Erez Safar always has an eye for interesting and unique musical talents. In the past I’ve talked about Erez’s awesome Lecha Dodi vs. Akon remix and the rhyming of Kosha Dillz. This time though, I gotta give a shout out to Erez’s newest prodigy, DeScribe.

If you were just to look at DeScribe, you might think he is just a novelty. A Hasid rapper? I’ve seen Matisyahu already, thank you.

But that would be a mistake on your part. Because DeScribe is a talented guy. While his songs are very much Jewishly-themed, and he most definitely does have a message he is trying to convey to you, he doesn’t throw it in your face.

DeScribe’s ability to take his own Jewish values and make them universal so that a broader audience can enjoy him should be commended. And that’s exactly what Harmony, his new EP, does. And his rapping isn’t half bad either.

If you click here, you can buy the CD for just $6 (and that includes goodies, whatever that means).

Here is DeScribe’s newest video…

I know some pretty free and easy rabbis, but I came across a question that even I might squirm before posing to a rabbinic authority.

Via The Slog Via Facebook:

Anyone know the answer to this: So apparently docs are getting really good at skin grafts using pig skin derivatives called Strattice. There’s a chance they will start using this for bottom surgeries soon. Is it kosher though if someone, well, sticks the resulting phallus in their mouth?

My immediate reaction, which you can read as a comment, is that halakhah prohibits deriving any benefit from non-kosher animals, barring life-saving circumstances. Assuming putting the phallus in one’s mouth counts as a benefit, I have to imagine it’s prohibited.

Anyone else have any ideas?

I’m pleased to announce a major development here at MyJewishLearning.com. Recently, we received a significant grant from the Commission on Jewish Identity and Renewal (COJIR) at UJA-Federation of NY to build a new website aimed at parents of Jewish kids age 0-5.

The new parenting website will cover Jewish concerns related to getting pregnant, pregnancy, baby naming, baby raising, educational choices and more. (Yes, I’m sure we’ll have many, many articles on circumcision.)

We’ll also be piloting a section that connects New York parents to local events and resources. If the local section works out well, we’ll be looking to expand it to other cities over the next few years.

The project is particularly exciting because it’s part of MyJewishLearning’s general plan to begin creating content that is more targeted toward specific niche audiences. The web is a wasteland for good Jewish parenting content, and we hope to fill that void.

We’re aiming to launch the new website (which has yet to be named) sometime this summer. Its development will be spearheaded by the website’s editor, the newest member of the MJL family, Debbie Kolben. Debbie was previously the city editor of The New York Sun and the managing editor of the Village Voice. She recently returned to the states after receiving an Arthur F. Burns fellowship to report in Germany. We’re excited to have her on board here at MJL.

And, of course, we’re thrilled to have UJA’s COJIR as a partner in this project. COJIR has taken a particular interest in engaging young families, recognizing that there are key developmental moments during the life cycle when people are making critical decisions about personal and communal identity and that at these times — including when people begin their family life — people are more open to Jewish engagement.

As the launch date of the new website gets closer, we’ll let you know, of course!

No one ever said keeping kosher was easy — or cheap. As we get closer to Passover, things like this become painfully apparent to anyone who’s walking in the vicinity of any supermarket: small bottles of grape juice for $5? Marshmallows for $10!? And let’s not even start with the matzah cakes….

(Although, of course, you could get all the matzah you need absolutely free — just send us a few sentences about your favorite Passover!)

This article about recession pizza specials in New York — it focuses on the heated competition between a $1.00-a-slice pizza place and a $.99-a-slice place — is one more reason for us kosher keepers to grumble. The cost of a lunch special at either of those restaurants ($2.75 for two slices and a beverage) is less than the price of a single slice at a kosher place. But, as the article says, it’s a “basic fundamental of the city’s economy — charging as much as you can whenever and wherever you can.”

On the other hand, pizza is notoriously bad for things like your heart and your fat glands. And, whether you’re talking about Passover or the other 357 days of the year, kosher food can actually be a lot cheaper than non-kosher food — just make it yourself. My family and I, hard-line fundamentalist zealots that we are, don’t use any processed foods for Passover.* Our grocery receipt for the holiday reads like a shopping list in Odessa, 200 years ago: Onions. Beets. Radishes. Apples. Walnuts. Milk. Avocados. Quinoa. (Okay, maybe they didn’t have quinoa or avocados back in Odessa — but they’re some necessary ingredients for a vegetarian Passover.) It wasn’t originally intended this way — mostly because they didn’t have things like MSG or high-fructose corn syrup during the redacting of the Talmud — but one aspect of keeping kosher is the simplicity of the food. No tallow. No solidifying fats. No additives. These days, kosher-food manufacturers are as bad as the rest of the world with that stuff (some are even worse, in the case of “pareve” foods that are about 90% fake-stuff). But the best kosher food — like the best non-kosher food — are the foods we make ourselves.

But, if you must eat in restaurants, console yourself with this: Kosher-keepers don’t have to deal with the other, sinister side of restaurants: the ostentatious overpriced luxury-food places that sell thousand-dollar omelets.

* — There are a few exceptions, of course: things that are necessary for the holiday, like wine and matzah, and a few things we can’t easily make, like olive oil. (I know. We’ll get an olive press, I promise. But probably not till next year.)

Baby Hitler? Cat Hitler? Both exist.

First, let’s cover Baby Hitler. Danish artist Nina Maria Kleivan wanted to prove that everyone starts out the same, and that everyone has the opportunity to either do good or bad. How did she prove it? She did it just like any other normal, rational thinking person would do.

She dressed her baby up like Hitler. To be fair, she didn’t just dress the baby up like Hitler. She also dressed it up like Stalin, Milosovic, Idi Amin, and other ruthless dictators.

Wow. I’ve already thought of hundreds of ways to permanently scar my future children (namely, calling my second child “Lefty,” then forcing him to be left-handed and then making him become a professional baseball player. You’re telling me you would feel more confident if you’re team’s closer was named Lefty Moses? My point has been proven). But dressing my kids up like Hitler probably never came up in my mind. I just don’t think I would ever be forgiven.

Just imagine bringing your boyfriend and girlfriend over to your parents house and them deciding to show baby pictures of you. It’s already ready embarrassing. Add to that a Hitler mustache and we’re talking a life time of you being single.

That being said, does this even compare in offensiveness to Cats That Look Like Hitler? Yes, that’s a real site.

We’re in the last week of submissions for the Best Seder Ever contest. So if you’ve got a great Passover story, send it to us, quick. In the meantime, though, we’re sharing our own stories of favorite Passovers from the MyJewishLearning staff.

In the Passover Hagaddah, we read that each person is supposed to lirot the seder experience — that each person is supposed to envision the story of leaving Egypt as if we were part of the Exodus ourselves. Maimonides, however, read the word as “leharot” — that is, to show the story as if you were there for yourself.

Jordanna brought this up in the office the other day. She was telling us about her life in a yeshiva in Israel — and, in typical yeshiva fashion, she got so into Judaism that “excess” was just another way of saying “good job.”

And, because of that, she used to dress up in a costume for Passover every year.

She said:

When I was in Israel for the year, everyone at my yeshiva warned me, “Don’t give any dvar Torah at your seder; you’re just going to bore people.” The point isn’t telling over the story — it’s being the story. It’s making the Exodus happen for you at the actual seder.

The first year I was the yad chazakah, the “mighty hand” [like it says in the Hagaddah: “G-d took the Children of Israel out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.”] I dressed up like a huge hand, and I had a crown that was in the shape of fingers and I also had a piece of cardboard in the shape of a giant hand hanging around my neck. I wore all blue to be like the sea — like, G-d took us out to the sea).

My family thought I was insane. The next year, I dressed up as all the plagues at the same time.

Don’t waste time! Enter the contest! Because, before you know it, you’ll be drunk on four cups of wine…and remembering a little bit too much.

My kitchen is overflowing with gadgets and appliances. We have a seltzer maker, 2 crock pots, a hot water heater, a coffee maker, a toaster, a coffee grinder, a food processor, two hand mixers, and a few I’m embarrassed to even admit we own. Also, I’m dying for an ice cream maker. But on Passover, all of these helpful devices get packed away. There are no more shortcuts. Instead, it’s back to the basics.

I’m all about the basics, but there are some amenities that I require if I’m going to be cooking for a week. Over the years I’ve narrowed it down to just two very simple appliances to get me through Passover.

1. The manual food processor. These things might be a gift from God. They’re not electric, so you can use them on Shabbat and holidays. They’re quick and efficient, and they force you to work your forearms. Best of all, they do the work of a fancypants Cuisinart for an eighth of the price, so you can afford to get one that is only used one week a year. These are especially good for making haroset.

2. The immersion blender. Everyone is different, of course, but I love soups, and I love smoothies, and to make a soup with an even consistency, you need one of these babies. They’re also very helpful if you want to skip the matzah brei for breakfast and go with something a bit lighter and healthier. You can get all kinds of fancy models, but it’s easy to find an immersion blender for under twenty dollars.

There are other things you should have for Passover– a few decent knives, a big roasting pan, a griddle or frying pan, but if you don’t want to break the bank, and you do want to produce excellent and impressive food for the holiday, these are my suggestions.

Here are some recipes that are easy to make once you’ve purchased your two appliances. A few of them call for small amounts of flour, for which you can easily substitute matzah meal:
Quiche with hashed brown crust
Gefilte Fish
Haroset
Zucchini Feta pancakes
Various Latkes
Vegetable Tagine
Fruit Smoothies
Sweet Potato Ginger Soup
Zucchini Onion Soup
Spinach and Potato Soup
Gazpacho

There are deadlines, and then there are deadlines. I’m the Writer in Residence this month over at BrooklynTheBorough.com, and I was supposed to turn in my column Friday. How I feel about deadlines is best expressed in an email that my (other) editor (at Scholastic) just wrote me in the form of an epic poem beginning “O deadlines! How I hate thee” and spiraling from there.

But sometimes deadlines can be fun. Nicole, who runs BrooklynTheBorough, asked me to write “a piece just about being a Hasid in Brooklyn…you know, a slice-of-life sort of thing.” I know she wanted me to write about the conflict between Hasidic and hipster worlds, but I just couldn’t stomach it. (Sorry, Nicole.) It’s just that I live that way 24/7, and there really isn’t much of a conflict.

Some people go to yechidus for love or financial decisions. I go for fashion advice.

The broken deadline got me writing about everyday life in Hasid-land, which I don’t often do — mainly because I hate getting too garish or showy about it. I can write fiction, and I can write about what I think about things, but if I started getting blog ideas from walking down the street? Well, (a) I’d be here till tomorrow, but also (b) I’d feel like I’m faking it among my family-in-law and my friends even more than I already feel.

Even so, a deadline is a deadline. And so I wrote, and this is the pastiche that came out. I’m actually sort of proud of it.

The bar mitzvah was a totally crazy affair, as might be expected. In one way, Hasidic Jews are unfailingly, unflinchingly conservative. In another way, it’s an anything-goes scenario. The party started at 9 pm, an hour away from Brooklyn, which isn’t crazy until you remind yourself that the target audience is 11-to-14-year-old kids — and that these parties often go for four, five hours. The mechitza was in full force with a wall dividing men and women, which meant that I couldn’t even play arm-candy to my wife. Our cousin Shmop was there, who’s just about the nicest, most magnetic and fluid guy you could think of. He’s Orthodox but modern, clean-shaven and he wears a tie – both things that make him stand out in this crowd – but he’s got this lackadaisical, no-stick personality that makes him able to get along with anyone. Seamlessly. Five minutes after we hook up, he’s gliding through the crowd, shaking hands and kissing the hairy cheeks of every rabbi in the room, coasting straight to the women’s section as I struggle to keep up with him, dodging furry hats aimed at the level of my head as the crowd threatens to rip the umbilical cord by which I have attached myself to him.

Yeah: the women’s section.

Hasidic Jews are pretty strict about this stuff. And if you missed it right there, that’s the understatement of the century. Half of the family is pretty cool with these casual social interactions. The other half — well, there’s one Hasidic dynasty, of which many of this family are members, that has a custom of men and women eating in separate rooms. The mechitza is properly only for the dancing which will take place later that night, and so that men and women don’t sit at the same tables and, I don’t know, accidentally bump into each other or get into food fights or something, but when Shmop whizzes me across the floor to the other side, my anxiety squeezes a huge rubber band around my stomach and my eyes pop half out of my head. Not from looking at women. Possibly from watching Shmop’s overwhelming casualness. Mostly from the realization that, one way or another, I am probably about to be kicked out of the family, the social hall, or, possibly, Judaism.

Here. Read the whole thing on the BtB site.

I’m getting pretty tired. It must mean that Shabbat must be around the corner. Or I don’t go to bed until the wee hours of the night. And there is daylight savings time this week? Fantastic.

Kids don’t like to share (right? I actually have no idea. I haven’t seen a kid in years). Why not teach them the values of tzedakah from an early age. You don’t want them to turn out like me.

The best part of our new contest? You don’t actually have to do anything. Just tell us a story about your best seder ever. It’s already happened. If you have an awesome story, you’ve already one!

Finally, don’t just give your excess bread to the birds before Passover. Try some cool recipes that will help you rid your house of hametz.

Shabbat Shalom!

The cool thing about Google Maps isn’t that it gives us a chance to browse a map of pretty much anywhere the world, from downtown Jerusalem to the cool museum down the street from MJL that I’ve never been to.

True to form, the first (and, for a while, only) people to take advantage of the technology are geeks. A few months ago, Wired started a fan-generated map of Thomas Pynchon’s Los Angeles. My family, true geeks that we are, started a private map of our favourite day trips around Melbourne. But this is actually mainstreaming the technology (and actually making it helpful, in an academic/class projects/cool stuff to know sense): Our friends at the Jewish Women’s Archive have started an interactive, user-generated guide to physical landmarks in Jewish women’s history.

And, refreshingly, it’s not one of those old-world Jewish-nonprofit “innovation” ideas — you know, the kind where it’s one person’s property or where nobody else can see what’s going on. The entire thing is accessible on Google Maps and on JWA’s website. Using their online form, anyone can propose their own content to be added, making it a truly collaborative work. (I just added the Central Library in Brooklyn, where the last Lubavitcher Rebbetzin was known to spend much of her time.) (I hope it makes the cut!) The map is still in its infant stage; most of the locations are in North America (and most of those are near New York), but already Europe’s starting to be populated, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Middle East and Northern Africa followed suit.