Drifting around Manhattan a week ago, out of my usual haunts, I decided to ghost my way into Brooklyn to hang out with Matthue at the first Jewish Open Mic at the Tea Lounge. As promised, there were celebrity guests and a good time was had by all.
The Tea Lounge was very cozy, and comfortably fit far more people than you could be given to expect, and lots of locals popped in, apparently astounded by the odd mix of frummies, and hippies - not to mention babies being prepped for a life of rebellion - with tzitzit.
It was very cool to see quite a few of our favorite folks in person (not least our very own Matthue Roth and Y-Love)! Thanks to Shemspeed and Mimaamakim for putting out. Er, sponsoring.
BY the way, we now have evidence that at least two frummies are funny. We already knew that Yisrael Campbell is funny (he was funny even before he was Yisrael) and now we know that Frum Satire is, too. BTW, what’s with all the guys channeling Henny Youngman? Is that the new retro-chic? And when’s the next one?
Editor’s note: The next open mic will be July 23rd at 7:30pm tea lounge. Get there early to sign up on the list to perform!
A Jewschool shout-out to our friends and readers who did the Hazon Bike to the Beach this past Sunday morning — folks from Jersey, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens bicycled down to Coney Island for food, fun and more sustainable world for everyone. Click the pic for the photos.
If you’ve not already heard of it, check out the upcoming NY Jewish Environmental Bike Ride and go as rider or crew, enjoy the weekend Shabbaton and bike two days to downtown Manhattan from Connecticut the Upper Hudson Valley all on your own power, with beginners and veterans alike.
Dudes and dudettes, I’m stoked to announce a project that’s been long coming and is now fit for public announcement — Balkan Beat Box is going to play the 13th annual New Generations Benefit, the marquee event for New Israel Fund’s young leadership gang!
All the official bladdy blah aside (see below the fold), I’ve been on the Benefit Committee for this event before and really I cannot stress how empowering and fun this cluster of people and purposes is. It’s 500 folks in their 20s and 30s, totally excited to put a few bucks down for some raffles and auctions, a great party, and (this year) one of the most rockin’ bands from the Israeli scene.
It’s empowering because all the money goes to social change in Israel. If you’re an activist doing social change work in Israel, chances are your org got it’s founding grant from NIF, currently gets NIF money, or gets consulting from NIF’s 100-person training wing, Shatil.
I had the chance to interview the Israel-side staff of Shatil and NIF, who really shocked me with some numbers. What’s stunning is that, I shit you not, nobody in the funding world is supporting grassroots orgs in Israel like NIF. You’d think the OJC could send even half of NIF’s $28 million a year. But they’re not.
Ed Koch, the irascible former mayor of New York City, has purchased a burial plot in Trinity Church, the only uptown cemetery still accepting burials. According to the Times (of course!) Says Koch, “The idea of leaving Manhattan permanently irritates me.â€
The Times reports:
Mr. Koch also said he had ordered a tombstone to “adorn my grave upon my death, which I hope won’t be for another 8 to 10 years.â€
Carved on the tombstone is the most important prayer in Judaism, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,†in English, Hebrew and a transliteration, and the last words of the journalist Daniel Pearl before he was murdered by Islamic terrorists: “My father is Jewish; my mother is Jewish; I am Jewish.â€
…I called a number of rabbis to see if this was doable,†he said. “I was going to do it anyway, but it would be nice if it were doable traditionally.â€
He said he had been advised to request that the gate nearest his plot be inscribed as “the gate for the Jews,†and the cemetery agreed.
He was also instructed to have rails installed around his plot, so he ordered them.
Being buried in Manhattan, Mr. Koch said, would also make it easier for former constituents to visit.
“I’m extending an open invitation,†he said.
Although the plot is non-denominational, I am very struck by this irony, of someone declaring his Jewishness by… buying a burial plot in a churchyard, and then declaring it “the Gate of the Jews.”
He is spending a lot of money on a place where his remains will be, but I wonder, what could that money have done for the Jewish community.
Speaking more generally, I have often been struck when doing funerals, by how odd it is that people who aren’t particularly interested in being active in the Jewish community while alive want to be buried by a rabbi, after it can’t make much of difference any more. There’s some odd niggle that I can’t quite put my finger on about people who want to be Jews in their deepest moments, but who don’t do Jewish. On this day of gevurah in gevurah, it seems to me that we need to be asking how to make our American Jewish sisters and brothers think about being Jewish as something which is more than a -meaningful, perhaps, but only a - hobby, something to be done for one’s own satisfaction, at one’s own convenience, but not to interfere with the business of life.
Perhaps some of you out there in blogoland can get at that niggle better than I.
On New Israel Fund’s Yom Haatzmaut season line up: instigator Bernard Avishai, satirist Sayed Kashua, NIF’s first International Town Hall web cast, and a benefit dinner celebrating out going NIF chairman Peter Edelman, featuring Seymour Hersch Calvin Trillin of The New Yorker and friends.
I highly have to recommend Sayed Kashua — writer and producer for the Israeli sitcom Arab Labor, Haaretz columnist, and author of two books of great Israeli fiction – at the JCC in Manhattan on May 16. A full Shabbat dinner, a little irreverent humor about being brown and Israeli, and the folks of New Israel Fund’s New Generations plus the JCC’s Other Israel Festival. RSVP here, $36 $28. A sample of Sayed’s satire posted here.
I’m not the most knowledgable about agunot, women seeking divorce by orthodox law and unable to get it, meaning in Israel there are all sorts of civil and legal consequences, but it’s a subject that fascinates me. Haaretz and NYTimes both covered the issue last month.
Attorney Susan Weiss, founder of Yad L’Isha and the Center for Women’s Justice, is speaking in NYC on April 10th, 7:30 pm on the Upper West Side. Fighting for Agunot (”Chained” Women) in Israel’s Religious Courts, RSVP to New Israel Fund for location details.
A few blocks from where I live in Park Slope, a young Chabad Rabbi was surprised to have his kippah swiped:
A New York teenager is being charged with aggravated harassment as a hate crime after allegedly stealing a Wellesley rabbi’s yarmulke in a Brooklyn subway station last week. Rabbi Uria Ohana, 25, a rabbinical assistant at the Wellesley-Weston Chabad Center, had just entered a Park Slope subway station at 4th Avenue and 9th street at 6:20 p.m. on March 18 when he felt someone grab his yarmulke.
Turning around, he said, he saw an Arab teenager running down the stairs, and decided to chase him to get his yarmulke back. Running through the station, they passed a group of the boy’s friends who began chasing Ohana and screaming, “Allahu Akhbar!â€
Ohana chased the boy, identified as Ali Hussein, 18, of Queens, outside, where he ran into the street and was hit by a car. Hussein’s friends caught up with Ohana and began shouting, “you see what you do?†punching him in the head, and screaming “Allahu Akhbar. There were numerous witnesses outside the crowded subway station, he said, and many of them pulled out cell phones to call 911. Before police arrived, a black SUV pulled up, and two of Ohana’s attackers jumped in the car and drove away, leaving Hussein at the scene…
Pursue your dream of a professionally enriching, religiously and personally rewarding life in a community with affordable homes in a friendly, supportive neighborhood, where you can be a key person, helping to bolster the Torah environment.
The cities involved are Indianapolis, New Orleans, Edmonton, Charleston, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Memphis, Oakland, San Francisco, Omaha, San Diego, Seattle, and Vancouver. This looks like a fascinating study in what it takes to build community - for any little population - as well as how small communities market themselves. I know that our local OU rabbi is busting his butt trying to revive his old shul and this sort of event is a great chance for him to make his case to young couples who are tired of paying New York rents. (Not that they’ll do much better in San Francisco…)
Of course price-fueled moves don’t just happen on the big, inter-city level. It happens all the time on the intracity level when communities send off little offshoots of folks who can’t or won’t choose to afford overpriced homes in traditional neighborhoods. I have watched in the last five years as a new observant community has sprung up on the edges of the Mission in San Francisco - previously it was the western neighborhoods or bust.
What other cities that you live in have witnessed offshoots recently? How long does it take for one community to splinter into two, into four? And if you’re trying to attract new young families to your smaller city, what kind of lures do you need for them?
The Forward reports on the not terribly new news that it is now possible to eat a kosher cheeseburger by putting parve soycheese on a burger (or, also, of course, although not at a meat restaurant, by putting real cheese on a soyburger, or even soycheese on a soy burger). SO what’s the news exactly? Well, apparently a real meat kosher restaurant has begun offering said real meat with fake cheese burger at its location. The Forward excitedly noted that in the original New York Post article, Jackie Mason, the comedian, is nauseated by the prospect of eating a cheeseburger. Rabbi Basil Herring, the executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America is also not thrilled at the prospect, although his complaint is at least not ridiculous. He’s worried about marit ayin - that some young kid might walk into the restaurant and see people eating cheese on a burger and think that it’s Kosher.
I will note that, while Marit ayin is a legitimate problem, there are ways one could take care of this quite easily. For example, posting a giant sign everywhere in the restaurant saying something like, “This is a meat-serving kosher establishment. No dairy products of any kind are served here. ‘Cheese’ in the ‘cheeseburgers’ is completely pareve and contains no dairy ingredients.
Tanchuma Shmini 12, Hullin 109b:
“God said to Moshe: Warn Israel not to eat bad things, and they
shouldn’t mislead you by saying that God forbade Israel to eat good
things. God said that everything I have forbidden to you, I have
permitted something else in its place… I forbid pork, and permit the
tongue of the fish known as shibbuta which has a similar taste to pork… And why? To give a good reward to Israel for keeping my mitzvot.”
But not only that! The Yerushalmi Kiddushin 4:12 says:
“In the future, we will all have to answer to God for all that our eyes saw of God’s wonderful world but did not partake of.â€
Dude, it’s kosher! If the kid isn’t old enough to read, she’s not old enough to be by herself in a restaurant without parental oversight to explain what soycheese is.
So, Jackie, Rashi quotes Sifra Kedoshim,11: 22 on Leviticus 20:26 (And I have distinguished you from the [other] peoples to be mine), saying,
“Rabbi Eleazar ben Azaria says: How do we know that a person should not say: ‘I am disgusted with pig meat, it is impossible for me to eat’ but rather he should say: ‘I can, but what can I do? My Father in Heaven has decreed upon me (that it’s not permitted). The verse says: “And I have distinguished you from the other peoples to be mine,” that your separation from them should be for My Name’s sake— he separates himself from sin and so accepts on himself the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven.”
On the other hand, who the hell thinks Jackie Mason ought to be cited as a source of halakhic - or any other- advice?
By the way, I just can’t help myself here, does anyone else think Al Lewis (grandpa Munster), Jackie Mason, separated at birth? Although I hear the late Al Lewis was a fabulous and lovely guy.
If you’re in NYC and want to learn more about the intersection of Judaism and justice from a stellar lineup of teachers (and a great book), run run run to sign up for this class! (And then email us if you want to guest blog any of the sessions). It looks amazing.
REVOLUTIONARY TEXT STUDY!
A Six-Part Series on Michael Walzer’s Exodus and Revolution
“Wherever people know the Bible, and experience oppression, the Exodus has sustained their spirits and (sometimes) inspired their resistance.”
- Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution
Do you have the same conversations at your Passover Seder, year after year? Are you looking for something that might spice things up this time around?
Do you crave substantive and meaningful Jewish learning in community?
If so, here’s the program you’ve been waiting for!
Exodus and Revolution, by Michael Walzer, traces the dynamics of revolution, redemption and liberation through the biblical story of the Israelites leaving Egypt for the Promised Land. It also examines later retellings of Exodus by diverse groups including classical rabbinic interpreters and political actors who used the story as the rallying point for their own revolutionary struggles – from African American resistance to slavery and Jim Crow, to the British and French Revolutions, to the guerilla liberators of various Latin American countries.
Over the course of 6 weeks together, we will unpack Exodus and Revolution through intensive learning in chevrutah (in pairs) and through facilitated discussions that will be guided by some of NYC’s leading scholars and activists. You will have a chance to learn with and from a roster of inspiring rabbis and social justice educators, including:
Aaron Dorfman
Director of Education, American Jewish World Service
Rabbi Elie Kaunfer
Co-Founder and Executive Director, Mechon Hadar
Rabbi David Rosenn
Founder and Executive Director, AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps
Dara Silverman
Executive Director, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
Rabbi Melissa Weintraub
Co-Founder and North American Director, Encounter
Shmuly Yanklowitz
Co-Founder, Uri L’Tzedek
Rabbi Brent Spodek, the Marshall T. Meyer Fellow at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, will open and close the series by teaching the introduction and conclusion. Teams of rabbis and educators (including those listed above) will teach the four chapters in between.
Dates: Weekly, starting on Wednesday March 12th and ending on Wednesday, April 16th (March 12th, 19th, and 26th and April 2nd, 9th, and 16th).
**The course will end just in time for you to bring your newfound insights to your Passover Seder!
Warning: President’s Day is being hijacked by patriots from other countries. and lovers of foreign cultures. luckily for us, this means more interesting shows, events, and projects and less Uncle Sam costumes…
Fri: Soulico w/Onili in Chicago; birthright’s Israelity tour in SD Sat: JDub celebrates a patriotic holiday weekend with Middle Eastern mash ups, Israeli DJs, and good old American hip hop as SOULICO returns from Tel Aviv for a Brooklyn Loft Party w/Onili, Sneakas & Mazi; Israelity rolls through LA Sun: Israelity goes Vegas Mon: Soulico in Austin @ Beauty Bar Tues: Dan Safer and his troupe, Witness Relocation, perform works-in-progress from his Six Points Fellowship Project, Haggadah, at the Center for Jewish History. They won’t know what hit them… Wed: Jeremiah Lockwood performs new works-in-progress from hisSix Points Fellowship project, Hidden Melodies Revealed, solo in NYC. Thurs: Golem at the Parrish in Austin! Fri: Golem at the Warehouse Live in Houston!
Original art from the graphic novel Megillat Esther on exhibit at the NYU Bronfman Center from Feb 7 - Mar 24th!
Artist JT Waldman will be speaking from 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM next Thursday, Feb 7th, about the making of the graphic novel at the Bronfman Center for Jewish Life at NYU. Opening reception and refreshments from 7pm-9pm. (Directions here.)
View more amazing panels from the graphic novel here.
A quick update from the peace beat, an event tomorrow in Manhattan. Last year at this time, C4P did a tour in the states promoting cessation of violence on both sides. During the tour, Bassam’s daughter was hit with a rubber bullet and died. Now C4P continues their tour across the states, including this stop in New York City.
COMBATANTS FOR PEACE
BASSAM ARAMIN and YONATAN SHAPIRA
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 7:30PM
St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street at 2nd Avenue
#6 train to Astor Place • F train to Second Ave.
Exactly one year after Abir Aramin was fatally wounded, founding members Bassam Aramin and Yonatan Shapira begin a national speaking tour with Combatants for Peace. Bassam’s wife Salwa and daughter Areen will be present.
We also cracked up at the wedding scene, which the Israeli audience didn’t seem to notice anything odd about. I don’t remember the ritual details of the American version, but this one was a strange mix of American and Jewish wedding customs. The male humans and puppets were all wearing white kippot, and Brian and Latina entered the chuppah to the tune of “Here Comes the Bride”. Michal Yannai officiated, wearing a black hat, jacket, and tie. She pronounced them husband and wife, Latina broke the glass, and everyone shouted “Mazal tov!”. As they left to go check out the buffet, Yannai said “Is it kosher?” and Latina said “No. Sorry.”
Oh, and the untranslatable “one nightstand” gag was left out entirely.
If you’re in Israel, go see it now! It’s playing on Sunday night at Beit Lessin, and then moving to the Jerusalem Theater for performances on January 17 and 19.
This past Shabbat afternoon, I enjoyed a sunny walk to the historic Kane Street Synagogue in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. While it may resemble your average Conservative shul in stature and empty seats, I was pleasantly surprised that the services were lay lead in the rabbi’s absence, and halfway through the (full kriyah) Torah reading, it was announced that one could opt to join a niggun circle or Torah reading upstairs.
This recent transplant from the upper west side has found quite an enjoyable shabbat community here in Brooklyn. While Crown Heights, Midwood, Flatbush and other neighborhoods toward the east are still primarily occupied by the Orthodox community, I’m pleased to say that egal minyan hopping in the Carroll Gardens/Park Slope area is quaint but sufficient.
After shul I joined a group of 8 folks, half of whom had made it to davening that morning. Following a delicious pescetarian (though vegan-friendly) meal, I retired to the couch to read up on the latest issue of Time Out New York. The theme, “Get Clean” focuses on New Year’s resolutions where a variety of writers (under pseudonyms) reflect on an area of their life they’d like to clean up. Sugar, antidepressants, and lateness make the list. What else would you imagine on this list? And if you saw the headline “No Religion” could you have anticipated that the “How to detox yourself” would prescribe Kehilat Hadar?
And those letters. The ones where Aleph and Samech become the N and D in 2nd Ave Deli.
So much has been written about the return, about Deli whiz-kid Jeremy Lebewohl taking over the family business, about the lines around the block. Me, I’m going to wait to do a full review for a few more weeks, give em a chance to get up and running (as I would any restaurant). This is just coming from a random New York Jew right now.
It’s wonderful to have it back. Yes, the place has half the seats, the line is as crazy as I’ve ever seen it (even on several Christmas days), and they were out of potato pierogies and gribenes (mmm, fried chicken skins) by 2pm. And yes, it’s on 33rd St by 3rd Avenue. But to have that soup, those latkes and fries, and fried onions so sweet you could eat them like candy (and I needed three sides of them with my latkes and half pastrami/matzo ball combo), to have that back in New York, with so many of the staff faces i recognized (not even a regular, probably, at most, went 6-12 times a year)… it was like Christmastime for the Jews. And in a city where everyone’s a little bit Jewish, we all got pastrami in our stockings this year. What, you’re veggie? Hmmm, uh, mushroom barley soup, then?
Warning: President’s Day is being hijacked by patriots from other countries. and lovers of foreign cultures. luckily for us, this means more interesting shows, events, and projects and less Uncle Sam costumes…
Original art from the graphic novel Megillat Esther on exhibit at the NYU Bronfman Center from Feb 7 - Mar 24th!
