Starting to think about your summer plans? Here are two suggestions:
National Havurah Committee Summer Institute
If you were thinking about submitting a course proposal to teach during this summer’s Institute, they are due tomorrow (11/26). You get to attend the Institute for free as a teacher, minus your NHC membership dues ($40). If you are an artist, applications to be one of two Poretsky Artists in Residence are due December 4. Stay tuned for Everett Fellowship information once it becomes available later in the winter, allowing 20s and 30s Jewish leaders to attend for majorly discounted cost. August 11-17, 2008 at Franklin Pierce College, Rindge NH.
Yeshivat Hadar
If you want to spend some time in serious text and spiritual study this summer, there’s no place better in my opinion than Yeshivat Hadar. They’ve just opened application for this coming summer. Now entering its second year, the program is from June 1 – July 26, 2008 and boasts some of the greatest young minds of the traditional egalitarian world — Shoshana Cohen, Rabbi Shai Held, Rabbi Amy Kalmanofsky, Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, Sara Labaton, and Rabbi Ethan Tucker. Courses ranges from Talmud to Rashi to Halachah to Midrash, liturgy skills to Chassidut. Participants are subsidized, so you could actually afford to do it. This is the perfect program if you’re looking to finally make some headway in your text skills, to skip a preparatory year of rabbinical school or prepare for PhD work that involves Jewish texts, or simply to spend eight weeks for their own sake immersed in study. They are having an intro evening of learning in New York City on January 16, 7-9 pm, at West End Synagogue, 190 Amsterdam Ave, which will be the site of the program.
The Union of Progressive Zionists announces “Final Status Taboo” in a clever pun on my all-time favorite game, Taboo, in which players attempt to describe final status issues, such as Jerusalem, right of return, etc., without loaded words like “holy,” “Dome of the Rock,” “wall,” “Israel,” “capital” or “religion.”
“While the premise of these events is play, this game has serious ramifications for our ability to move forward as a community in advocating for vigorous U.S. leadership in the resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations necessary to ensure Israel’s prospects for peace and security in the future,” says Tammy Shapiro the Executive Director of UPZ.
Indeed, this is a variation of a game I play with myself all the time — “Zionist” taboo. I don’t use the Z-word word. I won’t use it around any group. It’s got too much baggage. However, despite how I refuse to call myself a Zionist, I put so much of my time and effort towards a two-state solution, one could argue that I’m more actively supporting the existance of Israel than many so-called Zionists who either (a) take a passive interest but don’t do anything about it or (b) believe that prolonging the unclear status of 6 million Palestinians under Israeli jurisdiction isn’t likely to backfire.
In either right- or left-wing Jewish settings, or especially among non-Jews, the Z-word has too many meanings, too many conflicting connotations. Heroic or villainous, it’s not worth the time of deconstructing my vocabulary, so I just do without it. “Two state” is the wording of choice, “a secure Jewish state alongside a viable Palestinian state” seems to avoid the troublesome yelling matches which occur when people read into my language something I didn’t intend in the slightest.
This offends a few commited left-wing Zionists, including people I greatly, greatly admire, because they believe so strongly in taking back the Z-word from the Messianists, the Likudniks, and the Christians. That fight is laudable, sure. But it’s not worth my time to make a pit-stop to save the Z-word on the way to fighting for peace in the Holy Land. And it has the added benefit of making it easier to get along with all kinds of people.
Sorry, Z-word, it’s just another reason to leave you behind.
Apropos of Kol Ra’ash Gadol’s recent post, here’s a little update on Rabbi Morris Allen and the exciting Heksher Tzedek initiative, which was prompted by Allen’s investigation of the Rubashkin’s plants. (Again, see Jewschool coverage of Heksher Tzedek here.)
The Nathan Cummings Foundation has just awarded Heksher Tzedek a major one-year grant, which means that the dream of having food justice in the Jewish community (and far beyond it) is that much closer to becoming a reality.
The horrible conditions in the Rubashkin plants in 2006 prompted Allen to try to do something about the seeming contradiction between kosher food and justice — a contradiction that shouldn’t exist, according to Allen. He writes on his blog,
We need to be in a world where we can say that keeping kosher is the way in which I demonstrate not only a concern for my relationship to God and Torah but the Jewish concern for our relationship to the world in which we live. That’s what I really want to get across to people.
Heksher Tzedek aims to award hekshers to companies that follow a (in-development) set of justice requirements about worker rights, safety, animal treatment, etc for food products. I had the pleasure of hearing from Rabbi Allen a few weeks ago at Hebrew College, and he is probably one of the most inspiring and brave rabbis working today, for taking on the massively powerful kashrut industry that really does have the power to ruin a person if they want to. He said,
Kosher food should be the kind of food that elevates a sense of kedushah, and when you discover that things are the very opposite of that, you have to respond. …Something is wrong when the smoothness of an animal’s lung is more important that the condition of the workers.
When Rabbi Allen was investigating, he spoke with a number of workers at the Rubashkin plants. One story was particularly moving. He sat down with a man who worked the line and asked him, “What is it like to work in a plant that produces our food?” The man was visibly startled at the question, and then touched.
“You know,” he said, “I have sat next to a rabbi [monitoring the line] for over ten years, and this is the first time any rabbi has asked me what it’s like for me to work here.”
These are the kind of efforts in the Jewish community that I want to be part of. From strength to strength, Heksher Tzedek.
The latest from the Forward: United Food and Commercial Workers are now entering the fray over Rubashkin’s skeezy practices in their plants. As the Forward reported, “Activists with United Food and Commercial Workers stood outside kosher supermarkets and Trader Joe’s stores around the country last Wednesday, distributing fliers that purported to be a ‘Kosher Food Safety Alert.’ The fliers cited controversial reports — many of them published in the Forward — about food-safety issues at the Postville, Iowa, slaughterhouse.” They also made automated phone calls to households in Orthodox neighborhoods and placed full-page advertisements in Jewish newspapers.
Most of these will be violations that if you read Jewschool or Failed Messiah’s excellent coverage, you will already know about – the bribery, the unsafe food handling practices, and of course the mistreatment of non-Jewish workers, prompting the Conservative Movement’s creation (at least in theory) of the Hechsher Tzedek. I want to emphasize a citation from Failed Messiah’s post on the topic which comes from the USDA’s inspector:
There were also at least five instances in which AgriProcessors was cited for not taking the required measures to fend off Mad Cow disease. In one instance, an inspector says he asked for a suspicious cow to be taken off the line and later discovered that the cow had been slaughtered with the rest of the animals. The inspector says he informed someone at the company of the “very serious noncompliance that had occurred.â€
I emphasize these words because, of course, Agriprocessor’s response, published on its Web site and in Yeshiva World News, was simply to deny, deny deny. “Concerns about Mad Cow disease are simply wrong,†the letter said. “We have never had product from any suspect animals leave our plant.†they claim.
Astonishingly, according to KosherToday,a trade publication that has defended AgriProcessors, none of this has hurt Agriprocessor sales. In fact, they claim that to the contrary, “The net effect of the onslaught against Agri was that sales of its products in some stores have risen by as much as 30% and it has opened an unprecedented number of new accounts.†More »
So, hag thanksgiving sameach folks. I am sitting here digesting and remembered a thanksgiving story. Among my favroite songs, Alice’s Restaraunt, is about the events surrounding a thanksgiving dinner in Stockbridge, summer of 1967. They were in the midst of a war as well and the song is a roundabout protest piece. The next year, in 1968, Arlo played the song for a crowd of progressives who were protesting the DNC conference in Chicago.
The assembled radicals, hippies, yippies, and intellectuals marched peacefully. The problem was, well how to say this, uh, the cops and national guards thought peaceful marching was boring so they wailed on the protesters. And boy did they. All hell broke loose and heads were pounded in. Lot’s of the protesters were arrested and the Chicago 8(later 7) were put on trial.
Arlo testified, and after him was Art Waskow. The circumstances led to some changes in his life and he has a good (short) retelling of that heady day. It is interesting as all his stuff is, pretty much, and uncharacheteristically to the point. Check it out here.
Even as there are so many problems in the world, it’s worth taking a minute and cosidering what we have to be thankful for. Which, to be corny, is always a lot more than we think there is before we really focus. Happy thanksgiving to all!
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
The rabbi’s letter garnered 517 rabbinical signers — compared to 200 and 300 the past two letters — and the Ackerman-Boustany dear colleague letter received 135 Congressional co-sponsors, also an incredible job. Thank your local Representative for signing it here. So what’s next?
Rally for peace in Annapolis! Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Meretz USA, Union of Progressive Zionists, Kesher Arza, Habonim Dror, Hashomer Hatzair, and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom (with an endorsement by the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation) are working to organize a Rally for Palestinian-Israeli Peace at Annapolis on Monday Nov. 26 Tuesday, Nov. 27, from 1 pm – 3 pm. Â
We are organizing at least one bus from New York City to Annapolis, and invite participation from anyone who would like to drive or would like a ride to attend the rally from the Maryland/DC area.Â
The rally provides an opportunity for American Jews to express their support for a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement and strong US involvement for helping Israelis and Palestinians continue the negotiations until they succeed, bringing peace and security to both peoples.  Your voice and your presence is needed. As American Jews, we must show that our love for Israel does not only manifest itself during times of war.  We must show our solidarity with the citizens of Israel and Palestine as they work for peace. Â
“Why demonstrate?” you ask? Because the right-wingers, along with Christians United for Israel, will be staging a rally at a different time and place in Annapolis. Now is the time to speak out and show the American public and the entire American Jewish community that American Jews support peace.Â
Â
If you’d like to participate in the rally or are considering joining in, please let us know that you are interested in attending.  Send an email with your name to annapolisrally@gmail.com. When the City of Annapolis approves our permit request, we will announce additional details. Parking information and exact rally location will be announced no later than Sunday, 11/25.Â
Apparently GW Hillel, or some organization operating therein, has opened a new food spoy. They ended up choosing “Colonial Kosher Cafe”. Like, totally awesome man, will they have subservient waiters?
Are you looking for Kosher food in the DC area? Specifically, around the Foggy bottom neighborhood? Then check out the Colonial Kosher Cafe;, now open Monday thru Thursday from 11:30 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. and on Fridays from 11:30 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. … Colonial Kosher Café is located in GW Hillel …
What did the design process look like? Well, Economic Oppression of Indigenous People Kosher Cafe is a little bit of a mouth full. How about Orientalist Kosher Cafe? Too Neo-Saidian! How about GW Kosher Cafe? Not edgy enough. Ahh, how about we use the school sports motif and go with Colonial Kosher Cafe? That has potential. Oh, but wait, doesn’t that run into the awkward situation where we, by using colonialist language in connection with Jewish identity, accidentally bring up issues that may connect Jews and Colonial issues.
Maybe they want to recall our triumphant history in Colonial Europe. How did that turn out for our people? Anyone care to name how many european nations expelled Jews during the runup and duration of the colonial period? Here, I’ll even get you started: England, Spain, France, Sicily, Portugal, Naples, and Venice (just forced into Ghetto, nothing major).
Perhaps they were looking for a more neo-colonialist theme in which case, were they teasing the Palestinian Solidarity Movement crew?
I coined the term Japtivism last year when I spent 20 minutes on the phone with a Victoria’s Secret (ugh, I know!) customer service representative last year convincing them that I DID NOT WANT any more catalogs. I did not want them once a month, I did not want them once a week. I did not want them in my house, I did not want them in the can, I did not want them Sam I am.  Hint to anyone else trying to convince Victoria’s Secret that no means no- have a catalog on hand to give them the sorting number from the mailing label.After my triumph over the Victorian Empire, I was emboldened to continue shopping/consuming smarter. I paid for a subscription to Green Dimes, a service that gets you off mailing lists and reduces waste. I even got them for family members’ birthdays. It’s been a good investment, as I’ve seen a tremendous drop in junk mail, more than just putting myself on the no junk mail list. And today, after some deliberation, I ordered something I’ve only dreamed of owning– my very own seltzer maker. The Penguin makes me seltzer whenever I want. Stores it in reusable glass containers. (No plastic to worry about leaching and other nonsense.) And it’s shabbes friendly. As a person who consumes seltzer almost every day, and throws away selzter bottles quite frequently, I only wonder why I waited so long. Some lingering Santa fantasy, probably. Oh well, he’s not coming. And I’m celebrating with egg creams as soon as my seltzer machine arrives. Huzzah!
93-year-old screenwriter Irv Brecher (Meet Me In St. Louis, Bye Bye Birdie and many more) offers his perspective on the writers’ strike in this video called “Same Old Story.”
Irv Brecher is one of the few surviving veterans of the Golden Age of (Jewish) Comedy, having written for Milton Berle, the Marx Brothers and a host of others.
(Obligatory yet self-serving full-disclosure notice: I’m publishing his memoirs, The Wicked Wit of the West.)
Thanks to MAKE for the tip about this open source LED menorah kit from EvilMadScientist.com. This looks easy and reasonably impressive, although I’m not sure whether the current would flow perceptibly in either a Shammai (oldest to newest “candle”) OR a Hillel (newest to oldest) direction. Engineers, you check it out and let us know. I’ll get my soldering kit ready to go.
Okay, so this new magazine just came out. It’s called Jewish Living.
Over here at Jewschool we had a little debate about the magazine, because we got a press release about its launch from the publisher. And frankly, the release makes most of us cringe. Noteable quotables from it:
For the first time ever, a smart, stylish and thoroughly modern magazine will celebrate Jewish home, family and cultural life. *Jewish Living* takes the focus off of religion and places it squarely on the cultural. And in doing so, it seeks to acknowledge and enrich the changing lives of modern Jewish women and their families.
Er… wait, modern Jewish women don’t want to get all bogged down in stuff like religion and politics, so let’s give them recipes?
The concept came to Zimerman, a former senior creative advertising executive at Foote Cone Belding, one wintry Toronto afternoon while making what would prove to be a life-changing stop by a newsstand. “There was an abundance of red and green magazine covers touting the joys of Christmas. I thought ‘Where are all the dreidels? Where are the latkes?’” said Zimerman. “It wasn’t the first time I felt like the only boy without a Christmas tree, but it was certainly the first time I decided to do something about it.”
Wait, the magazine is in response to being jealous that there isn’t a bunch of Chanukah crap all over North American consumer outlets to the same degree there is Christmas crap?
Relocating to New York with his family, including wife and *Jewish Living* Creative Director Carol Moskot, Zimerman designed the magazine to offer inspirational style ideas and practical, how-to information on a wide range of topics. *Jewish Living* aims to make each day more meaningful, functional and beautiful for its targeted demographic of affluent and influential readers…. Headquartered in New York City, *Jewish Living* targets a well-educated urban professional woman between the ages of 25-54 with a median household income of over $125,000.
Ohhhhh, it’s about living a beautiful rich mildly Jewish life without being bogged down with religion or politics. I get it. How narrow-minded and ridiculous!
Or at least, that was the general take on the press release.
Time is running a profile of American life using statistical measures about a broad range of issues. Interesting stuff. It included the following passage about religious consumerism and bible knowledge:
The vast majority of Americans believe in God, and more than 90% own a Bible, but only half can name a single Gospel, and 10% think Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.
What percentage of people do you think assume Moses Malone led the Israelites accorss the Re(e)d Sea?
The Israeli school year was supposed to start a month ago, and high school students still haven’t gone to school — the teachers are still on strike.
A major demonstration in support of education is going on right now in Kikar Rabin in Tel Aviv, and 100,000 people are expected. Smaller demonstrations have been happening around the country. For example, on Tuesday, a group of high school students marched through the Machaneh Yehuda shuk in Jerusalem. The TV networks weren’t there, but Jewschool was! See our footage:
Some of the signs say:
Education = Everything
Teachers want to live too
Today’s mistakes are tomorrow’s tears
Marching for the future of education
Without education there is no future
Small class, large gain
Meanwhile, university professors are also on strike. However, other university employees (including junior faculty) are not on strike, which means that the universities have been open and some classes are going on, while others aren’t.
Jewschool’s Israel correspondents also captured footage of this demonstration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Har Hatzofim campus, on Wednesday. Since the students are chanting in Arabic and aren’t holding any signs, I don’t know what they’re saying (or even whether it’s related to the strike or about something else entirely). Can anyone out there clarify?
Let’s face it. When we travel, we’re not always thinking about our impact on the world. For those of you that do, you’re awesome. But often times, when we get to our hotel room, we take a minute to flop into the big ole bed, throw some pillows at whomever we’re sharing the room with, unpack into the roomy closet and the big bureaus in the room, throw off the top sheets and relax.
Ever think about how all that stuff got there? How the room got pristine and fully loaded with all those creature comforts? Or in the rare instances where the room WASN’T picture perfect when you got there, why that might be?
Housekeepers at hotels are, in some ways, the most important employees there, because without them, the main product the hotel is selling, a really comfortable clean room, would not be there. But being a housekeeper at a hotel is one of the most painful, difficult, physically strenuous jobs out there. Moving around extra-heavy beds and furniture over and over again each day is extremely difficult. Often, this group of workers is given too many rooms for them to handle cleaning properly in one shift.
Why am i pointing this out today? Well, it is a major travel weekend. And it also marks the start of the Ethical Travel Pledge by our friends at Jewish Funds for Justice, the Jewish Labor Committee, and the Progressive Jewish Alliance. The pledge, to support workers by being a little more considerate in our hotel rooms, in choosing where we stay, and making sure we leave decent gratuities, is not so big in what it asks (personally, I already do a few of those things). But a concerted effort to do the right thing by the workers who make our trips so comfortable will go a long way in making their lives a lot easier.
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Thursday, November 15th, 2007
You know, you’re right out there in TV land. I’ve not heard much of a hopeful word out of the many folks who I know are down with peace (almost damn near everyone, despite varying caveats of right-wing or left-wing severity). And it’s rightful to be a cynic and skeptical of the outcomes of the Annapolis conference.
I am prepared to be disappointed too.
But the urgency is phenomenal not to be defeated by it. The urgency to jump to support Annapolis, despite its purported dubious chances of success, is imperative for all of us in the Jewish community. It is still right and just to work hard, even if failure is a hair’s breadth away.
I spend the bulk of my volunteer hours on progressive Jewish activism — on encouraging in others a scary existence along a fuzzy middle line between answers otherwise too convenient, building an endurance for a truly complicated and complex relationship with the Jewish state.
But to be honest, this requires a complex relationship to peace as well. An acknowledgment that fighting tooth and nail uphill towards a final status agreement between Israel and Palestine-to-be will not be the end of the issue. Final status might not mean hanging out in Hebron or vacationing in Beirut now or even by the time I’m 50. Humans are pathetic long-term thinkers and if Israel is to really survive, we cannot depend upon a temporary military superiority. The scary Pyrrhic victory of the Second Lebanon War was a warning shot across the bow — next time it may be worse. The issues won’t go away if ignored.
It is quite possible that Annapolis may lead to final status negotiations, that a peace agreement will come, everyone will clap, and we’ll settle in behind our sandbags and watch each other through rifle sights still. But a positive arrangement now sends powerful repercussions down the halls of the future. The agreements with Egypt and Jordan didn’t bear sweet fruit immediately, but today they are Israel’s most important regional diplomatic partners. A cold peace behind secure borders is at least a step forward, beyond the existential quagmire and demographic fear of the occupation.
To promote his new album Sandwiches & Cats, Michael Showalter is doing a pseudo tour of various blogs like ours, and we’re fortunate enough to have him pop by here. (he also popped by Stereogum where he dropped this aaaaamazing video of revealing his hidden musical joys – Dave Matthews need hide no more.) Enjoy. – biz
My name is Michael Showalter. I am a comedian. I did a TV show on MTV in the mid-90′s called The State and then a movie called Wet Hot American Summer and then another movie called The Baxter and then another TV show called Stella. That’s my resume. I have a record coming out today called “Sandwiches & Cats.” It’s on the label JDub Records.
Alot of people ask me why I decided to a comedy record and I tell them it’s because I thought it was about time that a Jewish person made a comedy record. I mean, to my knowledge I’m the first Jewish comedian. And I’m definitely the first one to make a comedy record. Mostly, Jewish people are known for being professional football players and country music stars but not comedians. I mean I guess there’s a few Jewish comedians: Jerry Seinfeld, Woody Allen, Adam Sandler, Gilda Radner, Henny Youngman, Shecky Green, Lenny Bruce, Billy Crystal, Larry David, Andy Samberg, virtually all of the Borsht Belt comedians, most of the Vaudeville comedians, Judy Gold, Mort Sahl, Rita Rudner, Jerry Lewis, Jon Stewart, Sarah Silverman, Richard Lewis, Mel Brooks, Albert Brooks, Rodney Dangerfield, Al Franken, Jeff Garlin, David Brenner, Lewis Black, Sandra Bernhard, Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Dave Attel, David Cross, Robert Klein, Marc Maron, Jackie Mason, Paul Reiser, Don Rickles, Alan King, Ben Stiller, and Roseanne Barr.
Other than that list of small fries, I can’t really think of any. Hopefully, my comedy record “Sandwiches & Cats” can put Jewish people back on the map in the world of comedy. We should be known as more than just professional football players and country music stars. Someone needs to do it and I’m up to the task.
To promote his new album 
follow us on Twitter
follow us on Facebook
subscribe to our email