The Aleph Society, brought to you by HaRav Adin Steinsaltz, announces its new interactive forums on Jewish life, law, and the teachings of R’ Steinsaltz. There aren’t many posts yet, as it’s just opened to the public in the last few hours. Live as of today, the forums include:
Bumps on the Jewish Road (this is where you bitch, moan, and share about what it’s *really* like to be Jewish)
So check them out and post all you want. Tell your friends. Oh, and be sure to look out for one dreamy, oh-so-brilliant moderator who may or may not be my husband.
… but as we enter March, The National Havurah Committee’s Summer Institute closes in on five months away. Why should you care? Because you should go, dammit! A really awesome list of courses to choose from! Two great Artists in Residence! Special Guest appearance by AJWS head honcho Ruth Messinger! Fantastic community programs! Jams! Open Mics! Text study! All this on an idyllic college campus right by a lake, and some mountains so you can leave your cellphone or blackberry off and pretend you just didn’t have reception. Oh, and if its your first time at the Summer Institute, apply for a 90% scholarship!
Plus, I just had a chat with some folks, and the evening activities are going to be slammin! Act like you know and get ready to register.
The Israel/Palestine blogosphere has been abuzz with news about the petition to ban Paradise Now from the Oscars, for the “crime” of making suicide bombers look human. The petition has thus far collected over 31,000 signatures, recently getting a PR push from The Israel Project, an Israeli advocacy group.
Tikkun caught up with the film’s director, Hany Abu-Assad, and in concluding their interview asked him, “What gives you hope?”
He replied, “The conscience of the Jewish people.The Jews have been the conscience of humanity, always, wherever you go. Not all Jews, but part of them. Ethics, morality. You invented it! I think Hitler wanted to kill the conscience of the Jews, the conscience of humanity. But this conscience is still alive…Maybe a bit weak…But still alive. Thank God!”
What a monster! Surely he deserveth our scorn and signatures o’ plenty.
The parent company of a Dubai-based firm at the center of a political storm in the US over the purchase of American ports participates in the Arab boycott against Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
[...]
“Yes, of course the boycott is still in place and is still enforced,” Muhammad Rashid a-Din, a staff member of the Dubai Customs Department’s Office for the Boycott of Israel, told the Post in a telephone interview.
Did you happen to notice Bush’s Saudi friends, even after being admitted to the WTO, are continuing their boycott of Israel?
Rabbi Marc Gellman bids farewell to Scotty, Gilligan, and Fife.
Manhattan moves one step closer to Bible Belt mega-church madness.
Catherine Hardwicke, the woman who directed female teen angst in Thirteen, is now in talks to direct a movie about the biblical Mary which will focus on her pre-virgin life.
Military interrogators posing as FBI agents at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wrapped terrorism suspects in an Israeli flag and forced them to watch homosexual pornography under strobe lights during interrogation sessions that lasted as long as 18 hours, according to one of a batch of FBI memos released Thursday.
A report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency shows there is no proof Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at producing nuclear weapons, Iran’s foreign minister said Tuesday in Japan.
“They could not find evidence which shows that Iran has diverted from its peaceful purposes of nuclear activities in Iran,” said Manouchehr Mottaki, who was in Tokyo to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
A confidential International Atomic Energy Agency report made available to The Associated Press Monday said that a more than three-year probe has not revealed “any diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”
The United States will continue sending humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people even after a Hamas government is formed, a senior U.S. envoy told Palestinian leaders during the first high-level meeting between the two sides since Hamas’ election victory.
State Department envoy David Welch said the U.S. continues “to be devoted to the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people and we shall remain so.”
A former marine who was raised by nuns and made a fortune selling pizza has embarked on a £230m plan to build the first town in America to be run according to strict Catholic principles.
Abortions, pornography and contraceptives will be banned in the new Florida town of Ave Maria, which has begun to take shape on former vegetable farms 90 miles northwest of Miami.
Tom Monaghan, the founder of the Domino’s Pizza chain, has stirred protests from civil rights activists by declaring that Ave Maria’s pharmacies will not be allowed to sell condoms or birth control pills. The town’s cable television network will carry no X-rated channels.
The town will be centred around a 100ft tall oratory and the first Catholic university to be built in America for 40 years. The university’s president, Nicholas J Healy, has said future students should “help rebuild the city of God” in a country suffering from “catastrophic cultural collapse”.
Ephraim Klein, an ultra-Orthodox Jew from Crown Heights in Brooklyn, New York, was shot to death Tuesday on one of the neighborhood streets.
The motive for the murder is not yet clear, but anti-Semitic sentiments may have played a part.
[...]
The New York Police Department has launched an investigation into the murder, and detectives are looking into the possibility that the murder was anti-Semitic, but are not ruling out that Klein was an innocent victim of a local gang war.
“Y-Love (Yitz Jordan) is an MC unlike any other. He is a black convert into the Bostener sect of chassidus (the mystical branch of Orthodox Judaism). He is among the most innovative freestylers on the scene, weaving seamless polyglot rhymes in English, Arabic, Yiddish, and Hebrew. Most unique is Y-Love’s revival of Aramaic, the ancient language used to discuss Jewish Law. With each word he spits in the tongue of the Talmud, Y-Love breathes new life into Hasidism, and hip-hop, one beat at a time.”
The Jewish fashion conspiracy is presumably my business, so I am always on the lookout for compatriots. I just stumbled upon a beautiful line of clothing from Gytha Mander that’s apparently been inspired by priestly rainments. Even the humblest tie has a name like Matityahu, Simon or Akiva.
Our fall 2006 collection for men and women, entitled “The Urim and the Thummim,” a reference to Exodus 28:1, is a meditation on diaspora, through the lens of Jewish history. The line is punctuated by wooden ties, high collar trench coats, Yeminite t-shirt patterns, prisoner stripes, dark denim dress shirts and crocodile holsters.
Okay, I don’t know that Aaron wore crocodile holsters, but she’s at least got the requisite rich color scheme down. I love this description of the t-shirt pictured here:
By David’s hand alone (or more precisely with a stone) did fortunes for the Philistines plummet. Determination, dear friends, is what bridges the distance between a vertical might and his horizontal ruin—just ask Goliath. Way to go David. But imagine what David might have accomplished had Gytha Mander been around to play tailor. Perhaps he would have been an even greater warrior, blow-for-blow Judah Maccabeus’s equal—or Alexander’s. Guesswork notwithstanding, you can vanquish enemies of your own with a Gytha Mander t-shirt, a strong sense of self and a score to settle.
I don’t know if this stuff is priestly but for sure I’d wear it to shul.
I saw this link on the OU’s website and was intrigued. So I followed it and found a free offer for Jewish high school students only. If you’re a Jewish high school student, you can sign up for this free copy of a book about why you should date Jewish. Those of us too old to qualify can see a free PDF brochure which gives a taste of the book. Here’s an excerpt:
Isn’t it racist for Jews to refuse to date non-Jews? Absolutely not. Non-smokers may refuse to date smokers, vegetarians may refuse to date carnivores, and political liberals may refuse to date conservatives. It’s not racist to only date people who share certain interests or beliefs. If a position on any issue is important to you, you might choose to only date (and potentially marry) like-minded people. That doesn’t mean that we don’t like other types of people, just that we want to raise a family with certain moral and ethical ideals.
It seems to me that there’s a simple reason why to only date Jews. You never know when you’ll fall in love. Better not to put yourself in the tortuous position of having to choose religion over love or vice versa.
The Jewish fashion conspiracy is presumably 
