in this past Sunday at Yonah Schimmel’s Knishes. I do that once a season or so. Just to remember what it was like. Back in the day when I was wholesaling their knishes, and was there all the time.
A lot of my friends did not and do not understand my love of this place. I guess it’s hard to explain. But I think I can to some extent.
More »
by EV [➚] · Monday, January 23rd, 2006
I thought this was a joke at first, a la the classic parody, but apparently it’s not. I don’t think. But with lines like “To the best of my knowledge, I am the first female of my family in 5 generations,” it’s really hard to tell. See for yourself. Don’t skip the video. And be sure to check out Jam Master Jamie while you’re at it.
by Jewish Robot [➚] · Monday, January 23rd, 2006
by Mobius [➚] · Monday, January 23rd, 2006
Andrea Bronfman, one of the most charitable and pioneering givers in the Jewish philanthropic community, died today after being struck by a car in New York City.
Our hearts go out to her husband Charles, the entire Bronfman family, and the ACBP staff in these trying times.
Baruch dayan emet.
[Update] More from JPost.
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Monday, January 23rd, 2006
Former Meretz leader Yossi Sarid admitted he was wrong to back Arafat as long as he did and should have abandoned the Palestinian leader when it became clear he would not honor his agreements.
“In the past I was wrong in not criticizing Yasser Arafat on time,†Sarid wrote in Haaretz last week. “Arafat was never a personal friend. For a while, Arafat seemed a reasonable partner when he was the first Palestinian leader to recognize the State of Israel and agree to a partition of the country.
“Eventually, he began to delude and deceive the entire world, and at a certain point it became clear we would not get very far with him. Or even close. That was the time to disassociate from him,†Sarid wrote.
Sarid added that the Left continued to support Arafat even as Palestinian terrorism spiraled out of control. “It was impossible to swallow the “chairman” but we also did not throw him up. He remained in office until he died. Politically, we died before him. Meretz paid dearly for that delay and with it the entire Israeli left.â€
by John Brown [➚] · Monday, January 23rd, 2006
New York 1 News reports:
The fate of a 150-year-old Lower East Side synagogue hangs in the balance this morning after its roof collapsed yesterday afternoon.
It’s not yet known if the First Roumanian-American Congregation [Congregation Shaarai Shomoyim], once called the Cantors’ Carnegie Hall, can be salvaged. No one was in the Synagogue at the time of the collapse.
Full Story…
by Monk Eastman [➚] · Sunday, January 22nd, 2006
In our race to assimilate into American culture, it could be argued that we have fallen for a fundamental conceit: That we are ‘White’. Long a point of contention as the term is not defined by actual nationality or ethnic boundaries, ‘Whiteness’ tends to be a title of privilege; the ultimate pass to life in America without ceiling. It’s a reasonably amorphous identity. The Irish didn’t get to be ‘White’ for the first hundred years or so, and then really only by contrast to the next wave of Southern European and Jewish immigrants – who were clearly more alien to the Ango-Protestant elite of time.
But I could go on and on about THAT sh*t.
More »
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