Mixed Multitudes

2009 will rock

Meredith Kesner Lewis — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:50:06 +0000

So it’s that time of the year when many people start buying calendars for next year. And some nice Jewish boys have put out a calendar featuring… nice Jewish boys.

Who can’t resist a Jewfro, glasses, and untweezed eyebrows?

And it’s a pretty good deal (I’m thinking Hanukkah gifts for everyone). For only $12.95 you get all 12 gentlemen, with Jewish holidays already marked. The calendar usually ships within 72 hours.

You’ve got Zev, Samuel, Avi, Efran, Aaron, Benjamin, Seth, plus 5 others. It’s more than a minyan of ~~hotness~~ niceness.

But if that’s not enough to get you going, perhaps you should look into Jamie Sneider’s 2009 calendar: The Year of the Jewish Woman.

An actress, Jamie writes:

I walked into a Jewish bakery in the Fairfax area of LA and it came back. I smelled the challah, the babkas and I remembered. ‘This is my love. This is who I am.’

On my blog, I wrote about my desire to do a nude photo shoot posed with Jewish foods. I then started posing with pastries from my local Jewish bakery. I have always found Jewish pastries sensual and somewhat erotic. I adore them.”

And a nude photo shoot with Jewish foods she did. There’s even a resource page describing all of the types of bakery goods that appear in the calendar. But perhaps the most bizarre aspect is her dedication:

This calendar is dedicated to my Nana, Edith Sneider. Edith managed a bakery in Miami, Florida called “Kosher Treats.” She loved kibitzing and schmoozing with the customers, and she especially loved the baked goods.

Yes, those nude photos of Jamie and kosher bakery goods are dedicated to her Nana. This so sounds like something Sarah Silverman would do.

Nonetheless, the calendar also features Jewish and international holidays and costs $24. And for only $5 more, you can get an autographed poster.

The perfect gift for your Nana as well.

What Happens Then?

Tamar Fox — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:55:31 +0000

Last week an older man who I know from various minyanim on the Upper West Side mentioned that he was about to finish his year of saying Kaddish. I opened my mouth to respond and realized I had no idea what was an appropriate thing to say in that situation. Mazal tov? I’m so sorry? I hope this year has been one of healing? In the end I simply said, “I don’t know what to say,” and he told me it was okay, he didn’t know either.

This is not something that I’ve thought much about, since I’m still so early in the year of saying kaddish, but it has become so central a thing in my life that the idea of stopping, of stepping back from the grief, is terrifying.

It has been an incredibly hard few weeks. I had been doing pretty well, I thought, but then I fell apart, and for more than two weeks I found myself on the verge of tears many many times every day. On the subway, at the gym, at work, in the shower–I just get so sad I can’t get a hold of myself. Anytime I think of those last few minutes–the family standing around the bed and holding Eema’s hands as she faded away– I feel like hiding under the covers and never coming out. I am overwhelmed and exhausted by the idea of subverting my grief in order to get through basic interactions with others. Sometimes paying for a gallon of milk without dissolving into tears seems nearly impossible.

And then yesterday, at minyan, a woman was leading davening and she had a yahrzeit for her son, who died five years ago. It was eight o’clock in the morning and the room was perfectly still, everyone trying to make space for the sorrow that rolled in invisible waves off of her body and pushed against all of us. She was a stranger, no one I had ever seen before, but I wanted to tell her, afterwards, how sorry I was. When I approached her, the tears came quick and hot and I was humiliated. One of the things about grief that I find so frustrating is how selfish it makes me. I cannot see past this, I cannot get over myself enough to gently say something sweet to someone else who is in pain.

I’ve been thinking about all this in connection to Thanksgiving, which is coming up in a week. It’s a holiday that’s meant to be about being grateful, and about eating with a community of people who help each other through difficult times. This year it seems simultaneously profound and perverse. It’s hard to imagine being thankful, celebrating a year of plenty when this year has been so soul-crushingly sad. Yes, we’ve had plenty of food, and plenty of support from amazing and lovely people, but it’s hard to focus on the thanks when everything else is so horrifying. I think thanks is something that you can do effectively when you’re either very close to something (thank you for giving me food because otherwise I would have starved) or have a lot of perspective (now that I’m an adult I can appropriately thank you for disciplining me in a way that was respectful and effective). When you’re somewhere in between–not super-close , but a long way from having any perspective–it’s so hard to be thankful.

Then, this morning, I read this poem. And I feel a little better, though no less confused.

Praise Song By Barbara Crooker

Praise the light of late November,
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crowd chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not
despair. Praise what little there’s left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
that hasn’t cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
fallen world; it’s all we have and it’s never enough.

(Cross-posted at Blogging the Kaddish)

You got served! Jewish non-profit style!

Jeremy Moses — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:17:35 +0000

Shalom TV is starting up a war! Everybody hit the floor so you don’t get hit!

In an interview this week with Malcolm Hoenlein, the Executive Vice Chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (you may remember him from such events as disinviting Sarah Palin from the Anti-Iran Rally), dismissed the Forward’s criticism of the organization for being too right-wing, citing the newspaper as “never (having) anything to say.”

The Forward has yet to respond because they are too busy organizing a rally to urge President Wilson not to enter the war in Europe.

Hey Forward, don’t mess with Hoenlein. He’ll F- you up!

In other news, Malcolm Hoenlein is no longer running for the head of the Bund.

Out of the Extraordinary

matthue — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:10:45 +0000

Today on Nextbook, I wrote an article about the brilliant Motown funk of the Israeli colony of Dimona, a Hasidic hip-hop duo with their own soul band, and Matisyahu’s new opening act, who isn’t Jewish (actually, he’s from Somalia, currently residing in Toronto) but whose name, K’naan, sort of has a Biblical ring to it, and whose mind-bogglingly good song “In the Beginning” definitely does. Click here to download the track, or listen to a bunch of stuff and read the whole article:

Dimona is a small village in the Negev, half an hour south of Beersheva. It’s an incredibly small town, less than three square miles, and since it’s in the middle of the Israeli desert, it doesn’t get much in the way of tourists. Mostly, Dimona is known for two things: its nuclear power plant, and its community of Black Hebrews, a group of African-American émigrés who left Chicago, followed the revolutionary leader Marcus Garvey to Liberia, and ended up immigrating en-masse to Israel in the late 1960s.

The community is featured sporadically in Jewish newspapers, mostly as a wacky story about unconventional Israeli immigrants. The thing most reporters don’t usually write about, however, is the town of Dimona’s unlikely profusion of pop and soul singles in the 1970s.

READ MORE >

Signs that Jewish trendiness is dying

matthue — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:33:44 +0000

Okay, I just followed a Google Ad which led to a website advertising this book — a 636-page edition, limited to 1200 copies, of photographs mainly of Hasidim, Black Jews, and Amy Winehouse, titled (simply) “A Book of Jews” and priced (elegantly) at $550 USD.

Now, I am the least likely person to argue against the idea of a fancy, overpriced book. As a person with — ahem — a personal stake in the publishing industry, I think that publisher Richard Nash’s call for more really cheap books and more really expensive, nice-looking luxury books is spot-on. I also don’t think there’s something intrinsically unfair or dishonest about making Jews trendy or turning the funny-looking parts of Judaism (payos, chicken-flinging, Barbra Streisand) into hip and trendy-seeming things.

But more than anything that’s been thrown our way so far, “A Book of Jews” seems, well, extravagant. What to get the Jew who has everything — who also happens to have several hundred dollars that they don’t know what to do with, and the far-more-unlikelier situation of a coffee table unadorned by an oversize book. (I mean, come on, doesn’t every rich person already own those beautiful Sandman comic books that I totally lust after for their coffee tables?)

In any case, I think it’s a safe time to declare the Cool Jew trend dead — even if it did produce some neat books, fun pop-song mash-ups, and, as of tonight, some amazing performer line-ups. Let’s see the evidence:

The Heeb Hundred are all completely obscure in-jokes. The Forward 50 was one big duh of way-too-obvious candidates (Rahm Emanuel, Ruth Bader Ginsburg), self-congratulatory candidates (Aaron Rubashkin), and so-five-years-ago candidates (Sarah Silverman).
Even Jewlicious has officially called it a day: “[T]he chickens have come to roost and contemporary Jewish culture has inevitably become bland and uninteresting -….I think I am contemplating the end of the Jews as a force to be reckoned with.”
Meredith says that she saw Jewish trendiness on clearance at Old Navy. “Old Navy,” she says, “is where trends go to die. Gray tight jeans. They used to be cool and hipster, and then Old Navy started carrying them. Now they’re no longer socially acceptable. Wearing scarves indoors, vintage shirts with funny sayings on them — trend over. Goodbye.” Just so you know, she adds, if you go to Old Navy and see an I *heart* Hashem t-shirt — that will be its epitaph.

Any more evidence — for, against, or impartial? I know there’s got to be a huge dossier on this.

Rabban Gamliel, Mormons, and People Who Aren’t There

Tamar Fox — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:10:41 +0000

Last night I went to the Mechon Hadar beit midrash for a session on prayer leaders, and what qualities a prayer leader should have led by Rabbi Elie Kaunfer. One of the sources we looked at was a discussion of whether or not a person leading prayers can discharge the obligation of people who aren’t even present at the place where the prayers are being done. Rabban Gamliel said that even someone who’s out working the fields can fulfill his obligation via the proxy of a prayer leader. This seemed a little ridiculous to me (and to the Sages, who did not hold by Rabban Gamliel’s standards).

Then this morning I saw another article about Mormons who are posthumously baptizing Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

Jewish group wants Mormons to stop proxy baptisms
By Deepti Hajela and Jennifer Dobner
The Associated Press

NEW YORK — Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.

Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say they are making changes to their massive genealogical database that will make it more difficult for names of Holocaust victims to be entered for posthumous baptism by proxy, a rite that has been a common Mormon practice for more than a century.

But Ernest Michel, honorary chairman of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, said that is not enough. At a news conference in New York City on Monday, he said the church also must “implement a mechanism to undo what you have done.”

Baptism of a Jewish Holocaust victim and then merely removing that name from the database is just not acceptable,” said Michel, whose parents died at Auschwitz. He spoke on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots against Jews.

“We ask you to respect us and our Judaism just as we respect your religion,” Michel said in a statement released ahead of the news conference. “We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough.”

Michel said talks with Mormon leaders, held as recently as last week, have ended. He said his group will not sue, and that “the only thing left, therefore, is to turn to the court of public opinion.”

The Mormon response to the request was pretty lame:

“We don’t think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines,” Wickman said. “If our work for the dead is properly understood … it should not be a source of friction to anyone. It’s merely a freewill offering.”

Full story
I’m sorry, but ‘freewill offering’ my tush. Baptizing people who aren’t there–not cool. Way worse than praying for people who aren’t there.

I got a crush on Jewssip Girl.

Jeremy Moses — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:25:40 +0000

(Editor’s Note: I’m not a creep.)

Last year, when the writer’s strike in Hollywood was in full effect, I had plenty of time to catch up on every show imaginable. One of those shows was Gossip Girl. Gossip Girl provided me with all of my teen drama needs–many beautiful rich women, the Upper East Side…needless to say, I was in love.

But I have since moved on. With such great shows as Testees and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I no longer have the time to focus my attention on the evil doings of Chuck Bass and Co.

But still, my heart was empty. Then along came Jewssip. If you were only able to read read one Jewish blog, then read mine. But if you had time for a second, then read Jewssip.

I don’t know much about the girl who is behind Jewssip, much like Gossip Girl. She is very mysterious. I do know these facts, however. She, like me, loves Lean Cuisine meals. I am also pretty sure that she has the largest database of Amy Winehouse pictures in the world. I’m almost convinced that she works in the British Paparazzi.

The things I write about on this blog may or may not often originate from her (I plead the 5th on that one). Her insights into the world of Ivanka Trump and Guy Ritchie’s distaste of Kabbalah get me all light headed.

I’ve been trying to think of a way to tell Jewssip Girl how I feel about her, but have yet to find a way, until now. And I’ll leave that to Aaron Carter:

Jam at the Y

matthue — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:09:22 +0000

Tonight at the 92Y Tribeca, I’m hosting the first (hopefully — as in, hopefully there will be a second) open mic! Jeremiah Lockwood of The Sway Machinery is playing a set, and Elisa Albert, author of The Book of Dahlia, will be reading. A few months ago, it was one of those Shabboses where I’d ODed on writing, and now that I couldn’t write anymore, I just wanted to read manically. So I took Elisa’s new book, which I’d been wanting to read for a while (her first collection made me actually like Philip Roth, a feat which I’d deemed impossible), and started reading.

And I didn’t stop.

The sun was coming up, which seemed particularly noteworthy considering the novel’s content. It’s a funny, wry, more-wise-than-it-seems look at a girl who finds out she’s dying. It’s not at all what you’d expect, which is odd to say, considering we basically have every expectation in the world loaded up in our heads when it comes to dying. But the agony of going out to eat with your parents after a brain scan, and the sort of perverse joy in ordering the most expensive thing on the menu, is one of those tiny details that is meaningful and beautiful and terrible all at once — and that’s exactly what you’ll find from her.

And Jeremiah — well, I just heard the new Sway Machinery album, set for a release date in February, and I don’t know if the world is ready for it, but it’s so ready for the world.

Jews and Proposition 8

Jeremy Moses — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:15:49 +0000

Controversy time!

Have an opinion on California’s Proposition 8 banning gay marriage? You are not the only one. Check out the MyJewishLearning Discussion Board that is currently having a (somewhat) civil debate on how Jews should feel about legalized gay marriage.

While the ball has already started rolling, I can try to throw an opinion or two in there. The fact is that I don’t think the gay marriage debate has anything to do with religion. While marriage originated as a religious concept, it has evolved into having more than one definition.

Even if one opposes gay marriage in Judaism, it does not mean that you automatically have to oppose civil gay marriages. Clergymen and religious institutions should still feel that they have have the right to refuse a gay couple in performing their wedding but that is not the issue here.

There are clear benefits to be had by being a married couple. Denying that right to people because of their sexual orientation is wrong. It is not Judaism’s (or any religion for that matter) role to impose on society as a whole what the moral standard is.

How can American society, on the one hand, be tolerant and open to homosexuality, but when it comes to treating them equal, we shun them away?

Feel free to comment here. But I really recommend you go over to the discussion section. Our loyal commenters will be pleased.

The Best Learning You’ll Do Offline–Yeshivat Hadar

Tamar Fox — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:37:51 +0000

During the summer of 2007 I was a fellow at the first summer of Yeshivat Hadar, an intensive 8-week egalitarian Jewish learning program in Manhattan. It was a transformative summer, and aside from making amazing friends and learning more than I would have thought possible, I left the summer feeling excited by Judaism in a way I never had before, and empowered to change the Jewish world for the better. It was, in a word, phenomenal.

Yeshivat Hadar had 36 fellows this past summer, and is now opening up applications for the summer 2009 program, and for a year-round program that will launch in the fall of 2009. Check out the information below, and feel free to contact me or leave a comment if you have any questions. Applications are available now, and though they aren’t due for a while I encourage everyone to start working on them now–acceptance is competitive, and the application is an intense one. Good luck!

Yeshivat Hadar is animated by three central goals:
·    To foster a community of men and women who engage in intensive Torah study, prayer and action.
·    To offer a passionate vision of traditional Jewish life as a spiritual path.
·    To empower students to build and contribute to vibrant Jewish communities across the United States.

Yeshivat Hadar Summer 2009
Yeshivat Hadar offers 36 fellows an intensive program in the heart of Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The 8-week experience (June 14 – August 8, 2009) will combine traditional text study, egalitarian prayer and social action with a special focus on personal religious growth. Yeshivat Hadar will create a community of learning which will include seminars, havruta (paired learning), elective classes and time for independent study. Students will complete the program equipped with greater textual competence and broader knowledge of the Jewish tradition as a whole. Students will commit to bringing lessons from their summer experience to their local community.

Yeshivat Hadar 2009-2010
Next fall, Yeshivat Hadar will launch the first full-year, full-time egalitarian yeshiva in North America. The program will offer 15-20 fellows an intensive program in New York City, anchored around empowerment, community and the search for meaning and purpose in Jewish life. Fellows are expected not only to participate in the program but to be partners in its launch as well. While the dates are still being finalized, prospective fellows should be available from September 2009 through May 2010.

Like the summer program, the year-long program will create a community of learning which will include seminars, havruta (paired learning), elective classes and time for independent study. Students will complete the program equipped with greater textual competence and broader knowledge of the Jewish tradition as a whole. Students will commit to bringing lessons from their summer experience to their local community.

In recognition of the intense time and energy commitment required by the fellowship, Yeshivat Hadar is pleased to offer a generous stipend, intended to cover the cost of tuition and living expenses. Participation in the program is a selective process, and prospective students must complete a full application, as well as references, by February 1, 2009. Finalists will be interviewed, and fellows for both programs will be notified in mid-late March.

For those in the New York area, we invite you to join us for an evening of learning with us on Thursday night, January 15th, 2009, 7-9 pm, at West End Synagogue, 190 Amsterdam Ave (near 69th Street), which will once again host Yeshivat Hadar in 2009.

For more information (including student qualifications and a tentative schedule with course descriptions), and for the full application (www.mechonhadar.org/YeshivatHadar/apply.php), please visit www.yeshivathadar.org. For any questions, feel free to email us at info@mechonhadar.org.

Watch a short video about Yeshivat Hadar below.