Onion gets hacked by Syrian propagandists, responds with funny article. The Onion got hacked, sending out a bunch of nonsense tweets such as:
To which they responded with their usual aplomb. HT BoingBoing
And here’s a kickstarter to translate for what sounds like a completely fascinating book. I can’t wait to read it.
If you can read Yiddish literature only in English translation, Joseph Opatoshu’s 1921 novel, In Poylishe Velder (In The Forests of Poland),is one of the most important works of world literature with which you’re probably unfamiliar. A vast panorama of Jewish life in Poland during the 1850s, Opatoshu’s novel concentrates on backwoods Jews who live among gentile peasants rather than in Jewish communities in cities or shtetlekh. Touching as it does on hasidism, heresy, pre-Christian Polish folk customs, wife-swapping, messianism, and Polish nationalism, this book will change the way you think about Jewish life in Poland. Those parts not set in the forests or on the road take place in the court of the Rebbe of Kotzk, the last of the classical hasidic leaders. The Rebbe and his court are portrayed so convincingly that even members of the book’s original audience often forgot that they were reading a novel and not an intimate history of hasidism in Kotzk. It’s the price that Opatoshu had to pay for writing some of the best prose ever published in Yiddish.
Of course, I consider myself the last of the Kotsker Hasidim, so perhaps it’s just me.
I don’t know these people at all. I just stumbled across this on Facebook. But I’m charmed and want to make sure they get the additional two grand they need in the next day to make this go. Don’t be a hazzer! Contribute!
THIS looks awesome. Finally, an event that appeals to Jews who speak Ladino, Jews who speak Yiddish and Jews who speak neither. Its inclusive of all, and even caters to, literally, the kosher set with delicious dainties from the kitchen of Leah Koenig.
Yes, whether you like baklava or babka, this 1st Non-Annual Festival of Pan-Judeo Music and Pastries has something for you. It features the three major streams of Jewish culture and geography- the Mediterranean Sephardi, the Eastern European Ashkenazi and the ubiquitous New York Indie.
The Sephardic rock of Delon and the power pop of Yiddish Princess will be paired with pastries from those respective traditions by acclaimed food writer Leah Koenig. In a city rich with festivals, this is the one you can’t afford to miss.
I’m a secret fan of Food Network’s Chopped, and recently between episodes discovered a weird sister show focused on dessert called Sweet Genius. Its eponymous, singular judge and host is a weird and kooky cross between Willy Wonka and Dr. Evil. Get it- Evil Genius, Sweet Genius? Yeah well the show is filled with the same odd humor… Its pretty ridiculous, but I admit its better than watching Cupcake Boss, whose name doesn’t even have a pun… The show has its fans and deriders, but mostly I think it has addicts to its quirkiness.
There was always something odd about the Sweet Genius himself. His flamboyant style hinted at his being gay, but unless you knew his name is Ron Ben Israel, his Austrian accent never would have outed him as a Tel Aviv born-Jew. Of course, his Viennese mother might have something to do with that, as well as giving him knowledge of delicate European style confections, which appeared in Martha Stewart, Vogue and many food pron books before the New York Times named him “the Manolo Blahnik of cakes.”
In 1999 he opened Ron Ben-Israel Cakes in New York’s SoHo neighborhood with one oven and one mixer. As people fled downtown New York after the 9/11 tragedy, he was able to capitalize on lower rents and expand his operation.
Coming from a secular Israeli upbringing, Ben-Israel wasn’t ideologically interested in making his shop kosher, but for a caterer for some of New York City’s biggest hotels, it was a prudent business decision.
He chose OK Laboratories, the Chabad-affiliated kashrut organization headquartered in Brooklyn, which now certifies his shop’s pareve cakes.
After serving in the IDF in the 70′s , he studied dance and pursued a Ballet career that eventually brought him to NYC, where while working odd jobs to make rent he discovered baking.
Its 48 hours before Pesach, and having read ”The Year of Living Biblically”, I’m preparing a lamb to meet its end so that I can smear its blood on the lintel of my door… What’s that? I don’t have to do that? Okay, the neighbors will be so relieved…
I will still have to rid myself of my chametz, however, as I can not possess or own any during Pesach. Before I engage in Bedikas Chametz, the search for chametz, I simply open my pantry- BAM! Bits of cereal at the bottom of the box. Legumes of all shapes and sizes, pasta and so on and so forth. On to the fridge. I half-eaten kugel from last week. Some fruit salad. Cheese slices. Egg Beaters.
Anyone else find themselves snarfing down whatever odds and ends remain the week before Pesach? Some people hate Passover cuisine. After a week of leftover crumbs, I’m ready to tear into Matzah. Whatever is sealed, I sell through a duly appointed process involving a Rabbi, pretzel logic and a certain number of he-goats and zuzim.
Those who do not avail themselves of the Rabbinic end-around of selling it on contract for a week with an option to an agreeable gentile have three options. 1. Keep your chametz and incur the wrath of the almighty and the sneers of neighbors. 2. BURN IT!
WOO HOO! Let’s burn everything in sight! It’s like Black Rock but with Bread! Its PAN-demonium! After all, we wont have another huge bonfire for 40 days when its Lag B’omer so let’s have a Biscuit Inferno! Cue the Music!
But wait, isn’t burning things bad, like crossing streams in ghostbusters? And can’t we do something with that stuff? There may be some excellent items sitting around. A bag of flour. A whole cake. A loaf of bread. Peanut Butter. Perfectly good food. Option 3: Donate.
In the Hagaddah we’re instructed Kol Difcheen- let all who are hungry come and eat. So how about it then? Donate your Chametz. You wont miss it. Fine, keep that bottle of Blanton’s, but the rest? Drop it at your local food pantry. Many congregations have a system set up for this. And in Israel, Modi’in’s Biur Hametz Project is coordinating the distribution of hametz to needy African refugees and migrant workers. That sounds so much more sensible.
It could be given to other as well. In Morocco, it was apparently the custom to give Hametz to one’s Arab or Berber neighbors. The Muslim neighbors would then repay the favor by supplying the pastries for the Mimouna festival at the end of Pesach. Such a healthy symbiotic way to coexist. Maybe that’s fantasy and maybe there’s a broader lesson. But in the interim, donate your your Hametz. To paraphrase Monty Python, BRING OUT YOUR BREAD! (to which the matza replies, I’m not quite bread yet…)
Those who are familiar with the oddities of the Jewish calendar may be aware that a largish holiday begins tomorrow night (called Passover). Fewer people may be aware that on the second night of Passover begins… well, it’s not a holiday exactly, but it is a holy period, called the Omer.
Beginning the second night of Passover, every adult Jew is supposed to count off the 49 days (seven times seven weeks) that make up the period between Passover and the holiday of Shavuot, the holiday of the giving of the Torah. I have to say, it’s a bit of a pain. Not he counting, which is fine, but remembering to count properly, keeping track of which day it is, and so on. It’s enough of a difficulty that the Jewish legal code has instructions about what to do if you forget to count at the right time, or for a full day. You’ve got to count every day, or you lose your obligation to say the full blessing as you count.
The counting itself is a lovely tradition: each of the weeks represents one of seven traits of God, as does each day, so one develops a spiral of thoughts throughout the counting period (for example the trait of strength during the week of mercy… consider what that might mean as we approach the giving of the Torah… etc.)
Well, I decided that the best way to do this would be a sort of advent calendar, with little treats each day as you opened up the proper box to say the blessing for that day (hey, why should Christians get all the calendar fun?). At one time, I thoght the best way to do this would be through carpentry, but it’s been some time since I had any access to the proper tools,a dn I just didn’t want to wait anymore this year, so for pretty cheap I made one out of things that one could glue together – namely cardboard, cardboard, and , uh, some glue and glitter paper.
Almost everything came from the container store, and it took me about three days to make (including some glue drying time. Not labor intensive, but pretty sturdy anyway).
I’m happy to share instructions with anyone who wants to build one. I used a hard cardboard ornament storage box and three by three folded gift boxes (seven of which fit perfectly across, although you need two ornament boxes cut to size and glued together to get the height as only five rows tall fit, if you pop open the top edge of the ornament box).
The numbers for the days (written out in blue in Hebrew letters) as well as the blessing on the inside (which has the blessing, the day and date – in other words, everything you need for each day… no looking anything up!) are printed on clear sticky labels cut to size.
For your delectation:
(Not sure why the blessing box is shown on its side, just ignore that, it opens upwards (although you can make yours open any direction you want, of course)
I don’t think I”m quite done decorating it – obviously this is pretty simple, but the plus is that the boxes make it so that magic marker will write on them perfectly nicely, so if I go for color, that’s probably the way I’ll go. Stickers work fine too, but I’ll probably eventually go for a large picture that covers the entire front face of the Omer Counter. Happy counting!
Sometimes I come across videos on YouTube that I simply can’t resist sharing with you all here.
Today, I present Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme singing the hits of Israel:
I wish I had grown up in a time when this is what Zionism sounded like. I wonder if we’ll achieve a time when Zionism can once again sound like this. May it come speedily and in our time.
A while back I wrote about Kabbalah Vodka. Made with ‘real Christian babies,’ each bottle featured a glass sculpture in the bottle. Odd, but at least creative.
Now comes L’Chaim Vodka. I’ve worked in the liquor industry, and this one leaves me scratching my head. Forget for a minute that unadulterated spirits don’t even need a hechsher…
“Nestled between Jerusalem, Nazareth, Tel Aviv, and Haifa, you will find Or Akiva. It is within these scenic hilled terraces and river channels that we draw our natural spring water and ingredients to produce the highest quality vodka product in all of Israel. We invite you to enjoy the taste and celebrate.”
There are quality Vodka products made in Israel? Huh. Is this for realz? Is it Jewsploitation? I can’t tell. Its website makes no attempt to extoll the virtues of the product, preferring instead to extoll the virtues of its creator. A true exploitative product would boast of multiple distillations using the grains of matzah meal, water sourced from the same pure rain as Mikvahs and being filtered 5 times through the beards of Gedolim…
“It’s pure ingredients and distillation process and recipe is based on a formula handed down through several generations of European and Russian Jews, resulting in a slightly spicy flavor profile with vanilla aromas., L’chaim sources its own spring water shunning any filtering and de-mineralization treatments.”
From what I know, vodka is not supposed to have a flavor profile… or an aroma… And the product is being made not by Russian Jews but a man named Mizraji… I’m not sure what to make of this- it might be truly great. At least it looks sorta sexy. The nightlife, that frosted bottle. Mmmm… But I’m not losing objectivity here.
I can say this for sure: we at Jewschool will not know for certain until we’ve tried it. At least twice. We will not rest until we get to the bottom… of a bottle… We call on the makers of LChaim Vodka to offer proof (100 proof to be exact) of their product’s quality and eagerly await a case for uh, critical purposes…
I don’t begrudge all the earnest folks who do good work for the jooz. I even like when they are all named to important lists. Like Slingshootz. And the Forvertz 50. And the Joozish Week 36-24-36. Etc. Etc. Etc. But I begz your pardon, what’s with this Jewish Community Zeroes thingy? All the issues of teh femalez aside teh questionz iz, ‘Wasnt this whole thing just a clever tactic for JFNA* to collect several hundred thousand emailz of teh young Jooz? *(not their real name, which is much longer and is never to be abbreviated even to save space)
Honoring movers and shakers doing good work on behalf of (or for) the Jooz in the areas of:
Social and economic justice and do-gooding
Peace (in Israel and elsewhere, except Iceland)
Jewish culture (whatever that is)
Spirituality (‘specially the touchy feel-y sort)
Inclusivity (Pluralist, Racial, Gender and all that ‘faggy’ stuff)
Media (it is the message after all, liek this blog)
Other things we hate but have to include.
Step one: We announce the contest and make it sticky on the site. (check)
Circulate it via email, blogosphere and intertubes. (need your help here)
Develop snarky but slick logo that looks Obama-esque (uh, check?)
Step two: Nominations accepted via form submission on the website
Post facebook event/app/group/widget to redirect voters to jewschool.com
Be sure that heads of major Joowish organizations and entities iz nominated.
Also, anyone with a huge email/twitter/facebook following…
Note that femalez iz welcome to apply but will not be winnerz
(cuz they iz too stoopid… naw, cuz they all already iz heroz- hi mom!)
Step three: Inform all nominees they are finalists. Because they are all special.
To be named a 36, they must encourage their supporters to vote for them
(and be popular).
Votes are accepted via hosted form, which collects their name, locale,
email, etc.
Step four:
Announce winners of the cheerleading squad via press release, youtubz
and facespaces.
Compile voter list into email database and announce winners via email list
Solicit their financial support, just for shirtz and gigglz
step five:
Use the email list for our own purposez: to give all teh kittehz cheezburgerz er- Kosher tofu-parve cheezburgers..!
Muuuuhahahahahaha!!!! I eatz it up. I laffs at u. More »
Eight more states – DE, HI, MD, MA, NH, NY, RI, WI – have primary elections this week. (Hawaii’s is on Yom Kippur – DOHT!) Have you fallen into the trap of praying for peace and prosperity but haven’t checked your local polling location?
Rock the Mitzvote reminds you to get off your tuchas and get out there. Use their free High Holidays e-card to encourage everyone you know in these 8 states to hit the polls – let’s pray with our feet, people!
Aside from the occasional women’s Torah commentary, Jews mostly just have commentaries with no special emphasis or purpose other than to commentate.
But I was in a bookstore today and was struck by the incredible proliferation of weird Christian bible commentaries, or study bibles, as most were labeled. I wrote down some of my favorites:
The Urban Devotional Bible
James Earl Jones Reads the Bible (audio book, appropriately reading from the King James Version)
The Bible in Varsity Colors (I’m in Austin, TX, so I assume the bright orange of the cover was intended to be burnt orange, though it clearly was not )
God’s Game Plan: The Athlete’s Bible
AXIS: A Study Bible for Teens
The Teen Study Bible (is AXIS the evil version of this one?)
The Word of Promise Next Generation New Testament Dramatic Audio Bible (this one was read by an “all-star cast” including the likes of Sean Astin, the black kid from High School Musical and an old American Idol winner)
The Rhyming Bible
The Adventure Bible
The Maxwell Leadership Bible (is this like the hagadah?)
God’s Word for Students with Stylish Prism Cover
Etc.
On the one hand, I found most of these rather laughable. On the other hand, I found myself wondering seriously if we Jews are missing out on something here. Is the fact that we don’t have all of these specialized biblical commentaries just a function of our relative market share?
I can only imagine the pitch meeting: “What if the Swedish Chef was a Zionist?” “But the Swedish Chef is kind of a psycho, totally unaware of the havoc he’s wreaking on everyone around him while he’s trying to make his meal.” “Exactly! It’s perfect!”
I’ll admit, after watching the first one I stumbled across (“Jew Bread“), I turned to my office-mate and asked if she tell whether this was anti-Semitic or Zionist. After watching a few more, I think the answer is clearly “both.”
It’s like a train wreck… Each clip I watch repulses me in new and different ways, but I can’t look away…
So the the question is… who’s funding/making/distributing these?
Before I get to the actual review of the Indie Yeshiva Pocket Siddur, it bears outlining some basic of my basic beliefs about Jewish prayer and how to make Jewish prayer accessible.
What is beautiful about Jewish prayer is the strucutre-poetry. There is the micro-poetry of the words, which is all well and good, but what’s so amazing, is the coherent structure of Jewish prayer, the macro-poetry. If you teach a Jew the strucutre, you can hang whatever you want on it and they will see the beauty in any service in any synagogue in the world.
PunkTorah, the organization responsible for this new entry into the siddur market, the Indie Yeshiva Pocket Siddur, begins from a different premise. Apparently, they believe that what is needed to make the siddur comprehensible to Jews in the pews is a punkification. They have punkified the siddur in two detectable ways. First, they have put a silly punk-looking cover on it. Second, they have stated in the introduction that they are punkifying it:
Who Are We?
Indie Yeshiva is a project of PunkTorah, a force for change by creating open source Jewish education…
I followed links from The Beat to Fantagraphics back to PLOG (The Presspop Blog) just so I can share with you this image of the vinyl sample of the forthcoming Presspop statuette of Jewish beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg.
I desperately want one for my new office.
(I was a totally good kid in high school, but the one time I ever skipped school was to attend one of Ginsberg’s final poetry readings.)
Since we’re ecumenical folks around here, and since Tefillin Barbie is such an old friend of ours,
I thought it might be nice to note that a woman named Julie Blake Fisher has created a whole wardrobe of Episcopal Priest Barbie gear. She comes with a Roman-style cassock,
an alb and stole,
I imagine that Tefillin Barbie and Episcopal Priest Barbie have all sorts of great conversations about various interfaith issues. It wouldn’t surprise me if they also commiserated on how annoying it is, as women of faith, to feel like they have to maintain that polite smile all the time.
With more than just a simple hat-tip to Judaican’t, the, uh, amazing patented ElijahDrinks Cup! (Post-seder sale on now!)
And to think my parents made do with a simple kick to the table, causing the full cup to splash down onto the saucer and, wow!, less wine in the cup! Eliyahu drank! Yeesh, clearly I missed out on the magic!
Jeremy Moses of MyJewishLearning just took it upon himself to break the world record for matzah eating. (Disclaimer: before he tried, there was no world record for matzah eating.)
Every year at seder, we’re supposed to eat the entire 2/3 of a piece of matzah (okay, that’s if you’re eating shmura matzah — 1 entire sheet, if you go by the machine-made *ahem* cheating *ahem* kind) in one action, without swallowing. Add that to the fact that you’re not supposed to have eaten matzah at all in the past 30 days…Well, if you can get it down in one gulp, you’re kind of a hero.
(Jeremy also wants me to add that, when he was practicing, he did it much faster than he did on the video. So there.)
I’m a secret fan of Food Network’s Chopped, and recently between episodes discovered a weird sister show focused on dessert called 
But I begz your pardon, what’s with this 
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