A little tempest in a teapot has apparently hit the ranks of the Conservative movement about the cover of the latest issue of Kolot (The Conservative Movement’s now-integrated magazine, including more or less all the different arms of the movement that used to have separate magazines).
The Jewish week showcased an internal spat between Kolot and some selected women rabbis who objected to the most recent cover which features a picture of two female arms holding hands whilst wearing tefillin. More »
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Wednesday, December 28th, 2011
It’s been a poor month for JNF as progressive upset continues to gather it negative attention. Voices inside and outside the quasi-governmental NGO have protested the dispossession of Bedouin in the Negev and Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
Two weeks ago, and after repeated calls for reason, JNF board member and pillar of the Arava Institute community Seth Morrison quit their board of directors and severed all ties with the organization:
My commitment to building a safe and secure Israel has not changed. My admiration for much of JNF’s environmental work has not changed. What has changed is a sense of betrayal I have at learning that JNF is a force in preventing long-term peace. More »
This is a guest post by Joelle Novey, Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, Rabbi David Shneyer, Jonah Adels, Phil Aroneanu, Laura Bellows, Lisa Jo Finstrom, Robert Friedman, Elizabeth Gaines, Johanna Galat, Richard Graves, Glenn Hurowitz, Joshua Kahn Russell, Lawrence MacDonald, Jeff Mann, Geri Maskell, Karen Menichelli, Sam Novey, Lore Rosenthal, Leslie Schwartz Leff, Harriet Shugarman, Joe Solomon, and Basia Yoffe, who were among 1,253 people arrested at the White House in August and September protesting the Keystone XL Pipeline.
We are Jewish folks who joined more than a thousand others in getting ourselves arrested in front of the White House this past summer protesting the Keystone XL Pipeline. Some of us are rabbis; many of us wore kippot that day; all of us did what we did because it felt, among other things, like a mitzvah.
Before the project was delayed last month, the pipeline would have carried crude oil from the Canadian tar sands across 1,700 miles and six states. The extraction of tar sands oil generates more heat-trapping climate pollution than other oil. Climate scientist James Hansen has said that fully exploiting the tar sands would essentially spell “game over” for our climate.
It would have been nice for us to know — as our Catholic, Methodist, Quaker, United Church of Christ, and Unitarian Universalist sisters and brothers knew — that our larger religious community supported our stand. But on the Keystone XL Pipeline, the major Jewish organizations were mostly silent. More »
The Forward just published Conservatives Grapple With Gay Wedding Rite. In an effort to create a typical news article conflict, it misses the bigger picture. Three Conservative rabbis were tasked to create a standard ritual for gay weddings. They tried to hew as closely as possible to the typical non-egalitarian ceremony with the goal of minimizing the differences between homo and heterosexual marriage rituals. While a valiant goal, many of the top decision makers in the Conservative movement (the other members of the Committee on Jewish Laws & Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly), thought the text didn’t work and asked the drafting group to make more radical changes to the text with the goal of a more egalitarian ritual. The only critique in the article that wasn’t from a Conservative rabbi is a quote from Jay Michaelson. I read a comment of Michaelson on Facebook where he said he was more supportive of this effort than his quote that ended up in the Forward article portrayed.
The draft text and suggested revisions are not publicly available so I can’t directly critique them. Still, we can discuss why this effort matters.
There are some great examples of couples doing intense study to create their own ceremonies. BZ has a great series on this. More and more resources are out there. For example, there is Danya’s Alternatives to Kiddusin.
There are still unnecessary barriers for people who want to use these rituals. Here’s the example from my heterosexual wedding (predating both BZ’s and Danya’s writings). We used a non-standard & more egalitarian Ketubah text. While the text was available, we couldn’t walk into most Judaica stores & buy an beautiful ketubah with this text pre-printed. We wouldn’t have even known this text existed if we didn’t have friends who adapted it for their own wedding. To use the text, we needed to contact the author, a total stranger named Aryeh Cohen, to get an electronic version of the text that the ketubah scribe could lay out and then hand inscribe. Even this modest change to a more egalitarian ketubah text required added effort and additional costs. Our discussions regarding variations on the ceremony didn’t go much beyond rings, who walks around who, and whether the object of value should be a ring or a banana.
While finding a wider range of rituals is slightly easier now, egalitarian hetero or homosexual wedding rituals that are rooted in Jewish history and tradition are still an elite decision for those who decide the extra work is worth it.
Conservative Rabbis and other Conservative leaders have long officiated at weddings using a variety of rituals. Some were performing gay commitment ceremonies or weddings before the Committee on Jewish Law & Standards (CJLS) said it was ok and more have done so afterwards. Still, officiants are all piecing together new ritual based on the work of others and their own research and innovations.
Perhaps someone else will correct me, but I think this is the first attempt by a major Jewish organization to create a single, standardized ritual for homosexual weddings. Standardized ritual can remove barriers. A CJLS approved ketubah text for gay weddings will be pre-printed in beautiful ketobot by more suppliers with non-fancy verisions sitting in more synagogue rabbis’ cabinets. New wedding rituals will be in Rabbis’ manuals next to guidance for other lifecycle events. If the new rituals end up being firmly anchored in Jewish texts and traditions, egalitarian, and flexibly gendered, they will see usage in heterosexual weddings whether or not that was the CJLS intention.
While standardization can sometimes decrease innovation, I think it is the opposite in this case. People who want to innovate wedding rituals will still do that. A new standard text just shifts the starting point, with an easily found and hopefully well documented and researched text.
Thanksgiving celebrators around the country, here ye. Amidst all your holiday planning and travel, and your decisions on how to spend “Black Friday,” please consider how you might conclude this festive weekend. On Saturday evening, Rosh Chodesh will be upon us. On Sunday morning it is traditional to give praise to the Most High. One way to do this is by Occupying Rosh Chodesh, as some of us are doing this Sunday at Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan. All are invited. For more information see below:
What is Rosh Chodesh? This Sunday November 27th we are entering into the darkest month of the year, Kislev. However, during the month of Kislev, we celebrate Hanukkah, the festival of light.
Why be Occupied with it? It’s easy to celebrate when life is pleasant, when victory has been achieved and when the weather is warm. Rosh Chodesh is a monthly celebration fueled by a historical memory of enslavement. No matter where we are in the struggle for freedom and justice, Jewish tradition commands us to find ways to join forces and sing together – to experience the feeling of what redemption will truly taste like.
How will we celebrate it? On the Thanksgiving Sunday, two days after Black Friday, we will welcome the Hebrew month of Kislev with song and praise. In contrast to the melodies used to urge us toward the season of ‘holiday shopping’ we will sing the traditional Hallel / songs of praise sung on Rosh Chodesh. As part of the service, there will also be a chance for some learning and reflection on how Rosh Chodesh connects to the wider Occupy movement. The whole service should last no longer than one hour.
Who is invited? We welcome people of all backgrounds, races, gender identities and religious/faith affiliations.
by chaneld1621 [➚] · Saturday, November 19th, 2011
It begins, as many things do these days, with a mic check, in a room full of well groomed, business casual clad young people, a kosher meat meal, and a speaker discussing the question of whether or not Jews are disproportionately high achievers, and why.
I’m sitting in a chair on the side of the room, watching the audience. Everyone else is in suits and skirts and stockings, with smooth hair and expensive shoes and bags. Per usual, I look like I fell off a turnip truck. Steven Pease, the speaker for the evening, has his back to me, and he’s talking about his book, The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement, to this group of Birthright Israel alumni in the Reunion space on West 13th street in Manhattan. It’s uncomfortable and ironic and thoroughly inappropriate that all this glorification of Jewish corporate success is happening simultaneously with Occupy Wall Street, and the people in the room seem unaware of this. Or worse, they are totally aware of it.
As I page through Pease’s book, I learn that Slim Fast, Nutri System, and Jenny Craig were all started by Jews, and before my brain can really get a good simmer on this problematic information, Liza Behrendt is standing up. “We are the Jewish 99%! And we’re calling all Jews nationwide to join in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street AND with the Palestinians who live under occupation every day!” Before she finishes, she’s being moved out the door by a security guard, yelling, along with other folks in the crowd, “Occupy Wall Street, not Palestine!”
Behrendt is a member of the Young, Jewish and Proud, the youth wing of Jewish Voice for Peace and Occupy the Occupiers, the group that organized this action. As she’s removed, members of the group pick up the mic check and continue to chant, until everyone is removed. The other attendees boo, and laugh (when one of the activists mentions the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza) and someone yells, “You’re hijacking this event!” Another person takes a paper from one of the YJP’ers and tears it. The organizers of the event are visibly shaken, but when everyone’s gone, Pease seems non plussed. He tells the audience that one of the people who was just removed was asking him earlier about his feelings on Occupy Wall Street. More laughter. Pease continues his talk as though nothing has happened. Outside, the group is continuing to shout, “Occupy Wall Street, not Palestine!,” and inside, we can hear them.
I get up to leave, so I can follow the YJP’ers, and when I stand, everyone looks at me, nervous, perhaps, that I’m about to start round two. I awkwardly elbow my way through the crowd, but when I get to the door, I’m stopped by two of the organizers of the event, one of whom I met last year, ironically enough, with the Birthright trip I was staffing at Independence Hall in Tel Aviv. She looks troubled. “Are you with those people?” she asks. “No,” I say. It’s not a lie-I’m not a member of JVP, or YJP, I’m a member of the press, but still, I feel gross about my answer. “Why do you want to leave?” the other organizer asks me. I tell her I want to follow them. “If you’re not with them, then why do you want to follow them?” “I want to hear what they have to say,” I say, and then they open the doors for me.
On the street, the YJP folks are talking. “I think it’s interesting that no one tried to counter chant us,” someone says. Another person says they had a conversation with an event attendee about how horrible Occupy Wall Street is. The group agrees to stay outside until the event is over. Chanting resumes. People on the street look and shake their heads, or smile and stand around and watch. A religious Jewish man stops and tries to engage the group about Arab terrorists, and doesn’t leave, not even when he’s rebuffed by everyone.
When the event is over, people trickle slowly out of Reunion. Members of YJP are handing out literature, but it doesn’t seem like anyone takes it. One man approaches the activists, who are chanting, and says, “Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with Birthright?” It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t really want to hear what people think is wrong with Birthright, he just keeps saying things like, “All you do is dump judgements, nothing of substance,” and referring to the folks as “self haters.” He stops talking to people eventually and goes to stand to the side, muttering and looking at his cell phone.
It’s like this for a while, YJP chanting, people coming out of the building and saying things like, “They don’t want to talk, they don’t even have jobs.” (Isn’t the point of Occupy Wall Street to talk about how people don’t have jobs?)
Liza tells me that her expectations for the event were met. “I’m glad that everything remained non violent,” she says, and she has that flushed, bright eyed look that comes with being in the middle of an action. “I’m a Birthright alumn, and it was the most important, politicizing experience of my life. I guess you could say I “birthed left.” I was there during Operation Cast Led, and the propaganda was very explicit. My tour guide referred to Arabs as mosquitos. There was a big effort to instill fear of Palestinians into us. It’s really satisfying to be in this space and occupy it, take it back. I feel like we were really successful.”
While folks are chanting, a young woman in a yellow shirt runs across the street to us and screams, “You douchebags don’t know shit about Israel!” She’s dancing, mocking. And then, suddenly, there’s hair pulling, and yelling, as this young woman manages to attack a Palestinian female member of the group. Things get broken up quickly, and no one ends up physically hurt.
“We are young, we are Jewish, and we are proud,” declares the group. “Who’s a Birthright alum?” Liza shouts. “Tell your story!” “I was told, you have to put your Jewish circle above all your other circles. Jews, non Jews, Palestinians, you are my circle!” Max says. “You can’t have a state that’s Jewish and democratic,” someone else is saying as I pack up to leave. “It’s just not possible.”
A few days later, I get an email from the organizers of the Birthright event, apologizing for the disruption and thanking everyone for remaining composed. “We are taking every measure,” the email says, “to make sure this does not recur.”
In an op-ed piece reworked from a speech delivered at the Jewish Federations General Assembly in Denver, Rabbi Elie Kaunfer of Mechon Hadar writes that:
Jews, like all people, are searching for meaning, substance and connection. The more we are inundated with e-mails, status updates and tweets, the more we want to go deeper. Our souls are calling out for engagement; our hearts are crying out to be opened.
Judaism, at its core, is a response to that yearning, an answer to that call. What are we “continuing” with our calls for “continuity”? Why does Judaism need a future? Because Judaism offers a system, a covenantal language, a heritage and tradition that responds to the human need for meaning, substance and connection. It is our system, our language, our heritage; it is relevant, and that is the reason that we need a Jewish future.
We Jews have a word for the pathway to meaning, substance and connection. It is called Torah. I don’t just mean the Torah scroll that sits alone in the ark, or even just the words of the five books of Moses. I mean the sum total of Jewish sources and texts — the wisdom stored up in our textual heritage.
Truth be told, not the biggest hiddush (original insight) but seriously brave considering the original audience. The Federation pretty much wrote the book of Jewish continuity for continuity’s sake. I was, however, especially happy to read this article after an experience this last Friday night which speaks loudly toward what Kaunfer is getting at. More »
The second third round of Jewish Community Heroes is well under way, the online email-collecting exercise by the Jewish Federations of North America. My excitement for participating in these types of online activities are always pretty minimal, in this case because I’m so ambivalent about the federation system itself. Such a powerful legacy, so many shortcomings. But between TribeFest and this effort, somebody there is taking good advice.
So in the spirit of playing along, here are nominees who I believe are heroes for their justice work combating racism, poverty and injustice. In no particular order and colored by my New York-tinted glasses: More »
Turns out rabbis aren’t quite obsolete after all. Rabbis for Human Rights -North America sent out a press release this morning that they are among this year’s Slingshot Guide to the most innovative Jewish organizations.
Not so buried in the press release: Rabbis lead eleven of the sixty organizations named by this year’s Slingshot Guide. Four of these organizations are new additions to the list this year. An additional two organizations were led by rabbis at the time of the application.
Many rabbis went to rabbinical school not necessarily because they were interested in leading congregations, but because they wanted to be leaders for change in the Jewish community, as well as in American and the world. It may well be that Jewish institutional life is not as synagogue focused as it was, but that shouldn’t make young Jews who want to drive moral leadership despair – there’s plenty of work to be done, and we see that the next generation of Jewish rabbinical leaders has turned in much the same direction as young Jewish leaders of all stripes – towards grassroots, entrepreneurial organizing. Maybe we’re all “Occupying Judaism” now. More »
We’ve alreadywritten about the Kol Nidre service that Jewschool founder Dan Sieradski organized at Occupy Wall Street, as well as the companion services at other Occupy events around the country. Other media took quite a bit of notice as well, including this rather shoddy Commentary piece:
Last week, a self-described “new media activist” posted a Facebook event page for a Kol Nidre service at the “Occupy Wall Street” protests. The turnout the event generated, as well as the discussion it has so far provoked, are deeply troubling trends that all who care about the Jewish future would do well to take seriously.
Aren’t we usually concerned that the Jews of today don’t care about being Jewish anymore? Yet when an event comes along that brings together hundreds of Jews on less than a week’s notice, it gets criticized because it’s too effective?
During the years, those whose politics tend toward the right have had to accustom themselves to the unthinking sanctimony of leftists who rage against any semblance of an alliance of religion and right-wing politics…
“Those whose politics tend toward the right” vs. “leftists.” Notice the difference in language? It’s an attempt to paint “those whose politics tend towards the right” as inherently more reasonable than those crazy “leftists.” Liberals are blinded by their rabid ideology, while conservatives hold informed and moderate beliefs.
Furthermore, what we liberals tend to object to is not the “alliance” of religion and politics. Rather, we object to the use of political power to advance a religious agenda. Occupy Yom Kippur is the opposite of that: it’s a call for political change based on religious beliefs about morality. Having religiously-based opinions on political issues is perfectly legitimate: it’s protected by the free exercise clause. Using political power to influence religious matters is prohibited by the same (or by the establishment cause, depending on the context).
It must be said there is of course justification to be found for specifically economic protests of a leftist variety in the prophets, perhaps most especially Isaiah. But it stretches truth far beyond the breaking point to claim such texts based on conditions in ancient Israel offer much guidance for the policy questions of our day…
Here’s a post on Commentary’s blog that describes Itamar, the settlement where the Fogel family was brutally murdered, as located in “Samaria,” “an area with biblical significance.” I expect Commentary will quickly correct that language, since it’s “based on conditions in ancient Israel” that don’t “offer much guidance for the policy questions of our day.”
Oh, and I found that post by searching “Samaria” on Commentary’s site. It was the top hit. Here are twomore recent articles from the first page of results where Commentary uses or expresses support for the biblical name for the territory now known as the West Bank.
Let their successes be few, and the passage of their movement from the American Jewish scene swift.
Seriously, I just can’t get over the pretension implicit in so much of the Jewish mainstream media. One minute they’re telling us all to stick together in the face of adversity, dire threats to Jewish peoplehood, and (gasp!) anti-Zionism. The next they’re condemning a Jewish grassroots movement that has a lot of people very excited. I understand that they disagree with the movement’s goals. That’s their right. But the condescension with which they approach it is reminiscent of, well, the rest of the mainstream media. In other words, they’re not exactly in good company.
Urgent question: Anyone out there have a concise statement about Occupy Wall Street that would be a show of solidarity with the protesters. I need one suitable for a rabbi to read to his/her congregants on Kol Nidre this coming Friday night. The Collective Statement of the Protesters is a powerful manifesto, but the strong tone of confrontation on a night that stresses self reflection does not feel in the spirit of vidui (confessing sins) and forgiveness. If a well crafted statement that acknowledges the galvanized efforts of people around the country around the issues of economic justice and corporate responsibility exists, it should find its way to many pulpits this Yom Kippur.
Zak Braiterman has penned a strong indictment of the Tikvah Fund. In a long essay he connects the dots and fisks the public organ of Tikvah—The Jewish Review of Books. Zak’s essay articulates the fear that many of us had articulated in private conversations but had not done the leg work. Here is the punch line:
No one of us is free from ideological bias and no one contests the right of anyone inside or outside the academy to pursue this or any other ideological agenda. The argument is that the Tikvah Fund enters the university without proper respect for the rules of open transparency that a university ideally embodies. The Tikvah Fund acts as an interloper by setting up closed shops inside the university under the guise of misleading mission statements. Surely, any set of principles and practices should be subject to the free exchange of ideas and open argument. The intertwining of money, ideological content, and university life is one that needs to be examined much more forthrightly by all of us who seek to negotiate the creative lines between public political life and the critical and self-critical exploration of ideas inside and outside the university.
I posted about the Jewish Futures Competition a few weeks ago. It asks how Jewish life, living and learning will change as we move to a society in which individuals are not only consumers of information and culture, but also producers of their own and others’ experiences. I think the question has it wrong. There never was such a divide between Jewish consumers and producers.
If you tried to picture the upbringing of a Jewish producer, it wouldn’t be mine. My formal Jewish education consisted of synagogue supplemental school, one year of Jewish Summer camp, and one college class. I have been an active participant in Jewish programming wherever I’ve lived. Does this make me a Jewish consumer?
I was elected to a synagogue board of directors at the age of 26. How did someone in the famously non-joining age group get on a synagogue board? They asked me to serve, and I said yes. When I moved to a new city, I helped start parent-led Shabbat services for preschoolers in my new synagogue, using the approach, designed by my previous community. Now that I have a child entering kindergarten, I’ve been working with several other families and Jewish professionals to organize a 4-5 day per week Jewish afterschool program that will provide robust Jewish learning (mixed in with a lot of play time) during hours when many children are already in supervised afterschool programs. More than fifty families in our community have already expressed interest in this program.
So when did I switch from a consumer to a producer? The answer is the same as it has always been. A Jewish consumer is someone who hasn’t (yet) found the motivation and outlet to produce. If you chose to be involved in a Jewish community you are a producer. You don’t need any title or degree to lead prayer. The lifeblood of Jewish organizations from Federations to minimally structured minyanim are the volunteers who step forward to inspire and organize.
So, what inspired the original question? Most Jewish producers have been hyper-local. Our synagogue walls are filled with plaques honoring our predecessors, whose devotion, ideas, and energy created these communities. Sadly, few people outside their own communities would recognize these names. Technology is shrinking the barriers that kept local voices local and expanding the types of communities that are possible. A good idea, adapted by one community, can spread well beyond the word of mouth of the members of that community. What looks like more consumers becoming producers is really local producers starting to grasp the possibilities of a larger network.
So, take my collaborators’ efforts to create an aftercare program as an example. We’ve identified and compiled detailed information from similar establishedandemergingprogramsacross the country in just a few months. We’ve gotten advice from Jewish educators working across the country and down the block. People I’ve never met are writing to me offering to help or asking about potential jobs.
Personally, I’ve gone from the biography above to a commentator and published author on Jewish institutions and education in half a year.
Even though individuals can do more, institutions still matter. To launch our aftercare program, we’re collaborating with threelocalsynagogues who have offered classroom space and we’re trying to collaborate with others. People inside and outside the professional Jewish world have given us their time and money. Our local Partnership for Jewish Life & Learning is giving us advice and a small grant for our preparatory year. Programs like ours can’t succeed in a vaccuum.
What does this mean for the future? The increasing number of voices bringing innovation to national Jewish living and learning is a good thing. Good ideas don’t all need to come from our Federations, academic programs, and other Jewish institutions, but our institutions will need to adapt. They must figure out where centeralized support is needed and where networks of local producers can do things better and cheaper on their own. This will require the broader Jewish community to significantly re-evaluate the ways we distribute and share resources and to better understand the technology tools that are strengthening our producers. I can’t tell you the best way to do all this, but I look forward to being part of what happens next.
Thumbs up to the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism for their Project Reconnect, which seeks “to reinvolve, reinvigorate, and reconnect the very many Jewish adults who were touched by the Conservative movement’s programs for teenagers, college students and young adults.”
And a double thumbs up for its Come Home for the Holidays initiative, which offers free High Holiday tickets to young adults who grew up in the Conservative movement. It’s great to see Conservative Judaism taking outreach seriously.
But a thumbs down for their gratuitous use of Hebrew jargon.
The Jewish Futures conference is holding its second annual competition. The basic idea is that you create a 4-minute YouTube video or written document that addresses their topic of the year. This year, that topic is: “The Jewish Prosumer: The Move from Consumer to Producer in Jewish Life and Learning.” They want people to address, “How will Jewish life, living and learning change as we move to a society in which individuals are not only consumers of information and culture, but also producers of their own and others’ experiences?”
I figure some of the readers here might have opinions about this topic, why the shift is happening, or even if it is happening.
Beyond the warm feeling you get from sharing ideas with others, the winners will get $1800, an expenses-paid trip to the Jewish Futures Conference at the General Assembly of Jewish Federations of North America in Denver on November 7-8, and the chance to pitch your ideas to a high profile room full of potential donors and supporters at the conference.
You can read the competition guidelines and rules here. The submission deadline is August 27th.
The contest is sponsored by the Jewish Education Project and JESNA’s Lippman Kanfer Institute, and hosted by Jewish Federations of North America. I’m curious to see what comes out of this and might submit something myself.
The admirable project of a social media extravaganza to engage the Jewish demos in picking the Los Angeles federation’s next idea to revolutionize Jewish life has reached fruition! Thank God! We’ve been waiting so long to discover what the next revolution in Jewish thinking is: Jewish spam. The “LaunchBox,” formerly “Jewww in a Box,” is essentially an upgrade from federation spam to federation-sponsored kiruv. How very web 2.0, all hail the wisdom of crowdsourcing, halleluyah. You can read the description as it bends over backwards trying to explain why this is big, new, or innovative.
Seriously, I can’t fault the LA federation for picking a practical winner whose project they could implement immediately and one that would contribute to their everyday work. Mazel tov to Batsheva Frankel on her success, it’s a fine idea. But, personally, I feel the hype and slogan just don’t justify the final product.
Both of these articles have a familiar tone: “What a bunch of whiners Jews today are!” And to some extent, there’s something to be said for that. In the shabbat meals article, towards the end, Rabbi Rebecca Joseph comments, “This is a problem of an affluent society and an affluent group within that society.” Again, true. Indeed, homeless Jews, poor Jews and Jews struggling to make ends meet aren’t going to be picky about what is served to them at a shabbat meal – or any other (I was reminded of recently rereading the book Rachel Calof’s Story about a Jewish woman who emigrated from Russia to be a pioneer bride, and while they certainly cared about kashrut, which is demonstrated throughout the book in various ways, when her husband comes home with a tin labeled herring and it turns out to be pickled pigs feet.. well, she doesn’t say that they ate, but she certainly hints at it. When there’s no other food, you eat what there is).
Nevertheless, there’s a certain oddity about these two articles. For example, let’s take the shabbat meals article: The title is, “With increasingly particular eaters, Shabbat meals get tough.” And yet, that isn’t actually the sense I get at all from the actual content of the article – let alone from my personal experiences. More »
This post is the first in several dedicated to an analysis of Jewish Jumpstart’s 2010 survey and report, “The Innovation Economy: An Emerging Market for Knowledge and Social Capital.” Watch the presentation of it from June 6th at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles:
Jewish Jumpstart released the 2010 survey results for the “Jewish innovation economy,” their term for the burst of Jewish social entrepreneurship within the past few decades. Tracking the characteristics of this field and championing its needs are a passion of mine, since this is the Jewish community that I love and nurture. Certainly the part that makes me enjoy being Jewish. More »
A little tempest in a teapot has apparently hit the ranks of the Conservative movement about the cover of the latest issue of Kolot (The Conservative Movement’s now-integrated magazine, including more or less all the different arms of the movement that used to have separate magazines). 
The 
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