by E. [➚] · Friday, March 30th, 2007
Skadarska, an easy slope of cobblestones just off Belgrade’s main pedestrian mall, was the street of bohemians, poets and artists in this fortressed capital of Serbia. Today, this bombed city’s Montparnasse is an understated tourist attraction, where cafes remain mostly empty, and the gray skies above give it a rush of inexorable macabre. I traveled to Belgrade with some friends who, after a sojourn in Budapest to meet with members of the Jewish community there, decided to trek 8 hours south to explore a different kind of Europe, one that lives on the periphery, like a Serbian Kiryat Shmona rushed through centuries of war, occupation, building and bordersmashing. The Jewish community of Serbia is an aging but vibrant one, and as always, is mostly made up of a Sephardic community with origins in Spain. Like other post-socialist Jewish communities, it has dwindled, and most of its members have emigrated. The cityscape is one of less glory than other European cities, and drab trams rumble loudly under disinterested mid-century buildings. Much like the rest of the Balkans, The Roma, or Gypsies, are moving into the spaces that Jew’s left empty. They often pack their lives into old synagogues and on top of cemeteries.
This was my second time in Belgrade, but this particular walk down Skadarska was a jarring one. While crossing into the quarter from a side street, I watched a police officer and a young Romani boy confront each other, the pre-pubescent boy digging his fists deep into the front of his pants, as if he had been caught soiling the curbside dumpster and now had to face the cop. Then, after the officer told him off for loitering in one of Belgrade’s most attractive streetscapes, he ran down near me to meet his comrades, all of whom were clutching flaccid bags of glue. They huff and huff, inflating the red plastic bags like the throats of some sort of neon lizard. Today, Serbia’s famous citizens aren’t dying in The Hague, they are barely living in the center of the capital.
I have long expressed my view that the Jewish and Romani people are linked by history, if not by destiny. Today, as always, the Roma are described a rogue anti-community of dark vagrants ruled by their slum’s incessant inability to enter civilization. In a record store in central Belgrade, a cashier tells me “Call me a racist, I do not like the Gypsies; they refuse to work, they are dirty, they steal. You may like them, but you do not live here. I have my reasons.†I see a century ago, when a Ukrainian saleswoman may have expressed a similar sentiment to a traveler about sidelocked youths loitering on the edge of Kharkov’s ghetto strapped with violins and brandy.
by matthue [➚] · Friday, March 30th, 2007
I’m listening to a preview copy of Count It, Y-Love and Yuri Lane’s album of unaccompanied vocal stylings. It’s coming out (coincidence not!) just in time for Sefira, the 49-day period where Jews don’t listen to music (in memory of Rabbi Akiva and his students who were struck with a plague and died….I’ll tell you more about it later, if you want).
Y-Love is so talented, he can freestyle about toasters for an hour, and Yuri Lane is a beatbox so talented that he can literally sound like anything. Therein lies my big conundrum, though: even though you’re not listening to *literal* beats, would you listen to stuff that sounds more musically coherent than most music?
It’s a mixed compliment — but take it as a compliment, for sure. This mini-album rushes by fast, but I want to keep rewinding and listening to it again. UPDATE: oh, it’s on my iTunes. I don’t have to rewind. Score.
Go find it on Modular Moods.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Friday, March 30th, 2007
Actually, I don’t so much care about the oak chips and oxygen – that’s okay with me. But this just goes to show why it’s unwise to rely on government oversight of unhechshered products.
Wine labels tend to focus on romance; the small amount of government-mandated information includes the percentage of alcohol, a warning against consuming wine when pregnant or driving, and a disclosure of sulfites.
It might be disenchanting if the label also listed the chicken, fish, milk and wheat products that are often used to process wine. And it would be hard to maintain the notion that wine is an ethereal elixir if, before uncorking, consumers read that their Pinot Noir or Syrah contained Mega Purple (a brand of concentrated wine color), oak chips or such additives as oak gall nuts, grape juice concentrate, tartaric acid, citric acid, dissolved oxygen, copper and water. The mention of bentonite, ammonium phosphate and the wide variety of active enzymes used to make some wines would end the romance.
Federal regulators are considering revamping the rules governing wine labels, and if changes are made, the information revealed may surprise many wine buyers. Additives that supplement what nature failed to provide in an individual wine — tricks of the trade that winemakers rarely talk about — could soon be listed in detail on the labels.
When the rabbis warned us, perhaps they knew what they were talking about. I guess the idol worship we need to be most careful of today is Money.
Full story.
xposted to Kol Ra’ash Gadol
by Danya [➚] · Friday, March 30th, 2007
The very good Rabbi David Levin-Kruss of Pardes has a nice idea for not only marking the genocide happening in the world today at our seders, but using the seder as a chance to raise a little money for those attempting to stop it. He writes,
Dear All
My name is David Levin-Kruss and I am a Jewish educator living in Jerusalem. Like many I watch the genocide unfolding in Darfurand wonder what I can do to help. In a situation eerily reminiscent of many in our own history, the world looks on as a people is destroyed. Jews have the collective trauma of being persecuted with none coming to our aid. We dare not make the same mistake ourselves.
This year I have decided to incorporate activism on Darfur into our seder and I suggest you do the same. Rather as in the days of the Soviet Jewry movement I propose that we leave a chair empty for those in Sudan and, more importantly, donate the cost of one meal to a charity working to alleviate and change the situation. We could also ask our guests to donate rather than to bring gifts.
More »
by Danya [➚] · Friday, March 30th, 2007
I’m already matzahed-out and I haven’t even had my first bite yet this year. Nonetheless, we are professionals here, and have a duty to report on the important issues of our day.
Like the matzah sculpture contest held at NYU recently (Manischewitz-sponsored, natch).
The New York Sun reports,
The finalists in Monday’s contest came forth with matzo candlesticks, a matzo Wailing Wall, even a matzo video game, complete with mini matzo Mario. “Super Mario Brothers is a game of conquest but more notably of oppression,” the artist’s statement read. “You thought it was a game about pizza-eating plumbers? How could you be so na?ve?”…
The idea was “to bring matzo back to people and let them really interact with it on a personal level,” a Manischewitz assistant brand manager, Arye Weigensberg, said.
Snerk. Anyway, art student James Donovan won the 1k prize with his Washington Square Park arch. I’m really annoyed that they didn’t feature a picture of the mazah Mario, though.
ETA: Wait, is that him in the background of the picture, right by Donovan’s neck? It sort of looks like it, though it’s hard to tell.
Full Story.
(Hat tip to Uri.)
by EV [➚] · Thursday, March 29th, 2007
I hate you because I love you because I envy you because I hate you because I love you – you know what I mean.
“I’ve got big-time lawyers. I’ve got big-time Jew lawyers. … They know that in this country the Jews are running it if you really think about it. I mean, which is not a bad thing, you know what I mean? … They got a lot of power in this world, you know what I mean? Which I think is great. I don’t think there’s nothing wrong with it. If you look in most professional sports, they’re run by Jewish people. If you look at a lot of most successful corporations and stuff, more businesses, they’re run by Jewish. It’s not a knock, but they are some crafty people. Listen, they are hated all over the world, so they’ve got to be crafty.”
– Former Knicks and Nets player Micheal Ray Richardson
Full story.
by Mobius [➚] · Thursday, March 29th, 2007
Guest post by Rabbi Simcha Weinstein
When you’re the rabbi of Pratt Institute, America’s most prestigious art school, and you want to gain some street-credibility with your students (and faculty!) it helps to have a secret identity as a comic book aficionado.
However, since the release of my book, Up, Up and Oy Vey!: How Jewish History, Culture and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero, my secret identity has been revealed. Now everyone affectionately calls me “the comic book rabbi”, the one-stop resource for all Jewperhero information.
So when I was asked for a superhero shpiel on Passover, one story immediately came to mind.
More »
by biz [➚] · Thursday, March 29th, 2007
Passover starts Monday night at sundown, many of you will gather with friends and family for 4 cups of wine, 4 questions, and more dry, flat, unleavened bread than you’d care to think about.
Socalled’s Passover masterpiece, The SoCalled Seder: A Hip Hop Haggadah, is the perfect antidote to a seder as dry as the matzah you're going to eat. It makes a great Afikomen prize. Whether you drink the 4 cups or not, its a great sountrack to the first week of April.
Currently at JDub, we’re hawking the CD in the JDub Webstore for only $7.99! Its also available for download from itunes and emusic
Or you can get your fix with free downloads. Listen to Who Know’s One? and 2nd Cup: Bless the Wine, and hear two more tracks on Socalled’s myspace page!
The SoCalled Seder takes you through the Passover Haggadah in an entirely new way. It features cameos by the Wu Tang Clan’s Killah Priest, Mr. Bungle’s Trevor Dunn, Montreal’s queen of country Katie Moore, David Krakauer, Susan and Elaine Hoffman Watts, and many others. Stay tuned for news of Socalled’s new release, Ghettoblaster, hitting stores everywhere on June 12th.
by Y-Love [➚] · Thursday, March 29th, 2007
Someone please enlighten me: just what…in the hell…is this?
As the Washington Post blog tells us:
Rove, well aware that these affairs are overly produced, became part of the headline entertainment at last night’s annual Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner. He was cajoled on stage by the comedians from the ABC show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” And he flubbed his first line.
The improv skit quickly turned from random and uncomfortably weird to riotous when Mochrie and Sherwood led Rove in a rap song in which Rove played a rapper — “M.C. Rove” — and danced and hopped around on stage. He got really into it, at one point pulling out his cell phone and blackberry, taking multi-tasking to new heights.
USA Today has their take on it, complete with the priceless call-and-response:
“What’s your name?”
“I’m M.C. Rove.”
You’ll just have to see the video.
by Mobius [➚] · Thursday, March 29th, 2007
Mazal tov to our friends Seth Galena, co-creator of BangItOut.com, and his bride to be, Hindy Poupko, on the occasion of their engagement, which was broadcast live across America this morning on CBS’s Early Show!
Video here.
Show your love at OnlySimchas.
by Jewish Robot [➚] · Thursday, March 29th, 2007
Happy Pesach from the Seda’ Club!
by Danya [➚] · Thursday, March 29th, 2007
R. Michael Lerner sent out this response to being included in that Newsweek list of the top 50 rabbis. Kind of interesting:
When asked by media to comment on his selection a few days ago by Newsweek as the 28th most important rabbi in America (there are over 5,000 rabbis in the US), Rabbi Lerner issued the following statement:
“Pleased as I am by this attention, I’d feel much more honored if the list had been constructed around which rabbis are most true to God and God’s message of love, generosity, kindness, peace and justice and caring for the earth. So I want to invite people around the U.S. to nominate such rabbis, and we will announce the 50 most faithful-to-God’s-message in a future issue of Tikkun magazine.”
So, yes, Tikkun will have this contest for the God-intoxicated and God-serving rabbis. The criteria: tell us what your nominee is doing to advance the message (and the reality in the world) of love, caring, kindness, generosity, peace, justice, ecological sanity, and awe, wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur and mystery of creation. Tell us how that extends not only to members of the Jewish community but to all of humanity, to the Other as well as to the Jew, and to the rest of the creation. Tell us why you think that person is actually having an impact in spreading this kind of message and how we could determine that. Tell us her/his denomination, if any, current work position if any, and ways that s/he pushes the boundaries, challenges the existing community limits on who is to be loved and cherished, who is to be the recipient of respect and generosity, beyond the confines of the Jewish people. Send that to RabbiLerner@tikkun.org.
And since we are doing this for the Jewish world, we thought we’d also be happy to accept nominations of spiritual leaders in other religious or spiritual communities as well–so tell us who you would nominate if you are part of any community with a leader who deserves this kind of recognition for embodying, teaching and spreading the message of love, peace, and generosity.
Send in your votes if you like. I confess that I’ll be happy when this whole listmania dies down, though. I’m not convinced that ranking people like this is the most productive or healthiest use of our time.
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
- Federal prosecutors handling the AIPAC case may employ the “silent witness” rule in order to get past the court’s decision to hold an open trial.
- In related news, the prosecutor who secured the indictment against AIPAC’s representatives is currently under investigation for his role in the attorney firing scandal.
- A recent poll “found that half the Jewish population of Israel believe the state should encourage Arab emigration.” The poll also found that roughly the same number of Israeli Jews feel threatened when they hear spoken Arabic.
- “Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran’s borders.”
- Daniel Septimus recaps the Jewish scene at SXSW in the Jerusalem Post.
- Jay Michaelson reviews Marge Piercy’s Pesach for the Rest of Us.
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
It’s been nearly four years since this segment was done on Dimitry Salita, the ba’al teshuva boxer (incidentally managed by his Chabad shaliach), otherwise known as the “Star of David.” Since its airing, Salita has remained undefeated, scoring 15 knockouts among his 26 victories. Despite his success, Salita’s been somewhat neglected as a fighter, thus far having been denied the chance to rise above his status as junior welterweight champion.
But perhaps that’s about to change. ESPN says he’s long overdue for a shot at the big leagues.
In the weird world of pugilism, where promotional spark is three-quarters of the battle, I have a theory. As long as Salita remains undefeated, his handlers and matchmakers can assure themselves a gate by hyping the story line of Great Jewish Hope en route to the top. It’s a guaranteed money maker: while Jewish people often struggle when it comes to slugging a baseball or dunking or knocking out a bully, we worship the chosen few among us who can.
[...]
But now, it’s time. When Salita inevitably defeats Wiley for his 27th win, he deserves — needs — a big fight. Give him Arturo Gatti. Give him Ricardo Torres. Heck, give him Ricky Hatton.
Yeah, maybe he’ll lose.
But at least he’ll no longer be Dmitriy Salita, the Jewish fighter.
He’ll be Dmitriy Salita, the boxer.
Full story.
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
The AP reports,
As one of the GOP’s most prominent national fundraisers, Sam Fox should have an easy road to an appealing diplomatic post.
But Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and other Democrats are raising concerns about Fox’s nomination to be ambassador to Belgium because of a $50,000 contribution Fox made in 2004 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
[...]
“U.S. Ambassadors need to be both responsible and credible, and Mr. Fox’s support for an organization known to have spread falsehoods illustrates neither,” said [Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.], who is seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
Fox, 77, of St. Louis, is national chairman of the Jewish Republican Coalition and has donated well over $1 million to Republican candidates and causes since the 1990s, according to Federal Election Commission records. He was deemed a “ranger” by President Bush’s campaign for helping to raise at least $200,000.
The nomination was hurriedly withdrawn earlier this afternoon.
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
Haaretz reports,
Arab leaders gathering for a two-day summit in Saudi Arabia unanimously approved Wednesday the Saudi peace initiative originally launched in 2002.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas voted in favor of the initiative, although Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas abstained in the vote.
The plan offers Israel recognition and permanent peace with all Arab countries in return for Israeli withdrawal from lands captured in the 1967 Six Day War. It also calls for setting up a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and a just solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees.
***
The Telegraph reports,
As leaders began gathering in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, for today’s summit of the Arab League, Prince Saud al-Faisal told The Daily Telegraph that the Middle East risks perpetual conflict if the peace plan fails.
[...]
Prince Saud said Israel should accept or reject this final offer.
“What we have the power to do in the Arab world, we think we have done,” he said. “So now it is up to the other side because if you want peace, it is not enough for one side only to want it. Both sides must want it equally.”
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
“There will come a day when a carrot, freshly observed, will spark a revolution.â€â€“ Paul Cezanne.
Announcing the (official) launch “The Jew & the Carrot: Hazon’s blog on Jews, Food & Contemporary Life” at JCarrot.org! The Jewish community has an amazingly complex relationship to food — 3,000 years of it. As the rest of the world is waking up to the notion of sustainable agriculture, local foods, and healthy eating, so is the Jewish community in the States and in Israel.
“The Jew & the Carrot” covers this fast-growing and exciting corner of the blogosphere — with the aim of seeing a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community, as a step towards a healthier and more sustainable world for all. Check it out…
More »
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
–Katie Miranda
Coming on the heels of the recent controversy surrounding settler incitement against Palestinians in Hebron, the Alternative Information Center (an independent Israeli-Palestinian news agency) reports,
On the evening of Monday, March 19, 2007 around 200 settlers from Kiryat Arba’ and other small outposts and settlements in Hebron city, occupied a building belonging to Fayez Rajabi and Mohammed Baradi’ee.
The building is located to the west the Kiryat Arba’ settlement, on the main road that leads to the center of the city, in an area called al-Ras. The large building, measuring 300 sq. meters in total, is three floors; it holds six individual apartments and 16 shops on the ground level, in addition to an empty hall on the second floor.
The settlers acted under the protection of Israeli soldiers and the police. During the occupation of the building, the settlers threw stones at other houses and the main road was closed off for Palestinians.
The settlers claim they bought the land on which the building is built on. The owner of the house said he purchased this land 16 years ago from the original owner and has all the documentation to prove it.
The ISM is providing live updates from Hebron as events transpire.
Last Tuesday, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres denounced the settlers as having created an “unbearable situation” for Palestinians in Hebron. Nonetheless, upon visiting the occupied building, MK Otniel Schneller, a member of Peres’ own Kadima party, said that “the takeover of the house was consistent with Kadima’s policy, and that the party viewed a Hebron settlement bloc as part of a future peace agreement.” On Sunday, dozens of Israeli activists gathered near the house in protest. No action has yet been taken by the government against the settlers.
More »
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