Bull market
If there were a havurah stock market, and if insider trading were legal, then I wouldn’t be blogging right now, I’d be out buying 100 shares of my ancestral hometown, CHICAGO. This stock tip is for all of you as well; even though there’s no havurah stock market (and perhaps this concept deserves a post of its own) and we won’t be able to get rich financially off of this, the Chicago Jewish community is about to be enriched in other ways over the next few months.
This afternoon at the ‘tute, there was a workshop about creating and sustaining havurot, with people who have been involved in creating new grassroots communities over the last few years as well as people interested in creating the next bunch. It soon became clear that the most immediate results are going to come from the Chicago contingent, which is fired up and ready to return to the Windy City next week and build the next great independent Jewish community. You heard it here first. If you’re in Chicago, you can be part of building it too! I can’t wait to see what you create.
Please, please, tell me more about all this Chicago havurah stuff– I live in Chicago and don’t see it. I want to be part of it–who should I contact, where should I look? Suburbs, city, please give some clues. . ..
Though filed under North America, I felt the urge to post a comment from the other side of the Atlantic where I’m based (northern France).
It’s been a few weeks now since I’ve discovered your culturally rich & independent jewish communities, and been impressed and marvelled by your efforts and achievements on-line and in the real world. So it seems that Chicago will be the next city to have an independent Jewish community- and I’m thinking to myself, how come over here we can’t even find alternative Jewish blogging, let alone virtual communities and other similar networks to the ones you’ve created there. Is there such a cultural difference between France and the US- or even Europe and the US? France is the home of Europe’s biggest Jewish community, yet alternative post-modern Judaism is something they’ve only heard of in Paris…
amen to what lily said — what’s going on in chicago!? hook a brother up!
you know where to find me…
Of course there’s a difference – there’s a much stronger nominally Orthodox movement in Europe. There’s a sense of “propriety” in shul (usually involving all-male roles, suits and mechitzas) while out of shul is like out of church.
I wish it weren’t true, but getting pluralistic Judaism to Europe will be hard.
Uh, Chicago’s already a pretty hoppin’ place, but the more the merrier!
I know about KfarArts, but I’m asking about chavurot, prayer, study, independent minyanim, etc, outside of the big synagogues, rather than hipster events in bars.
Thanks for the reply Amit, yet I’m not too sure to what extent the role of the orthodox movement in Europe is crucial to this different, since I was also wondering about the on-line activity which seems to be rather numb over here. Maybe I should have addressed this subject on under LastTrumpet’s McLuhan entry (The Long Tzitzis), as this is a question on the nature of our communications with regards to the media we’re using- and I still can’t put my finger on the cause to this European Jewish on-line numbness; will it be true to say that the Jewish community over here is either orthodox or simply non-existent over here then? Can it be that so many Jews in Europe simply repress their traditions and history? That would be unfair, I’d believe.
Or maybe it has something to do with the American sense of communality, where people tend to relate themselves to certain groups in order to feel a part of something (though this sounds to me also as a rather superficial answer which shows my little knowledge of the American culture and mentality).
Thanks for the reply Amit, yet I’m not too sure to what extent the role of the orthodox movement in Europe is crucial to this difference, since I was also wondering about the on-line activity which seems to be rather numb over here. Maybe I should have addressed this subject on under LastTrumpet’s McLuhan entry (The Long Tzitzis), as this is a question on the nature of our communications with regards to the media we’re using- and I still can’t put my finger on the cause to this European Jewish on-line numbness; will it be true to say that the Jewish community over here is either orthodox or simply non-existent over here then? Can it be that so many Jews in Europe simply repress their traditions and history? That would be unfair, I’d believe.
Or maybe it has something to do with the American sense of communality, where people tend to relate themselves to certain groups in order to feel a part of something (though this sounds to me also as a rather superficial answer which shows my little knowledge of the American culture and mentality).
Hey All,
I’d love to hook up with the ‘tute Chicago contingent. We’ve got an independent, unaffilliated community here in the East Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago (of which I am the very much part time rabbi–leading half of our shabboses and working another full time job). As Adam said, the more the merrier. Please drop me a line or call-773.531.4001.
shalom v’ahava,
Menachem
Lily-
Its some of the same people who go the the KFAR events who also do indie-minyanim. I’m excited to see what the NHI attendees brew up, but there’s been a mostly-monthly Kavanah/Shabbbat Under the Stars/Shabbat@Shabbecky’s gathering for about two years in Lakeview and we just had 85 people at our Beach Shabbat last monthBefore that there was Shabbat Shirah, Kehillat Naor, Tehillah.
For the last year, ItzaMitzvah has met monthly to study text from a liberal perspective over coffee, and I hear a new group is starting too. Further up north, there’s Mitziut and now Chicago Jewish Experience. I try to list events on on Jewishfringe.com Y but sometimes you just have to keep your ear to the ground. We’re never gonna have what NYC has- its all to scale, but things DO exist. Having hipster shows at music venues is no small feat and provides the cultural half of the equation. Its not that KFAR is the hub, but the shows are one place where folks from the different circles can congregate. Get in touch- I’d love to point you in the right direction.
oh, and I almost forgot the new Shirah Chadasha minyan in Skokie