by shamirpower [➚] · Thursday, October 18th, 2007
Zeek’s Michaelson reflects personally and politically:
That’s the trick, of course; as soon as something becomes big enough for the mainstream — even the alternative mainstream — it’s lost its edge. This is what’s pathetic about the Jewish institutional world’s belated attempt to jump on the cool-Jew bandwagon: all that effort, and the ive-minutes-behind-the-times style, just makes them look even lamer. What’s more, cool has always had a rebellious, undermining quality. Take away the edge and what’s left is MC Hammer: sanitized hip-hop for white suburban kids. Likewise the attempt to co-opt superficial design elements of “Jewish cool†without its underlying critique of established Jewish categories, assumptions, and sacred cows. Again, it’ll fool some people —
but it can’t be actually cool.
(see also Sh’ma‘s previous article on Marketing Cool)
Jewschool rhymes with cool…does that help? Or does having school in our name just make us nerdy? Oh wait — nerdy Jewish is cool, right?
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Thursday, October 18th, 2007
Those who are following BZ’s post about the Syrian community’s alleged refusal to accept properly converted Jews (which is itself, at least one, if not several, violations of halacha) might want to take a gander at Gil Student’s post on Hirhurim, which has a letter refuting the charge from Rabbi Moshe Shamah.
The gist is:
That Edict was enacted to discourage community members from intermarrying with non-Jews. It acknowledged the reality of the time that conversions were being employed insincerely and superficially. Accordingly, conversion for marriage to a member of the community was automatically rejected…
…I quote from an official formulation of the Sephardic Rabbinical Council of several years ago that reflects their position: “1. A conversion not associated with marriage that was performed by a recognized Orthodox court – such as for adoption of infants or in the case of an individual sincerely choosing to be Jewish – is accepted in our community. 2. If an individual not born to a member of our community had converted to Judaism under the aegis of an Orthodox court, and was observant of Jewish Law, married a Jew/Jewess who was not and had not been a member of our community, their children are permitted to marry into our community.†Based on these standards a goodly number of converts have been accepted into the community. Genetic characteristics play no role whatsoever…
the quote claiming that even other Jews are disqualified from marrying into the community “if someone in their line was married by a Reform or Conservative rabbi†is a totally false portrayal of community rabbinical policy. Many Ashkenazim whose parents were married by such rabbis have married into our community.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Thursday, October 18th, 2007
According to Ha’aretz, another challenge to the Chief Rabbinate has popped up. Last month I blogged on the reaction to the scandalous no-heter for shmitta matter(and here); a group called Tzohar had announced that it would simply go around the Rabbinate. Well, they’re at it again.
45 rabbis from Tzohar and an unspecified smattering of the Religious Kibbutz Movement in response to the chief rabbinate’s policy of making conversion ridiculously difficult have said that they will simply go around it in this as well.
According to Ha’aretz,
That position ignores the plight of the more than 300,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not Jewish according to halakha. If the recommendations of the interministerial committee on conversion to expedite the process are not implemented soon, the rabbis are expected to establish the proposed conversion courts. That would represent another stage in the undermining of religious-Zionist rabbis of the Rabbinate, following struggles over marriage, kashrut and shmita in the past several months.
The latest steps began about six months ago with a conference of the Joint Conversion Institute, which prepares most prospective converts in civilian and military frameworks. After the head of the institute, Prof. Benjamin Ish-Shalom, announced that the requirements of the religious courts kept many graduates from completing their conversion, 45 rabbis agreed to officiate in religious courts that would convert the graduates, even without recognition from the Rabbinate. Most of the rabbis, the majority of whom who prefer not to be identified, are associated with with Religious Kibbutz Movement and the Tzohar rabbis’ organization.
Of course, it will be interesting to see how this plays out int he marriage arena, since the Chief Rabbinate is almost certain to refuse to allow these converts to be married in Israel – causing these folks to suffer fromthe same problems that Reform and Conservative/Masorti converts have had to deal with for years.
More »
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Thursday, October 18th, 2007
This LOLCat Bible touches on something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. If anyone has seen the play The Great Works of Shakespeare (Abridged), then you understand how poking fun at a great work of art can be so educational. But this is also more insidious than simple entertainment: its aim is to make esoteric language accessible to the un-initiated. I think a great swath of American Jewish life could benefit hugely from this comedic approach.
Thus, for the longest time, I’ve wanted to create the Great Works of Judaism (Abridged). The LOLCat Bible is way more thorough than this intends to be. On its face, Judaism (Abridged) would be a series of short one-act skits to be produced by Hebrew school kids. But of course deeper than that, it’s a chance to explore what the meaning of the prayers are, rendered in so direct a way that it can only be funny.
So here goes the Hazti Kaddish (Abridged):
Chazzan: Oh dear God: You are big. Really big. And by big, I mean huge. You just gotta be damn near the biggest, most grandest, most hugest thing out there, and boy don’t we know it. I mean, you made it all, so you gotta be bigger! Right, folks? Amen.
Congregation: He is Big!
Chazzan: God, you are super-big and super-cool and we just think that’s downright awesome and righteous and knarly-rockin’-sweet. We just can’t say it enough. Everybody with me? Amen.
Blasphemy is illusive; I don’t think this counts. After all, we should all pray in both the words of our ancestors and in our own — if one believes the Old Man Upstairs* is for real, then surely street slang works just fine and the Old Man can recognize the sacred in a little humor. I personally won’t be able to say this in shul without chuckling a little after posting this. If kids (or us’n growed-all-ups) had to write out their prayers as they understood them, then maybe (a) they’d learn them more personally and (b) we might get insights with no fear into how the next generation will reinvent our tradition.
*By no means do I imply that the Infinite is male.
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
An interesting piece in the Jerusalem Post this month about the development of the Hebrew alphabet: as opposed to the Phoenician system of lettering, the Hebrews developed vowels, which allowed people to read out loud their texts, contributed to the spreading of the Bible, and the lasting impact of Judaism. Also, we loved it so much we named our god after the achievement.
In short, the patriarch, matriarch, and deity of the Hebrews all get their names by adding a heh to convert otherwise common words into special ones. The Hebrews used their vowel-letters not just to make writing possible, but to create their most important names.
In addition to ?LHYM, we find a second, four-letter name for God, the tetragrammaton (which means “four-letters” in Greek). The four letters are yud, heh, vav, heh. Common pronunciations such as “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” miss the point. What really matters here is the remarkable fact that this name consists entirely of the Hebrews’ newly invented vowel letters, each included once, with the particularly special heh repeated.
The tetragrammaton is unique in ancient Hebrew, in that its pronunciation seems divorced from its spelling. It also seems to lack any plausible etymology, and is unattested in similar ancient languages. Now we know why. The Hebrews paid homage to the vowel letters that made it possible to spread the Word of God by using those letters to refer to God.
Full article.
by shamirpower [➚] · Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
From David Basior in the new media source, Jew-ish Seattle:
The oppression of Jews here is about our invisibility. Much of this is internalized, and we as Jews find ourselves not expressing our Judaism publicly — to our co-workers, neighbors, volunteer/activist organizations, for example. How it is experienced by those of us as “out†Jews is often by being tokenized or by confronting workplaces, communities, individuals, or educational institutions as entirely unaware of any Jewish culture, holidays or history in general, thus making it even harder to show ourselves.
Seattle Jews, weigh in!
Full story.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
Dr. David Berger, recently appointed director of YU’s Yeshiva College’s Jewish Studies Department, writes a response to the accusation that he excludes a major Jewish group from Orthodoxy (the Lubavitchers) and requires members of the Chabad-Lubavitch communityat YU to “take some sort of oath declaring they do not believe the Rebbe is the Messiah to be considered accepted within Orthodoxy.” This accusation, appearing in the Commentator
challenges Berger to be more open-minded – I suppose about whether or not it’s okay to believe that the Lubavitch rebbe is either the messiah or divine.
The gist of his response is that “a large majority of Lubavitch hasidim believe that the Rebbe is the Messiah while a very substantial number believe that he is pure divinity. (For a succinct presentation of the evidence, see chareidi.shemayisrael.com/archives5766/pinchos/olubavtchpnc66.htm),” suggests that parties interested in the matter read his book, The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference, states that he is not calling for excommunication – comparing his call to be similar to that of moderate Orthodox to Conservative and Reform Jews, which tickles me in oh, so many ways.
He concludes, more or less,
We live in an olam hafukh, an upside-down world, where spokespersons for a movement permeated by Christian-style posthumous false messianism and even avodah zarah can accuse Jews who deny them automatic Orthodox legitimacy of violating Jewish values. This is how I formulated the point in the Hebrew book: “Chabad hasidim have largely succeeded in silencing their critics with the accusation that those critics are fomenters of strife who undermine Jewish unity and disdain the supreme value of ahavat Yisrael. Permission is thus granted to the destroyer (nittenah reshut la-mashchit) to hijack your religion as you watch, while you remain helpless-because you are a decent person who loves the Jewish people and shuns divisiveness.”
Students in my Bernard Revel Graduate School course on messianism will testify that although I assigned some of my writings on Chabad-along with the works of Lubavitch hasidim-I kept classroom discussion as analytical and non-polemical as possible. As to Yeshiva College, it no doubt contains students who are not fully committed to Orthodox Judaism, and I do not see the need to ask questions of Lubavitch applicants that are not asked of others. But attending Yeshiva College is not the same as serving as a rabbi, a dayyan, a Jewish Studies principal, and, in the context of avodah zarah, a shochet, a sofer, and a wine producer.
Wow, and they say I’m blunt.
xp Kol Ra’ash Gadol
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to reexamine a new York court ruling upholding a state law that forces religious-based social service agencies to subsidize contraceptives as part of prescription drug coverage they offer employees.
Since New York is one of 23 states that require employers that offer prescription benefits to employees to cover birth control pills as well,this refusal to hear the case will actually have quite wide effect. I suppose I should mention that I am very surprised by this, given the current makeup of the court. The original law was made in 2002, called the “Women’s Health and Wellness Act” and requires health plans to cover a number of services aimed at women, including contraception, mammography, cervical cancer screenings and bone density exams.
According to AP,
Catholic Charities and other religious groups argued New York’s law violates their First Amendment right to practice their religion because it forces them to violate religious teachings that regard contraception as sinful.
“If the state can compel church entities to subsidize contraceptives in violation of their religious beliefs, it can compel them to subsidize abortions as well,” the groups said in urging the court to take their case. “And if it can compel church entities to subsidize abortions, it can require hospitals owned by churches to provide them.”
Other Catholic and Baptist organizations are part of the lawsuit. Seventh-Day Adventist and Orthodox Jewish groups signed onto a brief filed in support of Catholic Charities.
Three years ago the court rejected a challenge to a similar law in California….
The New York law contains an exemption for churches, seminaries and other institutions with a mainly religious mission that primarily serve followers of that religion. Catholic Charities and the other groups sought the exemption, but they hire and serve people of different faiths
This is all pretty amazing in my eyes, but a welcome respite from the usual (at least recently) hijinks of the high court. While, I sympathize with the religious organizations that don’t want to offer services that their faith group opposes, I have to say frankly, that if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Catholic hospitals are now a juggernaut in the American health care system, and if they decide tomorrow that arterial plaque is holy, I don’t want to have travel possibly to another state to get treatment for heart disease. This reminds me of the entire brou-ha-ha over the D&X procedure, in which Congresspersons were shown doctors performing dilation and extraction abortions, and obviously it looked yucky; well, that’s because when you do surgery, there’s blood. Open heart surgery isn’t all that pretty either. Nevertheless, sometimes people’s lives are at stake, and according to Jewish law, when one’s life is at stake one not only may, but must, take action. Thus, if I live in a place where I can’t get services because all the hospitals are run by Catholic institutions, my religious beliefs are being violated. And that holds, according to the groups pursuing this case, even if I can find a Jewish doctor to perform my bypass surgery, or whatever.
Yay to New York, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia (the other states with similar laws).
If you don’t live in one of these states, consider it a good idea to get a law like this passed in yours. One should be able to consult one’s own religious teachers and guides for instruction on what is permissible, and not have to obey someone else’s. Your doctor and you should be making your health care decisions, not the pope, or some reverend so-and-so somewhere.
xp Kol Ra’ash Gadol
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
Apparently, yesterday, Stephen Colbert announced his candidacy for president on “The Colbert Report.” According to the AP report he plans to run in South Carolina – only, which is unfortunate for me, since I don’t live there.
Colbert planned to get his name on the primary ballot in South Carolina, where the comedian is originally from. Earlier this week, South Carolina public television station ETV invited Colbert to announce his candidacy on its air.
When recently asked what party affiliation he would adopt if he tossed his hat in the ring, Colbert replied: “Both. I can lose twice.”
In a guest column for Maureen Dowd in Sunday’s New York Times, Colbert wrote: “I am not ready to announce yet — even though it’s clear that the voters are desperate for a white, male, middle-aged, Jesus-trumpeting alternative.”
About time, that’s all I have to say.
by BZ [➚] · Monday, October 15th, 2007
So the State of Israel has gone 59 1/2 years without a written constitution. You can’t blame them really — when the state was declared in 1948, there was a war going on. And then other things just kept coming up. Ok, it wasn’t just procrastination; Israel has been able to stay in business only by sweeping certain deep fissures (Jews vs. Arabs, secular vs. Orthodox) under the rug, and sitting down to come up with a constitution would have required all of these sectors of the population reaching a consensus on the character of the state. In the meantime, Israel has been making things up as it goes along, and the Knesset has passed a series of Basic Laws (English and Hebrew text) which function collectively as a sort of constitution. The Basic Laws outline the procedural rules governing each of the branches of government, and some of the more recent ones are the beginnings of a Bill of Rights. (Don’t worry, “Freedom of Occupation” isn’t what you think! It says “Every Israel national or resident has the right to engage in any occupation, profession or trade.”) The Basic Laws don’t say anything about judicial review (in which judges can use the Basic Laws to overturn other laws as unconstitutional), but hey, neither does the U.S. Constitution.
PM Ehud Olmert has announced that he wants to roll out a constitution in time for Israel’s 60th anniversary, and a Knesset committee is hard at work, led by MK Prof. Menahem Ben-Sasson. A draft of the preamble has been released to the press — here’s the English and Hebrew text (both with commentary from Ha’aretz).
It looks like it’s really not going to be easy to come up with something that everyone will agree on. The current draft says “The State of Israel is a Jewish and democratic state”, but there are some who will take issue with the “Jewish” part (the Arab parties are boycotting the committee meetings), and others who will take issue with the “democratic” part (the haredi parties are opposing provisions that would guarantee equal rights insofar as this conflicts with their understanding of Jewish law, and separation of church and state seems to be off the table), and still others who will take issue with the “is”. (I place myself in the latter camp, seeing “Jewish and democratic” as an aspiration, but not an accurate description of the status quo, and not attainable without a change in the status of the territories.)
A significant provision of this draft says “A Jew who immigrated to Israel by virtue of the Law of Return shall be eligible for Israeli citizenship in accordance with the terms and timetable determined by law.” This opens the door for a change in the current law, in which Israeli citizenship is awarded immediately upon arrival. Note also that “Jew” is not defined (the committee wasn’t interested in waiting another 60 years).
Keep watching over the next several months to see how these and many other issues are addressed, and start placing your bets on when (or whether) a final text will be ready for ratification.
by matthue [➚] · Monday, October 15th, 2007
From my Uncle Richie comes this story about Jews at a tailgate party in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
What’s really cool about the story, imo, is that it’s from a regular old perspective — it’s not a Chabad story, it’s not even really a story aimed at Jews. Hidden inside is the subtext of a Packers offensive lineman who became baal teshuva, but at the story’s heart it’s middle America seeing religious Jews as, hey wait!, they’re normal folks who do this instead of going to church on Sunday.
Check this out:
The group’s morning prayers include the use of a prayer book.
Pretty awesome, no? In the end, the article finishes on a high note: “‘I think it’s important to be proud of being Jewish,’ said Veingrad, the former Packers offensive lineman.” Word.
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Sunday, October 14th, 2007
Over at Nextbook, one woman’s musings about the role of The Jewish Catalog (the first, need you ask?) in her life and on her parents’ shelf.
I like the way she describes the ubiquitous nature of The Jewish Catalog.
““On the ‘hip’ level,†she told me recently, “we were probably down in the negative range.â€
But some things were, perhaps, unavoidable then, like inane news about Lindsay Lohan is today. By the time I was born in 1975, our house was punctuated with little emblems of the era; these shone for me like beacons. Despite my parents’ heavy Neil Diamond predilection, for instance, some Joan Baez and Simon and Garfunkel albums seemed to have fallen from a planet of fairies into our living room. My parents had chunky macramé plant hangers and trippy Marimekko hangings on the wall. And on their bookshelf was an oversized red volume called The Jewish Catalog.
The Jewish Catalog, a 320-page tome first published in 1973, was not necessarily a hippie artifact. But it had a profound effect on me growing up that I associated with hippie culture, subtly signaling that Judaism, like life, was a sort of groovy pursuit to be embarked upon however you wished.”
I had a similarly surprising experience while searching through my bubbie’s shelves a few years ago for a siddur; I found two copies of Gates of Repentance with High Holiday tickets from 1973 and, you guessed it, an original copy of The Jewish Catalog. My bubbie was even farther from the world of happy hippies and their handmade kippot; she was the one yelling at my mother to be in by 11pm when she was in college and at my father to cut his hair and get a job.
About integrating past experience with Judaism with a do-it-yourself spirit:
“Most of their friends had copies of The Jewish Catalog, and for my mother, it was a user-friendly guide to a Jewish life she had never actually lived. Suddenly making Shabbat dinners, she mined it for recipes and information on the order of blessings. Celebrating holidays other than Passover and Rosh Hashanah, she consulted it for instructions on how to, say, decorate a sukkah. For my yeshiva-educated father, who was well acquainted with much of the information contained in the Catalog, it was meaningful in a different way. Like many kids who grew up Orthodox in the generation following the Holocaust, he’d grown up thinking Judaism was a strict, dour affair, but the catalog was evidence to him that in fact it could be fun. Together, my parents used it to help craft an earnest, positive Jewish household. And when I discovered it on their bookshelf, The Jewish Catalog let me believe that somewhere out there beyond the cut lawns and latticework sidewalks of suburban Chicago was an even greater Jewish fantasy world where everyone really did sit around crocheting yarmulkes and sewing needlepoint challah covers, and they looked really happy doing it. Jews looking happy being Jewish. Amazing.”
What will our generation of thinkers and innovators’ contribution to this spirit be? Will it be a book? Will it be havurot that last? Will it be our blogs? And can this maybe move from fantasy to reality (or has it already done so)?
Full article here.
by Josh Frankel [➚] · Sunday, October 14th, 2007
There’s a new organization out there and it’s called Uri L’Tzedek, Awaken to Justice. Started by three YCT students, Aaron Finkelstein, Mike Schultz, and Shmuly Yanklowitz along with the generous support of a Herbert Lieberman Award this new organization aims to inspire the Orthodox community to take a more profound and active role with regards to social justice. Tomorrow night, Uri L’Tzedek will be hosting the first of what it hopes will be a series of batei midrash dedicated to issues of social concern, and this one will be focused on immigration.
What: Tzedek Beit Midrash
When: October 15, 7:30 – 9:00 PM
Where: Mount Sinai Jewish Center, 135 Bennet Ave (corner of 187th St), NY, NY
For more information, contact Aaron Finkelstein
by BZ [➚] · Sunday, October 14th, 2007
“The Ministry of Magic is undertaking a survey of so-called “Muggle-borns”, the better to understand how they came to possess magical secrets. Recent research undertaken by the Department of Mysteries reveals that magic can only be passed from person to person when wizards reproduce. Where no proven wizarding ancestry exists, therefore, the so-called Muggle-born is likely to have obtained magical power by theft or force. The Ministry is determined to root out such usurpers of magical power, and to this end has issued an invitation to every so-called Muggle-born to present themselves for interview by the newly appointed Muggle-born Registration Commission.”
–Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
“Your people shall be my people; your God shall be my God.” –Ruth 1:16
Today’s New York Times Magazine reports on the Syrian Jewish community of Brooklyn. Since 1935, the community has had an “Edict”, banning marriage to non-Jews. Sounds like lots of other Jewish communities, right? Wrong. One key provision of the Edict sets a unique standard of Jewishness: “No male or female member of our community has the right to intermarry with non-Jews; this law covers conversion, which we consider to be fictitious and valueless.†While other Jewish streams may disagree explosively about the nature and process of conversion, all agree that such a thing exists. But the Syrian community has adopted a purely racial standard of Jewishness, where one drop of non-Jewish blood is sufficient to invalidate someone. Not only are converts placed outside the community by the Edict; so are their descendants, and if there is any distinction between matrilineal and patrilineal descendants, the Times article doesn’t mention it.
In addition to the strictures imposed by the Edict in instances of proposed intermarriage, any outsider who wants to marry into a Syrian family — even a fellow Jew — is subject to thorough genealogical investigation. That means producing proof, going back at least three generations and attested to by an Orthodox rabbi, of the candidates’ kosher bona fides. This disqualifies the vast majority of American Jews, who have no such proof. “We won’t take them — not even if we go back three or four generations — if someone in their line was married by a Reform or Conservative rabbi, because they don’t perform marriages according to Orthodox law,†Kassin said. Even Orthodox candidates are screened, to make sure there are no gentiles or converts lurking in the family tree.
The Syrian Jewish community feels so strongly about this policy that they even stood up to Ovadia Yosef:
According to the rabbi, the community’s refusal to recognize the woman’s conversion drew the ire of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, at the time the chief Sephardic rabbi of Israel. Rabbi Yosef, a man of volcanic temperament, came all the way from Jerusalem to Brooklyn and informed the local rabbis that he, himself, vouched for the girl’s Jewish authenticity. “There he was, in person, in Shaare Zion†— the largest [Syrian] synagogue — “dressed in his robes and vestments,†the rabbi, who was there, told me. “He gave an oath that he had personally affixed his name to the girl’s conversion document. She was as Jewish as he was, and he wanted her recognized as a member of our community.â€
“And the answer was?†I asked the rabbi.
“No.â€
“No? You turned down the chief rabbi of Israel?â€
“We felt it was necessary,†the rabbi explained. “If we let our kids marry gentiles, they’ll try to slip their kids back into the community via conversion. And then the Edict will lack teeth.â€
Full story.
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Friday, October 12th, 2007
For the foodies in rabbinical school out there:
Special Opportunity for 2-5 Current Rabbinic Students to Attend a Conference on the Intersection of Jews, Food, and Contemporary Life
The Hazon Food Conference is at the forefront of an emerging national movement that explores the intersection of Jewish life and contemporary food issues. It brings together educators, rabbis, farmers, nutritionists, chefs, food writers, and families who share a passion for learning about and celebrating food. Join us for inspiring lectures and discussions, hands-on cooking sessions, family-family activities, an inclusive Shabbat and Chanukah celebration, and delicious, consciously prepared food.
More »
by Danya [➚] · Thursday, October 11th, 2007
Not like we ever expected much from this woman, but come on. This is really off the hook, even for her.
Editor and Publisher reports,
Appearing on Donny Deutsch’s CNBC show, “The Big Idea,” on Monday night, columnist/author Ann Coulter suggested that the U.S. would be a better place if there weren’t any Jewish people and that they needed to “perfect” themselves into — Christians.
It led Deutsch to suggest that surely she couldn’t mean that, and when she insisted she did, he said this sounded “anti-Semitic.”
Asked by Deutsch whether she wanted to be like “the head of Iran” and “wipe Israel off the Earth,” Coulter stated: “No, we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. … That’s what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament.”
Excerpts from the transcript of the show under the cut.
More »
by matthue [➚] · Wednesday, October 10th, 2007
In the news: Shemspeed writer Mordechai Shinefield writes about Shemspeed going live. The Emerging Jewish Arts & Culture Blah Blah website Shemspeed.com, if you don’t know, has new articles & reviews of Jewish music every day or few, and is probably the largest collection of Jewish bands (and mp3s!) on the Interweb. In the article, Mordy says that I head the reviews section, but really, I just write a bunch of them. The JDub review that he takes us to task for in the article, I didn’t write, he never asked me about it in his interview, and I actually never even saw it until it was posted.
Anyway: Shemspeed. It’s a really cool project, a really amazing place to find out about new bands. I covered that, right? Right now, Shemspeed is largely a Do-It-Yourself project, not funded by anyone, and, therefore, not able to pay writers like other, ahem, Jewish media outlets…
Roth got involved with writing for Shemspeed when he was contacted as an artist. Safar wanted to feature Roth’s band, Chibi Vision — what Roth calls a science-fiction hip-hop boy band — and Roth decided to write for the Web site, as well.
Yes, it’s a little ironic that he shouts me out for double-dipping as a reviewer and as a featured performer, while Mordy is both a former writer for Shemspeed and the writer who, for the purposes of this article, is investigating Shemspeed…
But, as Mordy himself says of Shemspeed, it’s “both a tribute to the do-it-yourself aesthetics of the Web site and an indication of the incestuousness found on the contemporary Jewish music scene.”
Of course, as soon as his article was accepted to the Forward, he asked Shemspeed to take down his contribution.
Just sayin’.
by Jewish Robot [➚] · Wednesday, October 10th, 2007
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