It’s day 7 of the Omer and I’m trying to figure out if I like Y-Love and Yuri Lane’s new album, Sefira.
Some refrain from listening to music altogether during this 49-day march from redemption to law, but I definitely don’t. And neither do Y-Love now Yuri Lane follow this stricture either, judging by their release of an Omer album.
The album is all over the place topically with driving beats and great rhymes from always dependable Y-Love.
I can’t tell if I actually like it. It’s very sparse, but layered at the same time. I think I’m more impressed by it than I actually like it. The words are great and the beats are just mind-blowing. I almost don’t believe that this is all a cappella.
During the 7-week period following Passover, the Jewish Nation spends its time counting the days and weeks of the Omer period, culminating in the receiving of the Torah. During these weeks we are forbidden to use our normal musical instruments as a sign of decreased joy, forcing us to improvise. This is a paradox — being commanded to serve the Creator with joy always, but having His service be to decrease joy. Our music is that paradox. As we improvise with our music, so too, we sometimes must improvise with our simcha. Count it.
Sorry I don’t have a player or video from the album to embed, but I couldn’t find any.
So you’re looking online, trying to find some like-minded folks in your area to share a shabbos meal with. Maybe you’re new to town and are trying to meet new people. Maybe you just haven’t had a shabbos meal in a long time, and you’re looking for that sense of community. Maybe you start perusing Craigslist or Idealist in hopes of finding…
EeGADS! Extra Eclectic Gentiles Are Doing Shabbos!
Mission:
“SHABBAT IS MORE FUN IF YOU YOURSELF COME.” Meet with us Friday evenings for a little liturgy, music & meditation, poetry, prose, and prayer, BREAD & WINE…and of course a good vegetarian shabbos meal together. What more could you ask for?! Non-goyim are welcome, too. Straight friendly. We need all the help we can get! Most of us, though, are Christians, of one sort or another. For information: goyshabbos@yahoo.com
(That was fully unedited, of course.) Vegetarian queers hosting a lovely shabbos dinner? What more could you want…? Oh right, some Jews…
There is a lot to be said about the possibilities of Jewish film. We’ve heard about kollel guys turning the lens on themselves, Israeli filmmakers orchestrating the visual return of Jews to Poland, or Palestinian filmmakers depicting the society that excludes them.
Then there is Wallace Berman. Born on Shaolin Island in the Roaring 20s, his family made their way to California in 1930, just in time for the Depression. He was a member of many loosely organized bohemian camps. He’s often mentioned in the same catalogs as Artaud, Bukowski, and Burroughs – but like some tzadikim, he wasn’t exactly like any of them. Berman experimented with proto-xerography processes to create collages that upended conventions in postwar American art. The only film he made is called Aleph – and it brings together his interest in abstract visualizations and Jewish Mysticism.
The Jewish Literary Salon in Krakow, Poland - one of the many complex Jewish projects in contemporary Poland
In Dan Sieradski’s recent web project 31 Days, 31 Ideas, cartoonist and rootsman thinker EliValley suggests that the American Jewish community create “Birthright Diaspora.” Awkwardly conceived as a 10-day immersion in a Jewish diasporic site, the manifesto suggests that by creating a program in which Israeli and American Jews visit “global” Jewish communities located far from their own, their Jewish identities will transform into something better. Valley writes:
It’s time to expand our notions of positive Jewish identity and at long last move beyond an ideology that fretfully masquerades self-hatred as Jewish empowerment. By digging through centuries of global Jewish life, Birthright Diaspora will help transform Jewish self-awareness and break the dichotomy of “hero” and “victim” that has handicapped internal Jewish intellectual inquiry for decades. The goal is not merely widespread immersion experiences in global Jewish communities but a renewed understanding of Diaspora as a Birthright that forms the roots of Jewish consciousness. If implemented effectively, Birthright Diaspora can lead to an existential transformation in the way Jews and Israelis view themselves and the world.
It is a heartfelt manifesto, and what it lacks in theoretical precision it regains in passion. For many years now, there has been an emphasis on the next big “program” that will contribute to the strengthening of what we have come to call Jewish Identity and Community. Various ideological camps, including Jewschool, have claimed that by funding the notion of “global Jewish Peoplehood,” Jewish identity and community will bz’h undergo the type of “existential transformation” that Valley describes.
I am confident that longing for this type of existential transformation is a red herring, or even more troubling, a fantasy of our own power. By denying the reality that the Jewish Diaspora has geographically contracted and remained intact, our cultural activists continue to accept a model of a “shackled” community that pivots off a vague notion that, as Valley writes, “in the Jewish world, the interconnectivity often manifests itself through ripples emanating from the perceived center of Jewish life in Jerusalem.” More »
Last weekend, the first Limmud Chicago took place on the wooded campus of Oakton Community College in suburban Des Plaines. I’m on the ‘Steering Wheel’ (there are no committees in Limmud) so I’m biased, but thought I’d provide a report.
From 8am to 11pm, nearly 400 participants gorged on 80 sessions ranging from Hasidut to Queer Torah and from Text to Crafts. Check out the program here.
My most memorable sessions were led by Arthur Waskow’s Can Jewish Festivals Save the World, Shai Held’s sessions, Menachem Cohen’s How Not to Study Torah, Aaron Frankel’s Songs of Yehuda Halevi, Marc Belgrad’s Getting to God, and Mark Rothschild’s fascinating Prophets and Profits. I would have had more were I not ‘on duty’ in the prime mid-day hours. I heard raves about Asher Lopatin’s session on the Quran’s portrayal of the Akedah, the obligatory drum circle, Ruthie Gelfarb’s Introduction to Mussar, and many more.
The conference drew participants from Metro Chicago, Toronto, Colorado, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and someplace called New York. There was a good mix of age ranges and backgrounds. Upon entry, everyone, whether presenter or participant, was assigned a volunteer role. And a considerable amount of leftover food was donated to the Night Ministry, serving homeless youth.
By now we’re all familiar with the Limmud concept, and this was, if I may say so, a very ‘limmud-y’ first Limmud in the Midwest. And if it can happen Chicago… it can happen anywhere.
It was a fantastic day and a smashing success. If you want to participate next year, check out the website.
Tobaron Waxman is the winner of The Jewish Museum’s first-ever Audience Award, selected from nearly sixty international artists. Votes were gathered from visitors to the exhibition in person and online, between September 13, 2009 and January 11, 2010. Waxman was selected for his provocative installation Opshernish, 2000/2009. The piece examines the construction of gender in Judaism by recreating and condensing a multi-part performance installation.
The following are the artist’s own words as shared with Jewschool’s editors: More »
I might have gotten that title mixed up a bit. Fuller report coming tomorrow, including video of most of the Q&A part of the panel. In the meantime, if you’re curious to know what it was about and you weren’t one of the lucky 120 or so people who made it in the room before the risk of fire hazard cut folks out, you can see tweets from me and Joanna Ware from the panel. (Scroll down to those with timestamps between 7:00 and 8:00 pm EST on Jan. 31st.) I took some snapshots of the Jewschool table and the crowd as well. My pictures of the panel didn’t come out so great (Danya talks with her hands too much for my crappy camera phone to focus!) so you’ll have to wait for the video to see Jay Michaelson, Seth Castleman, and Danya Ruttenberg in action.
radio613 is a collective and radio broadcast dedicated to Jewish politics, culture, and religious life. Diasporic tones find auditory homes through featured interviews, music, readings, discussion, and documentaries. Each week radio613 presents Jewish perspectives on religious/spiritual thought and practice, race and racism, gender and feminisms, anti-semitism, identity politics, colonialism and resistance… and more!
It is not everyday that a Jewish youth takes it upon himself to so passionately interlock Yiddishkayt and Revolution, and to bring it to Jewish youth across his land. DJ Grenadier, my khevrusa this past summer, he should be Zokhe to berius, mazal, naches, a bayis ne’eman b’yisroel un l’oylem habo.
Click here for a recent interview with journalist and cultural theorist Ruth Ellen Gruber on the “revival” of Jewish culture in 21st century Eastern Europe.
Oh, and this one (though I suppose this one is more a Jewish kaffiyeh than an Israeli kaffiyeh):
But aside from prodding Shemspeed for their premature announcement of originality, I want to seriously question the usefulness and the morality of co-opting another group’s important symbol of identity and struggle. Though I’m never sure of what exactly I think of the struggle between Palestine and Israel, something about this entire endeavor just doesn’t sit right with me.
Especially when coupled with the phrase עם ישראל חי, which has come to be such a nationalist statement in its own right:
Editor’s note: The following is a guest post from Yoni Stadlin, founding director of Eden Village Camp. Many of you celebrated at this summer’s Bereishit Festival or you may have justheard of them through the grapevine. As we look toward our next Jewish holiday of Tu Bishvat, we invite you to hear Stadlin’s inspiring story. Oh yeah, and thanks to three huge Jewish organizations for investing millions in such an awesome project!
My name is Yoni Stadlin, and I am a redwood-tree-sitter. Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world, can grow up to 300 feet tall, and can live for two thousand years! I lived aloft in redwood trees for two months of my life. Tree-sitters are people who live up in trees that are slated to be cut down, on the wager that no one would cut down a tree with a person in it.
Tree-sitting has been effective in protecting huge groves and helping change many policies, but many of these ancient beauties have been logged nonetheless. Ninety-five percent of coastal redwoods in the northwest U.S. have been logged for making things like decks, playgrounds and tools. The practice of clear-cutting – leaving no trees standing – has turned huge, lush, vibrant and ancient redwood forests into eroded wastelands, destroying habitats, contaminating water, and massively increasing our species’ footprint on this planet.
Imagine, people in trees! One person, name Julia Butterfly, lived aloft for two and a half years on a suspended platform in a tree named Luna. Imagine where you were two and a half years ago, and imagine being held by a gigantic tree from then until now. Imagine seeing no doors, not one building, road or florescent light, and your feet never touching the ground. This is what I did for two months, and I loved it. More »
Editor’s note: The following is a direct response to the recent post publicizing this month’s meeting of the Men’s Havurah at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun featuring the NYC federation’s top dog John Ruskay and Jewish media guru Daniel Sieradski in a dialogue between the establishment and anti-establishment voices in the Jewish world today.
The BJ Men’s Havura is the place to be this Shabbat afternoon. If you identify as male, and not as female. And that’s just fine. I know, I know: it sounds sexist. But let’s back up for a moment; a little context goes a long way.
A year and a half ago Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein, one of B’nei Jeshurun‘s three rabbis, decided that it was time to act to address a growing gender imbalance that had been apparent at BJ for some time, one that mirrors a trend affecting all areas of non-Orthodox Jewish religious life- men just aren’t as interested in “doing” Judaism as women are. In the words of Sylvia Barack Fishman in an important study published last year:
Today American Jewish boys and men have fewer connections to Jews and Judaism than girls and women in almost every venue and in every age, from school age children through the adult years. The descent of male interest is evident not only in domestic Judaism, as expected, but also in public Judaism, religious leadership, and secular ethnic attachments.
Whether or not it’s a direct effect of women’s empowerment in Jewish life, the fact is irrefutable- men are dropping out. The question at BJ was what to do about it.
At BJ, where I served last year as the first cantorial intern, the vast majority of lay leaders are female. Whether it’s the Torah readers, prayer service leaders or committee chairs, women dominate. The monthly women’s Rosh Chodesh group and the annual women’s retreat are popular and successful. Until the Men’s Havura was formed there had been no space at BJ for men alone since 1984, when Marshall Meyer became the rabbi and disbanded the congregation’s Brotherhood and Sisterhood. (To be technical, the BJ Men’s Havura is open to all people male-identified, regardless of biology and regardless of sexual orientation.) I think that it’s crucial for there to be female space, opportunities for women to gather with other women and feel proud and safe to express themselves Jewishly, to explore their identity as Jewish women. I think that it’s equally important for male space to exist in our communities. As congregations become more fully egalitarian, opportunities for men to explore together the meaning of contemporary male Jewish identity are increasingly rare.
Traditional models of gender roles in Judaism are responsible for thousands of years of oppression of women and non-heterosexuals. Jewish feminists, both female and male, have, in the past 40 years or so, changed the way that we think about those roles and opened up ritual and social space for women. The concepts of Jewish womanhood and femininity have been critiqued and updated to reflect the needs and values of the contemporary Jewish community. But, to ask a question posed by Sarah Blustain in the current edition of Lilith (entitled “boys are the new girls”): “Did women’s lib by some incredible, ironical twist of fate, leave men confined?” It is time to revisit Jewish manhood and masculinity. This is just what Rabbi Bronstein had in mind when he started the Havura (click on link for an interview in Zeek of the topic).
It’s important to stress that a male critique of masculinity can be a feminist endeavor, as I believe the BJ Havura is. Daniel Boyarin, in his book Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man, quotes Tania Modleski to say that such a critique is feminist when “it analyzes male power, male hegemony, with a concern for the effects of this power on the female subject…” The very first meeting of the Havura, after a spirited Mincha service, we engaged in a Torah study, looking critically at models of manhood in the Chumash. Subsequent gatherings included a provocative discussion about sexuality and male-female relations with psychotherapist Esther Perel, author of the international bestseller, Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence.
As the cantorial intern at BJ, I co-facilitated all of last year’s Havura meetings, along with Rabbi Bronstein and Marshall T. Meyer Fellow Rabbi Ezra Weinberg, and I was at the committee meetings. As I see it, Marcelo and the Havura committee are seeking to meet the challenges of liberating Jewish men from the confines of inadequate gender roles and to create a spiritually relevant space for men. Meeting these challenges is certainly in the interest of Jewish women as well. To quote Blustain’s piece in Lilith again, “It may be the ultimate feminist undertaking in the coming decades to help men free themselves—and to demand that they do so in the ways that continue to free us as well.”
Now, this week’s event may not relate specifically to the issues raised above, but it serves another important goal: getting the target audience in the door. When asked last year by the Havura committee heads for a program idea that would interest my friends and get them to come to a Men’s Havura, I thought immediately about Dan Sieradski in dialogue with John Ruskay (a dynamic activist in his youth, and a BJ member). I figured it would pique the interest of my friends and like-minded young men – the group that is least represented at the Havura’s gatherings. From the excitement in the 84 responses posted so far, it seems that the program has done just that.
This month’s meeting of the Men’s Havurah at B’nai Jeshurun on December 19th will feature John Ruskay and Daniel Sieradski in a dialogue between the establishment and anti-establishment voices in the Jewish world today. Where are we? What’s needed? What are the generational divides?
John is the Executive Vice President and CEO of UJA-Federation of New York. Daniel was the founding publisher and editor-in-chief of Jewschool as well as blogs Radical Torah and Orthodox Anarchist.
This program will also include davening, schnappsing and socializing. For men only. For more information contact Naomi Goodhart: ngoodhart@bj.org. Saturday, December 19th, 5 pm – 7 pm, in Frankel Hall at the 88th Street shul. (Facebook event here.)
Fritz Silber-Baker and Caroline Rothstein, my favorite Yids of the award winning slam poetry team “The Intangible Collective,” will be performing as part of this Sunday’s 2nd annual Inside the Activists’ studio. (As you may have seen by the prominently placed ad or recent post, Jewschool is a cosponsor – that means we helped plan it and hope to see many of you there! We majorly endorse this event!)
Here’s a taste of Fritz and Caroline from a slam this summer. The recording quality isn’t amazing, but they say so many freakin’ profound and important things about the modern Jew’s struggle with identity and history that you may need to watch it a few times anyway.
Despite my undergraduate degree in English, I can’t say that I have much of an understanding of or enthusiasm for poetry. However, I do get excited about interesting Jewish cultural events, particularly those happening outside of New York (or, I suppose, Israel). So I was pretty excited to stumble upon this video of an event held in Seattle towards the beginning of October.
The event was called “And God Said, Come On Inside: An Evening of Queerly Spiritual Spoke Word & Storytelling,” put on by TumbleMe Productions.
The event organizers described the evening thus:
“And God Said, Come on Inside” will cast light (and shadow) on the complicated terrain of spirituality and religion for Queers, Perverts, Sinners, and Rebels of all Varieties. Featuring 13 performers in an intimate venue, the show promises to be prayerful, dirty, uplifting, hard-hitting, and (ir)reverent. Come prepared to be moved by spoken word, shifted by song, haunted by image, and reflected by moving mirrors.
While I might not get charged up by performance poetry, I can certainly get behind “prayerful, dirty, uplifting, hard-hitting, and (ir)reverent.” Anyone out there in Jewschool-land attend one of the performances and care to report back? Or better yet, who knows of upcoming off-beat performances out there in the wide world of Jewish culture? Share and enjoy.
I don’t what you’re doing over MLK weekend, but I’m gonna be at Limmud NY at a hotel in the Catskills with 700 Jews from every age bracket and every Jewish background imaginable–in short, I’ll be hanging out in the most diverse Jewish community I’ve ever heard of.
We’ll be eating, singing, learning, teaching, and just plain hanging out. On Friday night, we’ll choose from 10 different services in a variety of styles of observance and music. From Friday January 15-Monday January 18 we’ll be learning from some of the most engaging teachers we could dig up and many of us will be doing some teaching of our own.
Some of this year’s most exciting presenters include Adin Steinsaltz (yes, that Adin Steinsaltz), Sara Hurwitz (head of Yeshivat Maharat), Joel Chassnof (hysterical comedian), JT Waldman (creator of the comic book of Megilat Esther and developer of the JPS Tagged Tanach, and many, many more. You could become one of them by volunteering to present or teach or perform or do what ever it is you happen to do!
Limmud NY is where I met my first Jewschoolers and where I first got keyed into the idea that I might be able to live a Jewish life independent of large institutions and the “official” Jews. It is truly the most eye-opening event I’ve ever been to.
You can register here. If you’re from the NY area, you can register for a scholarship, but the deadline for guaranteed scholarships is Monday.
So…Simchas Torah. Lately, it’s become famous for being the #2 Jewish drinking holiday, but my past few Simchas Torahs have all been pretty clean events — festive and debaucherous in that wholesome way where we jump around with the Torah and sweat up our thrift-store suits until we’ve soo earned every penny of that $15 dry-cleaning visit.
And it’s not just me, I don’t think. People have been raving about G-dcast in a way that makes me blush like they’re saying how good I look, and it’s all positive and gung-ho in a way that appeals to 5-year-olds. And David’s post about the new Moses movie that probably will owe more to 300 than Charlton Heston…but making an action movie about the Torah is as close as Hollywood will probably ever come to a studying-books-can-be-cool movie as we’ll get.
This year, I went to San Francisco. I’d somehow managed to convince my ex-boss, David Levithan (who wrote the awesome Boy Meets Boy, as well as the so-indie-its-jeans-hurt Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist), to narrate for us. So we did V’Zot Habracha with a bang.
Then, of course — because some good things don’t have to come to an end — we did our real conclusion episode, and did Bereshit again. (There was a whole huge concert, and Elana Jagoda performed her alterna-folk-dancey children’s anthems, and Julie Seltzer talked about being a soferet, but mostly talked about her project baking a different challah for every parsha in the Torah, and we all just generally rocked out.)
And then the lights dimmed, and we rewound the Torah, and showed our final episode.
The New Shul is currently installing their new senior rabbi, and former assistant rabbi, Dan Ain. Being a congregation that revels in throwing off every vestige of what you might expect something with Shul in the name to be, they knew that they couldn’t simply have a luncheon and guest speaker and say, “Poof! Rabbi Dan has been installed.”
So they were attracted to the idea of a week-long art installation as the home of an ongoing installation festivity for Dan, who is currently installed behind the bar at the House of Awe and Repentence Cafe through Saturday, Sept. 26 every day from noon-8pm. Except for Thursday. That’s his day off. The Cafe is located on Manhattan in an otherwise vacant storefront at 13 E. 8th Street, somewhere between Broadway and the general NYU area.
Being as atypical as they can at every turn–and sometimes trying too hard–The New Shul appreciates Dan, a JTS grad who was once threatened with being ordained, but not given membership in the rabbinical assembly. As you might imagine, he quaked in his boots. He also ran intro trouble with the authorities at JTS repeatedly when he consistently refused the wear a kipah on the grounds that his female classmates didn’t have to wear one. Dan was behind the bar when I arrived, wearing white t-shirt with small, black text that said “Rabbi Dan.”
I don’t like Rosh Hashanah and I don’t like Yom Kipur. There are things I like about them–repentance (see Tshuvot!), shofars (see Where have all the shofarot gone? and Why I used a bullhorn last night) and pomegranates–but I have to admit that I’ve never been satisfied with either, no matter where I’ve been and no matter what my age.
So this year, I’m not going to go the same place twice during the season of repentance.
Though elements of each of these years of RH and YK have been fine, I’ve never been satisfied with the overall experience. Whether it has to do with where I go or with my willingness or unwillingness to repent remains to be seen.
I’ll begin tonight with Erev RH services at Chavurat Lamdeinu, my usual place of davening these days.
Tomorrow morning, I’ll be at a Unitarian Church where a certain gospel music composer I happen to know will be helping to lead a service that will incorporate a number of gospel tunes. As far as I can tell, this service is not listed anywhere online. If you’re interested in going, it’s at All Souls Unitarian Church between on Lexington between 79th and 80th at 10:30 a.m. Let me know if you’re gonna bet there so I can we can say hi.
If the gospel crowd isn’t doing a tashlich thing, I’ll head over to the Brooklyn Bridge or something else equally iconic and do tashlich.
On Sunday, I’ll kick off my ten days of repentance by heading into Manhattan for The New Shul‘s “The House of Awe and Repentance Cafe“, part of their new senior rabbi‘s season of installation festivities. It promises to be an art installation involving a variety of media and exploring the concept of repentance. Or something. We’ll see.
And, finally, for Yom Kipur day, I’ll skew more traditional than my norm for a change. As noted, I’ve skewed to the left before when I tried out the Reconstructionist shul, but I’ve never tried something more traditional than what I’m used to. To that end, I’ll be heading back in to Manhattan for Kehilat Hadar‘s traditional-egal take on YK. As one fellow refugee of the Reform mainstream recently told me, “I like Hadar for YK because that’s the one time in the year when I want to feel as frum as possible.” Yeah. We’ll see how I feel about that when I’m still standing around in services trying not listen to my stomach.
Expect posts throughout this season of renewal and repentance chronicling my High Holidays Sampler Plate Adventure.
A Gut Vokh oyf aykh un oyf kol Yisroel.
My most memorable sessions were led by Arthur Waskow’s Can Jewish Festivals Save the World, Shai Held’s sessions, Menachem Cohen’s How Not to Study Torah, Aaron Frankel’s Songs of Yehuda Halevi, Marc Belgrad’s Getting to God, and Mark Rothschild’s fascinating Prophets and Profits. I would have had more were I not ‘on duty’ in the prime mid-day hours. I heard raves about Asher Lopatin’s session on the Quran’s portrayal of the Akedah, the obligatory drum circle, Ruthie Gelfarb’s Introduction to Mussar, and many more.
radio613 is a collective and radio broadcast dedicated to Jewish politics, culture, and religious life. Diasporic tones find auditory homes through featured interviews, music, readings, discussion, and documentaries. Each week radio613 presents Jewish perspectives on religious/spiritual thought and practice, race and racism, gender and feminisms, anti-semitism, identity politics, colonialism and resistance… and more! 
Editor’s note: The following is a guest post from Yoni Stadlin, founding director of 
Tree-sitting has been effective in protecting huge groves and helping change many policies, but many of these ancient beauties have been logged nonetheless. Ninety-five percent of coastal redwoods in the northwest U.S. have been logged for making things like decks, playgrounds and tools. The practice of clear-cutting – leaving no trees standing – has turned huge, lush, vibrant and ancient redwood forests into eroded wastelands, destroying habitats, contaminating water, and massively increasing our species’ footprint on this planet.
This month’s meeting of the Men’s Havurah at B’nai Jeshurun on December 19th will feature John Ruskay and Daniel Sieradski in a dialogue between the establishment and anti-establishment voices in the Jewish world today. Where are we? What’s needed? What are the generational divides?
I don’t what you’re doing over MLK weekend, but I’m gonna be at 
And, finally, for Yom Kipur day, I’ll skew more traditional than my norm for a change. As noted, I’ve skewed to the left before when I tried out the Reconstructionist shul, but I’ve never tried something more traditional than what I’m used to. To that end, I’ll be heading back in to Manhattan for 
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