by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007
Today’s New York Times included a great article by Joan Nathan: Of Church and Steak: Farming for the Soul. Joan writes about the work being done across the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths to encourage sustainable agriculture, CSAs, responsible meat consumption and stewardship of the land within these faith communities.The article is a who’s who of the faith and farming world and includes a shout out to Hazon for the Tuv Ha’Aretz Community-Supported Agriculture program and also The Jew & The Carrot as the front page of the emerging Jewish food movement. She writes:
“Environment-minded Jews are asking the leaders of Conservative Judaism to rewrite their kosher certification rules to incorporate ethical concerns about workers, animals and the land. Hazon, the Jewish environmental organization, has set up community-supported agriculture programs, or C.S.A.’s, in which customers purchase shares of a farm’s harvest…â€
and later
“Many of the ideas in the faith-based agriculture movement were expressed 30 years ago by advocates of eco-kashrut, a Jewish environmental consciousness movement. Jewish groups like Kosher Conscience in New York and blogs like the Jew & the Carrot (jcarrot.org), which is sponsored by Hazon, are still in the forefront.â€
Though not a farmer, Ms. Nathan is a pioneer of Jewish food in her own right. Her award-winning cookbooks include: Jewish Cooking in America, The Jewish Holiday Baker, Joan Nathan’s Jewish Holiday Cookbook, and The Foods of Israel Today. The Jew & The Carrot will feature an exclusive interview with Ms. Nathan just before Rosh Hashana.
Read the full NY Times article here. X-posted from The Jew & The Carrot.
by Danya [➚] · Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
AP reports,
Dorian Paskowitz, a retired doctor who has been surfing for 75 years, donated 12 surfboards to Gaza’s small surfing community on Tuesday in a novel gesture to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
“God will surf with the devil if the waves are good,” Paskowitz said. “When a surfer sees another surfer with a board, he can’t help but say something that brings them together.”…
He said he was inspired after reading a story about two Gaza surfers who could not enjoy the wild waves off the coastal strip because they had only one board to share between them.
So I said to my son ‘come, we’ll go to Israel and get them some boards,’” Paskowitz told AP Television News.
Full story.
by Danya [➚] · Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
According to a recent study at Hebrew University, shulgoers have a longer lifespan than non-shulgoers. Haaretz reports,
Data showed that the death rate was 75 percent higher among the group that did not attend synagogue than it was among the group that attended synagogue regularly.
Litwin said that there is no clear-cut explanation for the synagogue attendance effect, but outlined two main possibilities.
“One explanation is spiritual, that is, the individual faith factor,” he said. “A series of studies that have been conducted in recent years,
especially in the United States, argue that faith helps people deal with psychological pressure. People who believe and pray apparently survive
longer,” said Litwin.
“Another explanation is the connection between attending synagogue and belonging to a supportive community,” he added.
Litwin said that in late old age decreased social activity is a common problem.
“A person who goes to synagogue has a function: He is called to the Torah, and he has a network of social ties in the community.”
It’s fair to note, though, that there is some chance that there’s a chicken-and-egg thing happening in the data reporting, as well. For,
Litwin also noted that since religious Jews do not drive on Shabbat, a person who goes to synagogue regularly must be able to walk, and hence is
healthier.
In any case, full story here.
(Thanks to Uri for the tip!)
by shamirpower [➚] · Monday, August 20th, 2007
For months my Habonim friends have been proudly sharing their memories (both real and borrowed) of having Sacha Baron Cohen and Seth Rogen as part of their youth movement. Indeed, possibly the two best comedies of 5767 have starred former participants in Habonim Dror. Finally, the forward did a brief piece on this striking phenomenon. Though they got a quote from one of the current directors, there wasn’t an interview with Baron Cohen or Rogen. What does it mean that the socialist Zionists were such a big influence on these two men? Just another example of the world Jewish conspiracy?
by Y-Love [➚] · Monday, August 20th, 2007
The Orthodox blogger Life of Rubin has an brilliantly insightful article on the recent charedi ban on concerts arm swinging whatever.
The piece is so erudite that even to quote it doesn’t truly do it justice, but it’s definitely worth taking a look at.
Read the Life of Rubin piece here.
All I can say is: my sentiments exactly.
by Danya [➚] · Sunday, August 19th, 2007
In the fall of 2000, I trudged my way through a fairly miserable semester in an MFA writing program. It was the wrong place for me for a variety of reasons, and I wound up dropping out. I had one friend in the program, though, and she was the best thing about the experience for me in a lot of ways–not only because I had good company on the train, during breaks and during that one particularly horrible weekly seminar, but because her writing was… unbelievable. Shimmering, gorgeous, light and yet often devestating. She was in a league of her own, and no not only (duh) in the mediocre land of MFA programs, but in the general sense, as compared to much of what’s out there.
After I quit the program, I begged her to keep sending me chapters of her novel-in-progress, less out of altruism than out of a desperate need to know what happened next.
Well, lucky for you, Dalia Sofer’s The Septembers of Shiraz is now in print. It’s already gotten a rave review in the New York Times, and I suspect that’s just the beginning. It’s the story of a Jewish family in Iran right after the Revolution–Isaac Amin is arrested for being a spy for Israel and winds up in the kind of prison from which people don’t necessarily return. In the wake of his disappearance, his wife tries to find him, his young daughter tries to make sense of the confusion, and his son is, well, off in New York living among Hasidim. I confess that I haven’t read the final version, but given how phenomenal her early drafts were, I’m not concerned.
Here’s what the NYT says:
“The Septembers of Shiraz†is a remarkable debut: the richly evocative, powerfully affecting depiction of a prosperous Jewish family in Tehran shortly after the revolution. In this fickle literary world, it’s impossible to predict whether Sofer’s novel will become a classic, but it certainly stands a chance….she tells her characters’ stories with deceptive simplicity. Every member of the Amin family attains a moving, and memorable, depth and reality. Although their crises — and the philosophical questions they raise — are of the greatest urgency and seriousness, “The Septembers of Shiraz†is miraculously light in its touch, as beautiful and delicate as a book about suffering can be.
Anyway. I’m kvelling. You should just be glad that you get to read this book.
by E. [➚] · Saturday, August 18th, 2007
It happened yesterday:
I set out from my apartment off the main street in the Old Town of Vilnius for the Choral Synagogue. It is the one synagogue that survives and is still in use in a city that once supported over two hundred houses of prayer. During the war the Nazi’s used this synagogue as an ammunition storehouse. Today, it is a beautifully restored building in the ubiquitous Moorish style. It’s beige exterior glows at sunset. People wait for the bus on its corner. A man shlings some Brandy down his throat across the street. Passersby stare bamboozled at the small group of rugged men hobbling on canes towards the Synagogue’s rusted gates.
Inside, my friend Dovid is talking Yiddish to a very elderly man in the row across from me. Then Dovid gets up and says “Eli, would you mind accompanying this man home with me? He says his heart hurts.†Davening Mincha has not begun. I hop out of my seat and the old man wraps his left arm around mine. His other hand hold Dovid’s wrist. Dovid and I look at each other. Is this man going to die holding onto our arms? We will take him home, as he wishes.
We begin walking. He stops intermittently to rest. We ask him repeatedly in Yiddish if we should get him a doctor. We pass a cab. “Do you want a cab?†“Tonight is Shabbos!†he says, staring at Dovid. Then I remember my days learning in Jerusalem. “But sir, this is Pikuach Nefesh!,†I say. The Rabbis and the Rambam argued that it is permissible to break Shabbos if and when it becomes an obligation to save a life in jeopardy.
Then the old man leaned on Dovid and lifted his wrist, raised his thumb and said “Dos iz richtik!â€. This is correct! A smile bore a gleaming graveyard of four teeth. A Jewish concept in a formerly Jewish world! He talked to the cab driver watching three generations of Jews in front of a Vilna hotel. The driver explained he couldn’t take the man three blocks up the hill. He was waiting for a customer to leave the strip club across the street. The old man grit his teeth. Dovid and I were angry. The old man decides to go by foot.
So we walked up his hill. We learned on our frequent rest stops that he was nineteen years old in 1941. He was born in a shtetl two hundred kilometers from Vilna, close to what is today Belarus. He has the keys to the Vilna Gaon’s tomb in his apartment. He is the indigenous, Yiddish survivor who represents the world that much of world Jewry simply ignores. He stayed here. We arrive in a small building in a sprawling Soviet-era apartment block near the Vilnius train station. Blonde toddlers crawl in the dirt. He used to live with his son, but his son now works in Kaunas, formerly Kovno, over an hour away. He lives off a small pension and one check a month from a lady in America. A few people check up on him a couple times a week. He was born into the world of Lithuanian Jewry. In that world his heart, soul and feet have remained.
We ask him if we can get him some water, or if he needs help taking off his shoes. “What do you need?†He says “Tell that lady to write me a letter with her checks. A guten Shabbos. A Dank.†He shuts the door.
Dovid and I walk back to the Synagogue. We arrive. I’m sweating bullets. In a viscous Russian lilt, the minyan sings Lecha Dodi!
by Jewish Robot [➚] · Friday, August 17th, 2007
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Friday, August 17th, 2007
Wexner Fellow and Jewish food blogger Ariela over at BakingandBooks.com is raffling up an avalanche of cookbooks, Jewish and otherwise, in support of Hazon, known better as the “People of the Bike” and increasingly as the “People of the Cookbook.”
From now until September 3rd, BakingandBooks.com will be hosting a book raffle in order to raise money for the 2007 New York Jewish Environmental Bike Ride and – thanks to donations from Hyperion Books, Ten Speed Press, Penguin, HarperCollins, Wiley and Chronicle Books – there are 76 prizes up for grabs. For every $5 donation to this very worthy cause participants will be given one virtual raffle ticket – and yes, people with more than one ticket can win more than one prize! You can learn more about this raffle here.
Four Grand Prizes
Four lucky winners will receive a copy of “Forever Summer,†“Jamie’s Italy,†“Mollie Katzen’s Sunlight Cafe†and “The Essence of Chocolate.†That’s right, four books!
4 Grand Prizes
Sixty Individual Prizes 
60 individual prizesClick here to read the full list and buy a ticket!
Hazon is a nonprofit working towards a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community — as a step towards a healthier and more sustainable world for all. Chip in and eat up.
More »
by E. [➚] · Friday, August 17th, 2007
It is 5 hours before Shabbos. I am staying in the capital of Lithuania: Vilnius. I call it Vilna because I am a Jew and I came here to study the Yiddish language. This language is over one thousand years old. Today, most of the people who speak Yiddish as a vernacular language are what many people call “ultra-Orthodox Jews.†They speak Yiddish because it was the language of their East European ancestors. It’s vernacular use separates sanctified Hebrew language from the profane realities in Bnei Brak and Brooklyn. They also speak Yiddish because no one really speaks it but them. It is their linguistic sandbar. The big irreverent world we inhabit won’t even want to dock at their shores if they got theyselves caught in that Yiddishe sandy muck before they even went walking onto modest Marcy Avenue. It’s Greek to me.
So many think that Yiddish is funny, ugly, weak or simply dead. It is funny. It can be ugly and beautiful, strong and limp. The world that spoke it was destroyed.
Now I’m living in a different insular world, where Yiddish is academic. It’s studied by people looking for their roots alongside Jews and non-Jews who swear they have only academic, often scientific, interest in the language and culture of East European Jews. I sit in classes where the word “Davenen,†to pray, is explained to bright eyed Polish college students straight off the sidewalks of Warsaw. Their eyes light up when a small Polish village is mentioned in a story. They, unlike the Jewish students from America and Israel, know exactly where it is and how to get there. The Jewish students read “Hislayvus†as “Hitlavut†and are corrected. In this world, Hitlavut, the modern Hebrew pronunciation, is simply mistaken. Some of those around me are studying Yiddish because they are looking for a meaningful connection to Jewish tradition without having to deal with, as many see it, the responsibility, chauvinism and insularity of religious life. An observant Jew is most certainly a Jew. A Yiddish speaking Jew then must certainly be a Jew. One wonderful girl grew up in a Bundist youth group in Australia. When our Czech-Jewish teacher asserts that Yiddish is a true language because it created a literature, she accuses him of having a Eurocentric attitude towards Jews. Here, I can understand how to read and understand the word “illuyi-kop.†It means, sort of, a “genius-head,†a remarkably sharp mind. That’s enough. To mention that my grandfather’s brother had one is irrelevant. I think it could make the non-Jews here feel alienated.
There are some things I think this place is missing. There is no component of the program that deals with the meaning of Yiddish in a communal setting. There is little public talk about people’s motivations for studying it, about the relationship between east European gentiles in the program and the Jews in the program. There is little talk of art and Yiddish. There are almost no opportunities to learn about the spiritual lives of East European Jews in Yiddish. There is no emphasis on popular culture. I get the sense that Yiddish is just a language. It really isn’t, and a young Jewish man walking around what was once hailed as the Jerusalem of Lithuania can feel the breadth and depth of this entire civilization. Will university gates and fortified ultra-orthodox shores forever guard this language? I hope not. It could be ours as well.
by zt [➚] · Thursday, August 16th, 2007
Were you trying to figure out how to be in a warm place, doing good work, with great people in late feburary 08? Are you considering it now? If so, then the following might be of interest:
Join Rabbi Brent Spodek and Tze’irim’s delegation to Guatemala with the American Jewish World Service! Before leaving, we will learn together about immigration legislation, remittance payments and CAFTA and then travel to Guatemala from Februay 17 – 24, 2008. When we return, we will work in partnership with a service or advocacy program to have a positive impact on issues effecting Central Americans. Until September 10, registration is open to current members of BJ aged 20-39 or young Jews who wish to become members of BJ before Rosh HaShona . If there are spaces in the program available after September 10, they will be available to Jews aged 20-39. For more information, please visit tinyurl.com/3c3uf7 or contact Amanda Schanfield at aschanfield@bj.org or 212-787-7600 x233.
Many of us are familiar with AJWS and the good
work they do. Most importantly, perhaps, Brent kicks ass. This may keep the ice out of your hair.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Thursday, August 16th, 2007
The Forward reports on “highest-level case in American history involving the right to circumcision is slated to be heard this fall, when the Oregon Supreme Court rules on whether a father can have his 12-year-old son undergo the procedure.”
The basis of the case is a nasty custody battle, with the father a recent convert to Judaism. The mother claims that the boy is afraid to tell his father that he does not want to be circumcised. I note that there is no mention of whether the boy has an opinion on the conversion (at least none in this article) itself. The mother also claims that the child would be psychologically and physically harmed by the procedure (I wonder what our Muslim fellow citizens think of that?)
.
The thing that’s unusual about the case is that generally American courts stay out of cases involving religion such as this. The Forward comments:
The acceptance of the case by Oregon’s highest court is surprising, because judges generally grant a wide degree of latitude to custodial parents — so much so, in fact, that the state’s Court of Appeals rejected the mother’s case without issuing an opinion. If the Oregon Supreme Court decides to review the merits of the father’s plan for circumcision, it will almost inevitably weigh in on two related issues: the right of custodial parents to guide their children’s religious upbringings, and the weight that religious considerations should be given when considering the welfare of a child.
Because of this, the stakes are generally conceded to be high by everyone, and so badvocates for both sides of the story are getting their elbows in the door.
All I have to say: It doesn’t bode well for the poor kid – Ms. Boldt (the mother) may be full of concern for her son’s psychological health, but I wonder if maybe they could iron out some of these other matters first – like what his name is.
by shamirpower [➚] · Thursday, August 16th, 2007
New to the blogosphere and a previous yored* who has just returned to Israel with his family, and to teach at Hartman, Dr. Alex Sinclair recently wrote a post about a creative way of solving his dilemma between his values and his loathing of traffic:
The quickest way [to Jerusalem] is to take the lovely new Road 443 which zips you from Modiin to Jerusalem in under half an hour. Beautiful new road, no traffic, stress-free, brilliant. The alternative is to take good old “kvish mispar echad” (Road Number 1), which is the main Tel Aviv -Jerusalem highway. In the middle of the day, or later on in the evening, when there is no traffic, this is only about 5 minutes longer than the 443. But any other time that has the faintest whiff of rush hour about it turns Road Number 1 into a parking lot. “So what’s the problem? Just take 443!” Well, one of the reasons that 443 is so quick is that it cuts through over the Green Line, into territories captured by Israel in the 6 day war. And while the road was originally designed for use by, and indeed was used by, the Palestinian Arab communities who live alongside it (it also zips you to Ramallah in no time at all), the entrance/exit roads to those villages were closed off after several drive-by shootings, some fatal, during the Al-Aksa intifada. So now it’s one of those, ahem, “apartheid” roads, that you read about on the news.
…
So here is the solution I have come up with: Peace offsets.
You know, like carbon offsets? When Al Gore gets all upset about global warming but then runs up a huge bill air conditioning his mansion, he gives money to various organisations that promise to “offset” his carbon footprint by planting trees, investing in renewable energy, etc. I figure, why not do the same with Road 443? Every time I drive on it, I will make a small donation to Peace Now or a similarly worthy group.
You all should also read his op-ed from the Jerusalem report about the importance of Jews expressing their opinions about Israel at a young age. Finally, a public shout-out to Dr. Sinclair (with a touch of Robbie Gringras on the side) who taught me that it was alright for my relationship with Israel to be like a committed lover: connected always, but with room for criticism, discussion, and differences of opinion.
* one who has Israeli citizenship and then leaves Israel
by matthue [➚] · Thursday, August 16th, 2007
From a friend:
As for not hiring you…dude…think about it…a big professional firm needs to look professional. Big bushy frum beards don’t portray that image. Granted, we aren’t suits, etc….but it is business casual. Beards are out of fashion in the professional world. Not to say you wouldn’t get the job…but it’s the equivalent of showing up in jeans and a t-shirt.
You know — when Brando* was cast in Streetcar Named Desire, they told him he had to grow three days’ worth of stubble. He refused because he said it’d make him look trashy. He said, “I’ll act the stubble.” And, so the story goes, he did.
I guess that’s how I’ve been in the business world. Three-piece suit, tie in the straightest Windsor you ever did see, and my wedding shoes, and I’m set. I wasn’t getting jobs when I first moved here, and I thought that was why, and then it turned out the companies I applied to just weren’t getting jobs — 2 out of 3 of them went out of business. My new temp company is great. They’re like “you can type fast, and you look good” and that’s all they need.
Yeeah…I look good.
In Chicago, people are much more upfront about staring at you when you’re obviously Jewish — I haven’t been around that in a while. Everyone’s so whitebread and middle-American. I thought I was losing it, “it” meaning whatever I had, and then today this dude in a bar was like “Are you a Jew? I thought that was what y’all look like!” and everyone started becoming friends with me. I didn’t pay for a drink for 2 hours straight.
________
* edited — & many thanks to Shlomo.
by masthead [➚] · Wednesday, August 15th, 2007
Started in December 2002 as a way to get the word out about cool events and lefty Israel news, Jewschool is now bigger and better than any of its founders ever could have dreamed. Originally a side project of Daniel J. Sieradski, a.k.a. “Mobius,†Jewschool quickly became home to a group of young Jews who were just learning about the blogosphere. Only later did we become an influential part of the larger network of the first generation of “J-bloggers†(Jewish bloggers).
Today we are a diverse group of reporters, reviewers, and ranters bringing you—our tens of thousands of readers—news, views, religion, and cultural criticism from the progressive sector of the Jewish world. Along the way, we not-infrequently scoop the mainstream Jewish press. The Times of London has called us the third most influential religion blog in the world and New Voices awarded us Best Blog of 2006. Over the years we’ve also won numerous accolades from the Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards and shout-outs from the established secular and Jewish press. And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, who can forget the “True Jewschool†incident? Most importantly, Jewschool dares to do what others cannot: It pries Judaism from the grip of the Jewish establishment and serves it up to the public with the insistence, “This belongs to all of us.â€
None of this would have been possible without Mobius’ vision, leadership, sweat, tears, and love. For nearly five years, Mobius has lived and breathed Jewschool. Now, confident about Jewschool’s place in the Jewish universe, Mobius has decided to move on to a new position as Director of New Media at JTA. Mazal tov! Today will be Mobius’ final day as editor in chief and blogger of Jewschool. You can keep up with him at his personal blog, Orthodox Anarchist.
As for us, Jewschool as you know and love it will continue to rock and roil the Jewish world. As of today Jewschool’s leadership will pass to a four-member core team drawn from our current editorial staff. During a brief transition period, all of us on the editorial staff will be working hard on exciting plans to expand our circle of contributors, increase our coverage, and continually refine our vision in order to bring you the best in Jewish blogging.
We invite you to leave congratulations to Mobius and wishes for the future either in the comment section of this post or in Mobius’ final post.
Media inquiries and submissions should be sent to editor – at – jewschool – dot – com.
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, August 15th, 2007
[Moses] hurled the tablets from his hands.
Why did Moses break the tablets? And what did breaking them accomplish? Early readers asserted that Moses’ action agreed with the Divine intent, and that G-d acknowledged this to Moses, saying “More power to you that you broke them” [Talmud Shabbat 87a]. But we know the Sages also said that breaking an object in anger is tantamount to idol worship; and if they said such a thing with respect to breaking an ordinary object, how much more so would it be the case with tablets “inscribed by G-d’s finger”?
I see the answer to the questions I have posed to be inherent in the statement of the early Sages that when Moses broke the tablets, the writing peeled off of them and the letters became ethereal. Whoever said that said quite a bit. For in creating the golden calf, our ancestors demonstrated that they had not yet reached a refined stage of faith, inasmuch as they could not imagine G-d as an elusive One who sees but cannot be seen. They rather chose a god which they could see and whose physicality they could touch.
When Moses saw this, and knew that he was descending the mountain with two tablets in his hands — tablets that were physical and that contained a sensible script — he feared lest the physicality of the tablets and the writing would give affirmation to the people’s views and would validate their error. And thus, Moses shattered the tablets, to teach the Israelites not only that G-d has no physicality, but also that G-d’s Torah cannot be embodied, and is not in need of tablets, but rather is alive with an independent endurance like G-d’s word and spirit.
–Arnold Ehrlich, Mikra Ki-feshuto on Exodus 32:19
Who owns Judaism? Who has the power to interpret and apply Jewish law? Who determines what gets into and left out of the canon? Who determines what is and is not Jewish? Who is Jewish? Who speaks with the voice of the Jewish people? Who represents our community? Who determines policy? Who steers the Jewish future? Who controls our collective destiny?
In the 4¾ years I have served as publisher and editor-in-chief of Jewschool, these are the questions that I have asked, time and time again. You might say it was my syllabus. Jewschool was my classroom; the Internet, my campus.
Not many people realize that I’m a college dropout. They’d be surprised to know that Jewschool has been, for me, the equivalent of getting a homeschool education in Jewish studies. Indeed, many of you have been my teachers and classmates. Others perhaps schoolyard bullies. (Yes, I’ve been a bully too.) And maybe I was a teacher somewhere in there as well. Maybe. I’m more prone to believe that the informality of my education stands glaringly evident. Sure, my time in Jerusalem helped (thank you Jay Michaelson and the Dorot Foundation). But perhaps nothing helped as much as you folks holding my feet to the fire and constantly showing me what a dick I am.
The hype aside, the truth is that I started Jewschool just for the hell of it. I never imagined that years later I’d be standing in front of an audience at the UJA Federation talking about Jewish Internet culture, or that I’d be getting shout outs in the NY Times, or that people would recognize me on the streets in Brooklyn and Jerusalem as a “celebrity blogger.” I never thought this gig would get me chicks (yes, yes, curdle at my insensitivity), or that it would get me paid. (Though it did.) I knew it would get me into trouble. That much seemed certain. And my, oh my… I was on the money there.
Really, all I had was a sense of purpose, and even at that, one that remains miserably undefined to this very day. Theologically speaking, I guess that’s the way I like things: Formless yet always in the process of taking shape. Practically speaking, no grant-making organization in its right mind would take a bet on that horse. “Please lend your financial support to my process of becoming.” Ahem, no.
And what of that becoming? I have, at one point or another, assumed every imaginable position, argued from every conceivable angle, and owned the role of devil’s advocate. I have proffered some of the most infuriating, provocative, futile, contorted, and sophistic statements ever committed to a MySQL database. And I have made an ass of myself more times than I care to recall. But damn it, I got people talking.
I also unwittingly built a refuge. By creating a space for the freakim to congregate, I created an opportunity for disparate, disenfranchised Jews to come together like Voltron. I am often told by readers who I run into, or who contact me online, that I have either lent articulation to their beliefs or provided them with a sense of validation and community. Their praise helps me to believe I did something right, even if I’m not sure what I did, or what I’m doing still.
Nonetheless, the opportunities that Jewschool has brought me, the relationships it has enabled, the knowledge it has imparted — these are the greatest gifts I could have ever hoped to receive.
The greatest gift I could hope to have given?
Who owns Judaism?
It’s like the old Zen kōan, “Who is the master who makes the grass green?”
The answer is “You.”
If I’ve accomplished anything meritorious in my tenure, I hope it has been imparting that knowledge to at least one person.
***
Az, nu? Why all the reminiscing? The hemming and hawing? The self-congratulatory trope?
This is my last post as publisher and editor-in-chief of Jewschool.
I have officially resigned effective as of, well… Right now.
And tomorrow is a brand new day.
(Click that link for further details about my departure from Jewschool and what it means for me professionally and for Jewschool itself. Much love to the Jewschool editorial board for Jewin’ It Yourselves; and wistfully pouty-faced goodbyes to all.)
Since December 2002: 12,552 posts. 38,959 comments. 78 contributors. 5 servers. 1 hell of a ride.
by David Kelsey [➚] · Tuesday, August 14th, 2007
In an effort to shore up interest in the Reform Movement among rebellious, teenage boys, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, yesterday urged Reform Jewish leaders to consider promoting annual Nascar trips for teenage youth.
“Look, there is this misconception that the Reform Movement is the easy listening jazz movement, but we’re so much more than that!†said Rabbi Yoffie. “We’re pluralistic, and that can mean Nascar, or that can mean tzitzith…whatever new fads the kids are into. There isn’t one way to express your Judaism, and that’s the real message we are sending through Nascar trips.â€
Full Story
by Jake Marmer [➚] · Tuesday, August 14th, 2007
Diggg Issue #2 of The Blue Jew Yorker: Poems of Survival & Ecstasy
Poetry, Short Stories, Music, Art, Photography and more
UFARATZTA!!! Go Forth! (Hot off the Hard Drive!)
c/p on Mima’amakim
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