by shamirpower [➚] · Tuesday, March 28th, 2006
Rabbi David Seidenberg has started a new website dedicated to “neo” (read: egalitarian, modern) hasidut. It seeks to share wisdom, create community, and encourage Jews across the globe to bring hasidic practice into their life. Currently available are free MP3 downloads, as well as the option to submit your favorite tunes to the site. This shamir suggests that you all check it out, and check back to see what happens as it grows.
NeoHasid.org: a community-based all-access resource to the spiritual wellsprings of Chasidut
A Pesach dance nigun for the counting of the Omer from Stoln ~ sung by Reb
Duvid
A story about the miracle of compassion and Rebbe Mordechai of Neshkiz,
from Yitzhak Buxbaum
An old standard for Yedid Nefesh – You probably know this one, but you may
not have heard it done with Madrigal-like harmony in two voices ~ sung by
Emilia Cataldo
The Skolier Ana BeKhoach as sung by the Berkeley Chevre ~ a rough cut but
a sweet one
The X O phenomenon
by David Kelsey [➚] · Tuesday, March 28th, 2006
I have frequently disputed a Middle Eastern theological and cultural focus with my Zionist friends. But to be fair, they do have the weight of (very) select Haredim on their side. Â
“We are true Jews who have come to the Palestinian Legislative Council today to proclaim our allegiance to the new Hamas regime.”
Do they say Hallel with or without a bracha?
Full story
Hat tip: Failed Messiah
by Benyamin [➚] · Monday, March 27th, 2006
- Never would’ve guessed it but Scientologist Kirstie Alley wasn’t too happy with Rolling Stone’s recent mega-article on her beloved religion.
- Hey, did you hear … Bush likes faith-based groups.
- Can prayer heal ya?
- The handshake heard round the world.
- You smash our holy statue, we smash the living crap out of you.
by Mobius [➚] · Monday, March 27th, 2006
Maybe PETA wasn’t so far off:
JPost reports,
Agriculture Minister Ze’ev Boim, who came under a barrage of criticism last week for his ministry’s response to the avian flu, hit back Sunday, telling the cabinet that Israel took action more quickly than other countries in the world faced with a bird flu outbreak.
[...]
Boim, briefing the cabinet on how Israel combated the flu, said that in nine days some 1.2 million poultry from 53 chicken farms in 14 different communities were destroyed and buried.
Called diseased by your captors, cooped up in a ghetto, forced to labor, only to be brutally exterminated and buried in unmarked mass-graves, while the world sleeps. It’s a shanda I tell you. It truly is.
by Jewish Robot [➚] · Sunday, March 26th, 2006
by BZ [➚] · Sunday, March 26th, 2006
The Israeli election is two days away!!! Therefore, tomorrow is your last chance to enter Mah Rabu‘s Israeli election March Madness pool. Entry is FREE! To enter, all you have to do is predict how many Knesset seats each party will win. Full instructions are here.
A number of people have expressed concern that they didn’t feel that they could enter, because they haven’t been following the election closely enough. To that I say, humbug. I’ve entered conventional March Madness pools with much much less knowledge about NCAA basketball than you have about Israeli politics. One year I even won (since a large number of upsets knocked out the people who had made more educated choices). And here are some tips to make it easier:
1) Yes, there are 31 parties, and that’s a lot. However, only 13 of them are represented in the current Knesset. It’s a reasonable guess to assume that parties in the current Knesset are most likely to make it into the next Knesset.
2) Wikipedia has been collecting poll results on this election.
3) The Israeli March Madness page has links to many of the parties’ websites. Also, I’ve written brief summaries of each party in this post below the fold. Between these descriptions and the heated comments from Jewschool readers who disagree with my armchair punditry, you should have more than enough information to start predicting.
More »
by Mobius [➚] · Sunday, March 26th, 2006
In a stunning abuse of rabbinic authority, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef says if you vote for Shas, you’ll go to heaven. Yosef has also allegedly placed a curse on those who do not support his party, proclaiming that it is halakha (Jewish law) to vote for Shas. Some may recall Reb Ovadia as the rabbi who proclaims that secular Jews who die in terror attacks have it coming because they break Shabbos. A true tzaddik if ever there was one…
[Update] A recent teaching of Reb Ovadia’s, by word of mouth — òîì÷ (Amalek) stands for Avodah (Labor), Meretz, Likud, Kadima.
by Mobius [➚] · Sunday, March 26th, 2006
Last week, one of Israel’s leading rabbis, David Batzri, came under investigation for inciting racial hatred against Arabs, making statements which should shake any conscious Jew to the core of their being:
You cannot mix pure with impure. Of course we have to keep apart from all the other nations. You must stand in the breach and prevent this. One cannot mix light with darkness. The people of Israel are pure. The Arabs are a nation of donkeys. They are an evil plague, an evil Satan, an evil pestilence.
What heinous act could have possibly led a man of Rav Batzri’s stature to make such irresponsible remarks? No more than the opening of a joint Arab-Jewish day school in Jerusalem.
In other disturbing news, on Purim, here in Jerusalem, several Hareidim attempted to beat two Arab taxi drivers without provocation.
And then the most shocking news — a survey released late last week shows that a majority of Israeli Jews support racial segregation, the number in favor rising sharply in the most religious communities.
As tensions heat up here in Israel, and abroad in North American and European Jewish communities which identify strongly with Israel, direct action becomes necessary to stem the tide of such hatred.
Today I am writing to ask the Jewish educators and scholars who frequent this site to send to me as much information as you have available on rabbinic and halakhic positions concerning racism to be compiled and presented on Radical Torah and later published as a pamphlet in both Hebrew and English.
We have begun assembling information from Radical Torah’s regular contributors, but I wanted to open the floor to everyone who may have knowledge to share on this subject.
If you have any information relevant to this issue, please contact us.
by David Kelsey [➚] · Friday, March 24th, 2006
For a mere $575,000, you can get a studio apartment in the former Forward Building!
“Lower East Side Gets Ritzy; Hottest Conversion Is Forward†— The NY Observer
That Marx and Engels should overlook the façade of the next great luxury development of the Lower East Side seems less an anomaly than an apt metaphor for the peculiar and sought-after brand of luxury the neighborhood now represents.
[...]
Promotional materials—which are typically more likely to dwell on ultramodern amenities—actually mention how “the building’s cultural significance parallels the important revolutionary, socialist-democratic values its Yiddish-language newspaper espoused.â€
To others, the building’s cultural significance now parallels something else entirely: the move to turn the Lower East Side into a combination tourist trap and playground for the ultra-rich [...] “The physical Lower East Side will be gone in three years,†said Simeon Bankoff, the executive director of the Historic Districts Council, who also attended the committee meeting at the museum’s request. “I think that the current zoning encourages the decimation of the area, [and] a historic district would help preserve its architectural character. If high-end apartment buyers are buying at the Forward because of the building’s cultural significance, at other buildings a sleek design and new construction are significance enough—to say nothing of the neighborhood’s endlessly proliferating nightlife options.
Full story.
by Ruby K [➚] · Friday, March 24th, 2006
Fire engulfs factory open on the weekend, killing 146. There was no fire escape, exit doors were locked, leaving many of the young women, most as young as 15, the choice of burning or jumping to their death from the 9th floor. Many of these young women were recent immigrants who were counting on these jobs, and were too afraid to speak up about the disastrous conditions and build a union.
One of the greatest tragedies in New York happened 95 years ago tomorrow, at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in the Asch building at Washington and Greene Streets. The Jewish Labor Committee, Workmen’s Circle, the United Hebrew Trades, UNITE HERE, the New York City Fire Department and others are presenting programming today and tomorrow on the tragedy (hat tip: Arieh Lebowitz):
Friday, March 24, 12:00 noon, Corner of Greene and Washington Streets, off Washington Square Park, NYC (Organized by the UNITE HERE union, the New York City Fire Department, with the participation of the United Hebrew Trades — New York Jewish Labor Committee, New York City public schools and others.) [Flyer attached]
Saturday, March 25, 10:30 am at the Workmen’s Circle, 45 East 33rd Street (between Madison and Park Avenues). (Sponsored by the New York Region of The Workmen’s Circle and Street Pictures, and cosponsored by the United Hebrew Trades – New York Jewish Labor Committee, and the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health.)
The incredibly sad and angering coda to the story of the Triangle fire is that we continue to allow, and even support, sweatshops. I’d be willing to bet that almost everything in bureau and closet is made in under deplorable conditions similar too, and perhaps even worse than, the wretched conditions the young women of the Triangle Fire had to endure.
There are things you can do to fight this. Visit the National Labor Committee’s site and see what they’re doing. (disclosure: I used to work for them, and think they still do amazing stuff. You probably saw Charlie in the movie “The Corporation”). And if you’re looking for sweat-free clothes, check out Sweatshop Watch’s list of retail and suppliers. Let the young women and men of the Triangle fire not have died in vain.
by sarah [➚] · Thursday, March 23rd, 2006
Funky Frum specializes in “modest clothing that doesn’t sacrifice your sense of style.” Including – and this is actually unbelievable – wedding gowns that AREN’T backless, strapless, transparent or otherwise hoochie.
(You still won’t get me into a denim skirt to save my life. When I’m feeling frum, I usually like to bust the Elegant Gothic Lolita look.)
by Rooftopper Rav [➚] · Thursday, March 23rd, 2006
The official word from Rabbi Jan Kaufman, Director of Special Projects for the Rabbinical Assembly:
There were two matters concerning the Law Committee which were discussed during the course of the convention. On Wednesday, as previously requested, the convention voted that to establish a takkanah, the CJLS would require thirteen positive votes instead of the 80% previously required. (The Committee has twenty-five voting members.)
Today, at an early morning Executive Council meeting, a second Law Committee matter, left over from yesterday’s Convention business session, was also discussed. A motion was raised at the meeting to increase the number of votes within the Committee to declare a paper a takkanah (a legislative like decision) instead of a teshuvah. The Executive Council decided to maintain the current policy of a majority vote of those present at a CJLS meeting. The chairman of the CJLS was asked to review this policy with the Law Committee at its next meeting in June and report its deliberations and recommendations back to the Executive Council.
More »
by Rooftopper Rav [➚] · Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
From the official daily update on the Conservative rabbis’ convention in Mexico City:
* Joe Wernik and his etrog box (blah blah blah): three sentences.
* The morally, halachically, culturally critical vote on procedural matters relating to the homosexuality decision: barely four sentences.
It strikes me as a near-perfect picture of Conservative Movement’s values.
But more importantly, the new resolution is not a victory, at least on the homosexuality issue. While it’s all fine and good that the threshold for passing a takanah (which I’m still not sure is even a word that appears in the RA’s constitution) has been lowered from 20 votes to 13 (a simple majority), it’s basically irrelevant. Is there anyone out there who believes Rabbi Gordon Tucker’s teshuva as written has even a prayer of getting 13 votes? Unlikely. And this new resolution doesn’t seem to prevent the law committee from turning a teshuvah into a takanah against its author’s will.
Yashar koach, though, to Barry Leff and all those who fought to get the first version of the resolution passed.
Does anyone approaching the issue from a pro-change perspective think this resolution is a good thing in any way at all?
“At the business session, Alan Silverstein honored Joe Wernik on the occasion of his retirement as executive director of Masorti Olami. We presented him with an etrog box inscribed with the pasuk, “Lo Alekha Hamlakhah Ligmor†for his tireless efforts. He responded in Hebrew about his experiences in trying to establish a world-wide presence for Masorti Judaism. Our president, Alvin Berkun, turned over the business session to our past president, Perry Rank. Joel Meyers reviewed the history of the process and procedures of the CJLS and their relationship to the Executive Council, and CJLS chair Kass Abelson spoke specifically about the recent meeting in Baltimore. After Kass spoke, the floor was turned over to Barry Leff, the author of resolution #13. After a period of discussion, a move was made to table the resolution. The motion to table carried. Then a motion was passed stating that the threshold to pass a Takanah by the CJLS requires 13 votes of those present and voting at a CJLS meeting voting to overturn the 80% threshold for passing a takkanah set by the Executive Council.â€
by EV [➚] · Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
My entry in the Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest has been added to the gallery. You can check out a larger version of the cartoon here.
Disclaimer: Not suitable for the frum, or for anybody with even the smallest shred of human decency. Please enjoy.
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
Haaretz reports,
Sixty-eight percent of Israeli Jews would refuse to live in the same apartment building as an Israeli Arab, according to the results of an annual poll released Wednesday by the Center for the Struggle Against Racism.
The “Index of Racism Towards Arab Palestinian Citizens of the State of Israel,” conducted by Geocartographia, revealed on 26 percent of Jews in Israel would agree to live with Arab neighbors in the same building.
Forty-six percent of Jews would refuse to allow an Arab to visit their home while 50 percent would welcome an Arab visitor. Forty-one percent of Jewish support the segregation of Jews and Arabs in places of recreation and 52 percent of such Jews would oppose such a move.
Great. We’re worse than the French.
Is it any wonder Kadima would lose seven seats if it included an Arab candidate? Or that a man who promotes ethnic cleansing will get 57,000 votes in next week’s election? Should we be surprised by the attempted lynching by Hareidim of two Arab cab drivers this Purim? Or, as noted earlier today, that a leading Rabbi incited racial hatred in response to the opening of a co-existence school, claiming an Arab’s only purpose is to build and clean?
Can we so easily brush off the US State Department’s findings of “institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country’s Arab citizens?”
When do we acknowledge that we have a problem?
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
I am pleased to welcome the latest addition to the progressive Jewish blogging community, jspot.org, “the spot for Jewish perspectives on contemporary issues of social and economic justice.” jspot.org is a project of Jewish Funds for Justice and features the blogging talents of Mik Moore, Ben Ross, Jeremy Burton, Rabbi Jill Jacobs (a contributor to Radical Torah), Lauren Thomas, Noah Winer and Simon Greer.
jspot’s focus is on domestic issues only; no foreign policy, no Middle East, no Israel. We hope to direct some attention to the problems faced by those living in the United States without access to quality health care, housing, education, childcare, or a clean environment; those who work for low-wages, in unstable jobs, or are unemployed; those who struggle against discrimination and bigotry; those who are victims of violence and abuse. We hope to celebrate and scrutinize the efforts to address these problems; to offer varied perspectives and new ideas.
Designed by Matzat — the folks behind Jewschool, Radical Torah and Corner Prophets — jspot.org joins a host of new weblogs launched in recent months which emphasize progressive political voices in the Jewish community, including the Meretz USA blog, the New Israel Fund’s NIForum, the National Jewish Democratic Committe’s blog and Leonard Fine’s The Conversation, a project of Peace Now.
Mazal tov to JFSJ, and welcome to the family!
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
You cannot mix pure with impure. Of course we have to keep apart from all the other nations. You must stand in the breach and prevent this. One cannot mix light with darkness. [We] are pure.
[They] are a nation of donkeys. They are an evil plague, an evil Satan, an evil pestilence. One may ask, ‘why did God not create them to walk on all fours?’ for they are donkeys. The answer is that they have to build and clean, but they have to understand that they are donkeys. There is no place for them in our schools.”
A. A Palestinian imam giving a Friday sermon from the Temple Mount
B. The Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan
C. A bishop allied with the Nazis during WWII
D. Rabbi David Batzri, the noted Kabbalist presently being primped to succeed Rav Yitzhak Kaduri
If you said ‘D’, you are correct. The cough “Rabbi” made the remarks in protest to the establishment of an Arab-Jewish school (aimed at promoting co-existence) in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Paht.
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
Mat & Julie rock out
Mobius & Matthue
Jewlicious‘ Michael indulges in the irreverent
Photos by Harry
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