Women of the Wall needs a logo. From their Facebook page:
Women of the Wall is looking for creative supporters to design their logo! The logo must be in both Hebrew and English (Women of the Wall, נשות הכותל). The winner’s logo will be used as our official logo! Be creative! We can’t wait to see what you come with. Please submit all entries by May 31st to media {at} womenofthewall {dot} org {dot} il. WOW will announce the winner the first week of June.
Get to it!
Filed under
Filed under
Mar Gavriel tells us:
Most of the world is observing Yom Ha’Atzma’ut on Tuesday, because Yom HaZikaron is the day before Yom Ha’Atzma’ut and when Yom HaZikaron is due to be on a Sunday we push the whole lot up a day – Yom HaZikaron on Monday and Yom Ha’Atzma’ut on Tuesday – so as not to encourage people to drive to the memorials when it is still Shabbat.
Consideration 1: According to Rav Hershel Schachter (top bod at Yeshiva University), halakhic Yom Ha’Atzma’ut can never fall on any date other than 5 Iyyar, because that is the actual date on which the miraculous event occurred. So no pushing it off to Tuesday – if 5 Iyyar is a Monday, Yom Ha’Atzma’ut is a Monday, end of story.
Consideration 2: But this Monday was Ta‘anit Behab. Almost no one today still fasts, but a number of communities still recite the associated Selichot.
So — on Monday, the main YU Beis Medresh minyan recited Selichot AND Hallel. Not something one generally sees.
Filed under
An e-mail from J Street tipped me off this morning to a horrifyingly genuine thing: Jewish Americans for Sarah Palin.
And yes, the above picture is actually featured on their website.
There’s really nothing I can add to their own words, so I’ll just reproduce their launch op-ed here:
Op-Ed: Palin’s policies reflect Americans’ spirit on Israel
By Benyamin Korn · April 18, 2010
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — The Obama administration’s tilt against Israel, its tacit acceptance of a nuclear-armed Iran and its weak approach to combating Islamic terrorism all pose a direct challenge to Jewish Americans.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has described the “Obama doctrine” in U.S. foreign policy as “coddling our enemies while alienating allies.” Palin has emerged as the leading public voice in opposition to President Obama’s dangerous new direction.
For these reasons, my colleagues and I are launching a national organization of Jewish Americans for Sarah Palin, supported by the new Web site JewsforSarah.com — Home Page for Jewish Independents.
JASP is comprised of academic, religious and community leaders who are dedicated to promoting consideration of Palin’s policy positions in the wider American Jewish community. We are unconnected to any political campaign or fund-raising organization.
We find Palin’s positions on Israel, Iran, national security, fiscal responsibility, energy and social policy — as well as her record on these issues as governor of Alaska and candidate for vice president of the United States — to be serious, substantive and politically mainstream. More »
Filed under
For an in-depth eyewitness view of life in Gaza, you’ll do no better than, Dispatches from Gaza, a new blog just launched by a young journalist named Ashely Bates. Ashley has been in Israel/Palestine on on a three month internship for Ha’aretz and in late March she entered Gaza to write free-lance. She’s pitching her articles to various publications – in the meantime her extensive reportage is available via her blog.
Ashley is an amazing and accomplished young woman. Before getting her journalism degree from Northwestern University, she spent two years working for the Peace Corps in Jordan (where she became fluent in Arabic.) She currently works as the Program Director for the Chicago area co-existence program Hands of Peace, which is where I originally had the pleasure of meeting her.
Bookmark her blog. It offers the kind of on-the-ground reportage from Gaza that you will never, ever find in the mainstream media.
Click here for her latest post – a report on the first ever Gaza demonstration against child labor in the Gaza-Egypt smuggling tunnels.
Filed under
A shonde of infinite proportions. I was in disbelief when I heard of this and sure enough it’s factual and true. Richard Goldstone, the author of the ‘Goldstone Report’ on the war in Gaza has been pressured by South African Zionist organizations to not attend his own grandson’s bar mitzvah service because they have threatened to protest.
JTA reports: (I found a link here, but I’m sure there’s more)
Jewish groups, including the South African Zionist Federation, had planned to organize a protest outside the synagogue if Goldstone was in attendance, according to reports.
Rabbi Moshe Kurtstag, who heads the South African Beth Din, or religious court, said he was not involved in the negotiations, but he lauded the outcome. “People have got feelings about it, they believe he put Israel in danger and they wouldn’t like him to be getting honor,” he said.
Reached in Washington, where he is now based, Goldstone was reluctant to comment, but did say that “In the interests of my grandson, I’ve decided not to attend the ceremony at the synagogue.”
Arthur Chaskalson, a retired chief justice of South Africa, said it was “disgraceful” to put pressure on a grandfather not to attend his grandson’s bar mitzvah.
“If it is correct that this has the blessing of the leadership of the Jewish community in South Africa, it reflects on them rather than Judge Goldstone,” Chaskalson said. “They should hang their heads in shame.”
Seriously. What a shonde. They should hang their head in shame, and it’s equally shameful that the rabbi didn’t say as much. When a rabbi agrees that a person should not be in attendance at their grandchild’s bat/bar mitzvah and all because of politics, well, from here it seems that sinat hinam is reaching dangerous levels. Shame on them.
Filed under
Upon setting out to write this dvar Torah, I had grand visions of talking about the halakhic status of coed toilets. If a woman is ritually unclean, how can other members of her family use the same toilet, for example?
There was going to be a blow-out Foucauldian analysis of the halakhic sources, followed by a lengthy exegesis on Melanie Klein’s partial object; Kohut’s narcissistic transference, and Freud’s paranoia “syllogism” as taken up by Lacan. And then the ground-breaking revelation that we have been/are currently/always will be sinning.
It was going to be fabulous.
Perhaps fortunately for you, Masechet Niddah, Masechet Khullin, and Masechet Keilim (11:2) took me to school. Once again. We can use the same toilet as someone who is ritually unclean because the toilet is “מחובר לקרקע” (it is connected to the ground)—this is the loophole. (For those following at home, this is the same term used in reference to mikvaot, or ritual bath pools). Furthermore, I learned that in our times–i.e. post-Temple times–we are all tamei met already, and thus this is a non-issue.
Now that we’re all breathing comfortably…
I will tell you, instead, about how I first learned about sex. (What does this have to do with tazria metzorah, you ask? Just wait. You’ll see.) More »
Filed under
C'mon, the Polish Carpathians are at least as beautiful as the Judean Hills!
Konstanty Gebert, founding member of Solidarinosc and The Flying Jewish University, writes about Lech Kaczynski, the Polish President who died in the crash:
Kaczynski’s politics were not more popular among Poland’s Jewish community of 8,000 than among Poles at large. But the Jews had real reason to mourn a leader who had shown sympathy and support both to them and to the State of Israel, from the day when, soon after winning the 2005 presidential election, he compared himself to Ariel Sharon.
Indeed, there are analogies between the political philosophies of the two. Both were conservative leaders with strong nationalist feelings and were at the helm of countries they considered threatened by neighbors. (Kaczynski took a dim view not only of the past, but also of the present policies of Germany and Russia.) Both were impatient with what they considered liberal indifference to their respective national traditions and values. And both strongly believed in the fundamental role of the state as the nation’s most valuable institution. Both tended to look at what they believed history’s judgment would be, rather than at public opinion polls.
Kaczynski was far from being the only conservative European politician in power today. Yet it would be difficult to imagine any other European leader comparing himself to Sharon; the public-opinion fallout would be devastating. But Kaczynski had no such qualms. To him, the Israeli prime minister was an inspiration, and Israel a friendly state. Much of Polish public opinion tended to agree with him. No criticism followed his Sharon remarks.
That’s right, a top Polish politician was into THE BULLDOZER. In this intricate web of official condolence calls and mixed feelings, Gebert articulates too well that the contemporary Polish-Jewish relationship can be understood through the perceived political affinities between two right-wing nationalists who became intensely unpopular during their lifetimes. It goes to show that as Jewish cultural revival continues throughout the Polish lands, the elite descendants of Polish Jewry living in America and Israel largely see their relationship to Poland through a Zionist, not Ashkenazi, lens. This seems to imply that, at least on an official level, the development of Polish-Jewish reconciliation has largely been achieved through the work of politicians, not through the work of grassroots activists who spend so much time investing in a future for Jewish culture and memory in Poland. I never would have thought that March of the Living, an organization that has been repeatedly criticized for portraying Poland as a bloody, smoldering launching pad for the Zionist future, would require a moment of silence for victims of the crash as it toured its participants through Auschwitz. Do our leaders really feel sympathy for the Poles, or are we just trying to maintain alliances in a Europe increasingly critical of Israeli policy? A mixture of both?
Gebert continues:
His (Kaczynski’s) Jewish sympathies earned him the scorn of antisemitic extremists, who accused him of being Jewish himself (his “true” name supposedly was Kalkstein); somehow, his brother escaped being thus tainted. Rydzyk brutally attacked the Polish president during a lecture in 2007, accusing him of giving in to Jews, both by allocating land for the museum and supposedly ignoring the alleged threat of Jewish reparation demands. In contrast with his brother, Lech Kaczynski never granted the fundamentalist station an interview. But he had to pay the price for tolerating Jarosław’s alliances. At the funeral last year of Marek Edelman, deputy commander of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and a hero to the president, Kaczynski stood in silence and alone: The family refused him the right to speak, as Edelman had bitterly criticized the twin brothers’ policies…
…Alive, Kaczynski was a divisive and increasingly unpopular figure because of his authoritarian views, with approval ratings recently as low as 32%. But his tragic death has transformed him into a national icon, with all of Poland united in mourning. Polish Jews shared that pain with all other Polish citizens: A memorial service held in Warsaw’s only synagogue was packed full the day after the plane crash.
Full Story.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs responds to the Polish Tragedy.
Filed under
When your government is so right-wing that Fox News criticizes you, then you know you’ve gone too far. Dig this:
For more comprehensive coverage on the Anat Kam affiar, get the synopsis from JTA, Richard Silverstein and Noam Sheizaf. (Hat tip to the Israeli social justice sleuths at New Israel Fund‘s Facebook page for the amazing video. )
Filed under
Crossposted to The Reform Shuckle
Today is the fifteenth day of the Omer.
As we move from the freedom of Pesach to the responsibilities delivered to us on Shavuot, we count out the 49 days of the Omer period. If the practice is unfamiliar to you, I recommend My Jewish Learning’s intro to it.
If you consult the sidur, you’ll be told how to count it out loud at the end of your evening prayers as each new day of the Omer begins.
But today, there are many ways to count using the internet. Last year, I blogged every single day of the Omer. This year, Rabbi Andy Bachman is doing the same thing at his blog, Water Over Rocks.
Myself and several fellow Jewschoolers are using our Facebook statuses this year:
You can also count along with @TweetingTheOmer.
How are you counting this year?
BTW, the awesome art above can be found here.
And if you’re looking for a tasty, hands-on way to do it, check out the candy Omer counter.
Filed under
I used to work at New Voices Magazine, the only independent publication written by and for Jewish undergrads. It was the best (and worst) crash course in nonprofit management and journalism I could ask for. Thrown in the deep end of the Jewish philanthropic pool, it was sink or swim.
I can count myself as half-successful, since our editorial line of publishing critical student thought ran us into trouble with the David Project, who in 2007 intervened in our funding with the UJA-Federation of NY. We had to cut staff, I got the axe. This is a heretofore unreported detail which is harmless now to mention — yes, I lost my job because of the David Project’s branding New Voices as “bad for young Jews, bad for the Jewish state.” (As quoted to me by a UJA official who kindly read me the email David Project circulated to my funders. There was plenty more to it also.) Needless to say, I harbor a small grudge against the David Project and some of the UJA. The first is zealotry incarnate, the other a paragon of spinelessness.
So when I read Sam Green’s opinion piece in New Voices chastising all the Jewish anti-Zionists out there, I could only chuckle at the unintended (and likely unaware) incongruity. The misfortune of arguing a politics of exclusion in a publication that lost $30,000 and a staffer to being too open-minded diminishes his intended impact. Then again, only myself, my friends then, and those involved remember that episode, so perhaps we shouldn’t expect him to “know your roots” as he says. More »
Filed under
Happy Rosh Chodesh, everyone!
• Harvey Pekar, best known for his American Splendor comics, is working on the provocatively titled How I Lost Faith in Israel (via Bleeding Cool). Incidentally, I recently stumbled across Pekar’s graphic adaptation of Studs Terkel’s Working
• If your friends are anything like mine, then you’ve probably already seen the New York Times article about Delis about 30,000 times. Where to begin. The title, “Can the Jewish Deli Be Reformed?” made me want to point out that most of the delis are already on the liberal side of the spectrum, but when the article quotes a deli owner as describing kosher meat as “meat that gets blessed by a rabbi” without correcting him, I wanted to cry.
• If you happen to be looking over my shoulder when Twitter is on the screen rather than Reader, then surely you’ve already seen the list of Joshua Venture Fellows, the first since the Venture rose from dormancy. You’ll note some of Jewschool’s favorite (and previously blogged-about) projects among the list, including G-dcast, Uri L’Tzedek, and Challah for Hunger.
• There’s been a lot of hipster/Hasid synergy lately – did you catch the report on NPR about how Williamsburg is one of the neighborhoods with the lowest census returns in all of New York, thereby screwing New York City out of federal funds and representation?
• Have you signed on to The Charter for Compassion yet? “We therefore call upon all men and women to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion…”
• I haven’t tried it out in person yet, but Magic Yad looks like a super cool mashup of Leap Frog and Torah.
• The West End Synagogue in NY is having a one-day symposium about “The New Pluralism in American Jewish Life” this coming Sunday. Here’s a link to a PDF of their flier. I hope what they lack in graphic design they’ll make up in content. NB that our very own BZ is one of the speakers.
• One of our favorite blogs, DovBear, interviews a Reform Rabbi! See, most of DovBear’s readers are Orthodox, so whether the interview itself is interesting or not, the comments surely will be. (And by “interesting,” I might mean “a shit show.”)
Filed under
For our spring event this year, Limmud NY is trying something a little different, which we’re calling Limmud Across NY. All day on Sunday, April 25, in Brooklyn, Downtown Manhattan, Long Island, New Jersey, Queens, Riverdale, the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side several different mini-Limmud NY events are taking place in the homes of Limmud NY volunteers.
Limmud Across NY is a full day of simultaneous intimate learning sessions throughout the NYC metropolitan area. Individuals will be opening their homes and hosting you in celebration of Jewish life, learning and our community.
There is something for everyone, in every neck of the woods, at every price range, for ever interest.
In Park Slope, you can have brunch while you listen to Joel Chasnoff’s comedy and a reading from his new book. On the UWS later that afternoon, participate in a kosher artisan cheese tasting. That evening, learn about murder, thieves and prostitutes in the Bible with David Kalb. Or go to an event on Jewish learning through Jewish music with Natasha J. Hirschorn in Riverdale.
There will be morning brunch events, afternoon events (including family events), evening events and evening dinner events.
Can’t make it to anything on April 25th? As a part of Limmud Across NY, we’ve even got iLimmud, a virtual session you can watch from home at any time.
Check out the full list of presenters here and register here.
Filed under
TWJ posted a link on Twitter to this article involving a collaboration between hipsters and Hasids. Aside from the rather fascinating story, it got me thinking about what a combination of hipsters and Hasids would look like. Thus we bring you the Khipster: Ironic thick-rimmed sunglasses mingle cleverly with long peyes. An unshaven beard morphs smoothly into a waxed handlebar moustache. Untucked white button-down shirt, tzitzit hanging down, almost brushing the tops of bright green Converse. Truly, the khipster is the most fearsome creature ever to roam this earth.
Other ideas about this most alarming of combinations are certainly welcome (and if anyone’s good with Photoshop, go to town).
Filed under
The first cup of wine is drunk whilst reclining
This, they tell you, is because formal meals during the classical rabbinic period were conducted in the format of the classical world. Diners reclined on couches to take the Meal of Freedom, in the manner of the aristocracy of the time.
Nowadays we sit up to table for the Meal like usual, but we “recline” by leaning on our elbows on the table just like our mothers always told us not to. Sometimes with cushions, which knock over glasses and bang into one’s neighbour.
Ever since I was told this, I’ve wanted to conduct a seder reclining, with couches, but that is hard when you are always a guest at someone else’s seder.
This year, however, planning seder with Mar Gavriel, I said “I’ve always wanted to make seder on couches,” and he, being similarly geeky and eccentric, bounced and said “Me too!”
So we did. We dismantled the dining table and made couches from mattresses. We draped many drapes, found tiny tables, arranged cushions upon which to recline, and presented a seder in Ancient Greek style.
Filed under
From today’s Nutjob Anti-Semites With Scary Amounts of Power files, Salon reports,
Last week, retired Bishop Giacomo Babini of the Italian town of Grosseto told the Catholic Pontifex website that the Catholic pedophile scandal is being orchestrated by the “eternal enemies of Catholicism, namely the freemasons and the Jews, whose mutual entanglements are not always easy to see through… I think that it is primarily a Zionist attack, in view of its power and refinement. They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God-killers.”
You might think that the 81-year-old Babini had already said more than enough for one day, but once some people “pop,” they just can’t stop. “The Holocaust was a shame for all of humanity,” the good bishop told the world, “but now we have to look at it without rhetoric and with open eyes. Don’t believe that Hitler was merely crazy. The truth is that the Nazis’ criminal fury was provoked by the Jews’ economic embezzlement, by which they choked the German economy.” He concluded that the Jews’ “guilt is graver than what Christ predicted would happen to them, saying ‘do not cry for me, but for your own children.’”
Full story here.
Filed under
The National Havurah Committee Summer Institute 2010 is now accepting application for the Everett Fellows Program. Fellows participate in the full Summer Institute programming and in four workshops designed specifically for them. As a Fellow, you receive a scholarship for tuition, room, and board, and are expected to pay only for registration and dues ($120) for the full week.
Fellows also join the ranks of some of (y)our favourite Jewschool bloggers who were Everett Fellows in past years.
Summer Institute is a week (August 2-8) of learning and teaching with 350+ of your closest friends from across North America (and a few other places too). To quote BZ, “if a multigenerational Jewish community were inclusive of educated laypeople, respectful of individuals with or without families, and open to experimentation, would it be a place for 20-and-30-something Jews like [me/you/us]? Yes.” You can also see what we’ve had to say about the Summer Institute in the past on Jewschool.
To apply for an Everett Fellowship, you must be 22 through 32 years of age, interested in exploring havurah Judaism, and willing to participate fully in the Summer Institute. Preference is given to first time Institute attendees. Please click here for more information or call the NHC office at 215-248-1335. The application deadline is May 1.
Questions? Ask your NHC Summer Institute experts in the comments below!
Filed under
Yom HaShoah is upon us. I’m in Israel, where at 10 am everyone stops and a siren softly screams. It rocked me. This day, and the Holocaust in general, elicits so many different personal reactions inside me; it makes me feel crazy. These are some of the feelings I experienced today during Yom HaShoah:
Righteous indignation – We Jews bear witness to the worst kind of oppression and evil; today we must fight all forms of oppression around the world.
Confusion – How did the world stand by and let this happen?
Depression – The world has stood by and let lots of other terrible stuff happen.
Tribalism – I need to fight to protect my people.
Universalism – Ethnicities, races, religions – these social constructions are tools of oppression. Abolish them!
Doubt in humanity – Given the opportunity, many of us would be Nazis.
Doubt in God – where you at God?!
Faith in God – We survived the fiery furnace – we are truly the chosen people.
Religious motivation - I have to do mitzvot/learn Torah in honor of those whose lives were cut short.
Discomfort – These stories make me sad and uncomfortable. Why am I putting myself through this again?
Cynicism – Why do we let the Holocaust narrative dominate so much of Jewish life? Do we exploit it?
Purpose – I must remember.
Rage – Let’s go fight some skinheads.
I’m posting this for two reasons. First is, I think I’m not alone in having many different, conflicting reactions to the Shoah. In my experience, most Jewish communal space given to the Shoah today gravitates towards framing in simpler, less nuanced ways. As a community, we validate some of our internal experiences but leave out others from the conversation. How can we as a community deal with the Holocaust in a way that holds all of our conflicting feelings and reactions about it? Is it still too raw?
Second is, I’m curious to hear how other folks experience the Holocaust today. Do you resonate with some of the feelings I put up? Do you totally disagree? Am I being flippant? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Filed under
follow us on Twitter
follow us on Facebook
subscribe to our email