Kesher Talk

Kibbutzim for a new generation: If a host of new collectivist projects are any indication, the death of the Israeli kibbutz has been greatly exaggerated.
Young Israelis fresh out of the army now are engaged in a revival of that unique Israeli invention — the collective farm — almost in the same way as were the first Jewish settlers in Palestine more than a century ago.

Almost.

Unlike the members of the first kibbutzim, who focused on cultivating the land as the ultimate expression of Zionism, the new kibbutzniks emphasize education.

posted by William @ 10/24/2003 09:01:11 AM  

What are bloggers up to?
Lileks was wandering around my neighborhood a few weeks ago, but we didn't run into each other.

Vodkapundit goes to the dentist. Boy can I relate.

Eve Tushnet comes out, with a generous helping of Catholic theology.

Mary prepares for winter. I did the summer/winter clothes exchange a few weeks ago.

Meryl has a Tolkein moment. (More LOTR humor here.)

Real Live Preacher avoids a Jesus moment.

posted by Judith @ 10/23/2003 08:12:09 PM  

List of Countries Supporting Iraq Effort : Courtesy of the AP

Countries besides the United States that are lending assistance in postwar Iraq:
Troops
Albania - 71 non-combat troops to help with peacekeeping, based in northern Iraq.
Azerbaijan - 150-man unit to take part in patrols, law enforcement and protection of religious and historic monuments in Iraq.
Bulgaria - 485-member infantry battalion patrolling Karbala, south of Baghdad. An additional 289 will be sent.
Central America and the Caribbean - Dominican Republic (with 300 troops), El Salvador (360), Honduras (360) and Nicaragua (120) are assisting a Spanish-led brigade in south-central Iraq.
Czech Republic - 271 military personnel and three civilians running a field hospital in Basra; 25 military police in Iraq.
Denmark - 406 troops, consisting of light infantry units, medics and military police. An additional 90 soldiers are being sent.
Georgia - 69, including 34 special troops, 15 sappers and 20 medics.
Estonia - 55 soldiers, including mine divers and cargo handlers.
Hungary - 300-member transportation contingent in Iraq.
Italy - 3,000 troops in southern Iraq.
Moldova - Dozens of de-mining specialists and medics.
Netherlands - 1,106, including a core of 650 marines, three Chinook transport helicopters, a logistics team, a field hospital, a commando contingent, military police and a unit of 230 military engineers.
New Zealand - 61 army engineers assigned for reconstruction work in southern Iraq.
Norway - 156-member force includes engineers and mine clearers.
Philippines - 177 soldiers, police and medics.
Poland - 2,400 troops command one of three military sectors in Iraq.
Portugal - 120 police officers.
Romania - 800 military personnel, including 405 infantry, 149 de-mining specialists and 100 military police, along with a 56-member special intelligence detachment.
Slovakia - 82 military engineers.
South Korea - 675 non-combat troops with more forces on the way.
Spain - 1,300 troops, mostly assigned to police duties in south-central Iraq.
Thailand - 400 troops assigned to humanitarian operations.
Ukraine - 1,640 soldiers from a mechanized unit.
United Kingdom - 7,400, 1,200 more planned.
Other countries making troop contributions are Kazakhstan (27), Latvia (106), Lithuania (90) Macedonia (28). Details on these deployments were not available.
The United States is in discussions with 14 other countries about providing troops.

___

Economic reconstruction pledges for Iraq made prior to or during the Madrid conference:
Belgium - $5 million-$6 million for 2004.
European Union- $230 million for 2004.
Iran - Offered to provide electricity and gas.
Japan - $1.5 billion the first year and is considering a medium-term package for presentation at Madrid.
Philippines - $1 million.
South Korea - $200 million over four years in addition to $60 million committed this year.
Spain - $300 million for 2004-07.
Sweden - $32.7 million for 2004-05.
United Kingdom - $900 million for three years, including money contributed since April.
World Bank - $3 billion-$5 billion over five years.

posted by William @ 10/23/2003 01:53:05 PM  

Rabbi named to Governor Schwarzenegger's transition team:

When Arnold Schwarzenegger came under fire during the California recall campaign for past remarks praising Adolf Hitler's speaking skills and former Austrian president Kurt Waldheim, his staunchest defender was the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Schwarzenegger appeared to return the favor last week when he announced the formation of his 68-member transition team. The governor-elect tapped Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Los Angeles-based center, making him the team's only rabbi.

... There were three issues of specifically Jewish concern that he said he would be bringing up with the transition team: retaining a Jewish liaison to the governor, continuing the commitments made by the two previous governors — Pete Wilson and Gray Davis — to California-Israel trade and continuing the current governor's advisory group on Nazi-era insurance issues.

Beyond that, Cooper said he and the center's dean, Rabbi Marvin Hier, would be working to bring Schwarzenegger to Israel next year. He has been to Israel twice before: in July 1995 to open a Planet Hollywood restaurant in Tel Aviv and in 1978, when he was a lesser-known star of the body-building world.

"We'll do our best from our end to see to it that as soon as he can come up for air, sometime in the first half of 2004, we'll try to get him over here," he said.

(The Forward)

posted by William @ 10/21/2003 08:56:34 AM  

Don't talk of love -- show me now. It seems hard to think of a better time to begin blogging than right after Simchat Torah. That's when all the ceremony, all the services, all the stuff that starts the year finally ends and lets us get on with it. (Yes, I know that Simchat Torah was two days ago, but I figure that as long as I still feel it in my calves it still counts.)

That, at any rate, is what I thought when I first wrote this; seasonal changes, moon cycles, all that nature stuff. But nooo..... There's still the tech stuff. There's nothing like deciding that you're finally going to do this, then writing, then editing, then posting, then waiting -- then getting an indescipherable error message.

But onward.

Simchat Torah's the time when all the words finally end, all those words that make wonderful sense to you if you've been lucky enough to have your life go according to plan, if no nightmare has disrupted it. It's astounding how we Jews, with our history of tragedy and loss and disruption and pogram, have managed to create a liturgy that rarely acknowledges that. Instead we pound ahead with cause and effect, with the cycle of the year somehow spiraling toward eventual redemption, with Unetaneh Tokef promising us that despite all the grotesque ways in which we might die somehow goodness might change that. (It doesn't.)

That's when Eliza Doolittle come to mind. "I get words all day through, first from him, now from you -- is that all you blighters can do?"

But then there's the comic relief the rabbis brilliantly thought to insert on Yom Kippur, with Jonah inside the belly of the fish, kvetching; sitting under a vine, like Job, but whining. (And how odd to sit in shul on the afternoon of the holiest day of the year realizing that Job and Jonah play out Karl Marx's dictum of tragedy repeating itself in farce.)

And then there's Sukkot. Eating in a sukkah is wonderful, but because I am no doubt terribly prissy and overrefined the primitive wonder of asking for rain by marching around waving a large discolored uni-testicalled penis is lost on me. I giggle, I flee, I can't march. Is that all you blighters can do?

And then -- Simchat Torah. We dance for hours and hours and night and then again the next day, from morning until afternoon. We're no longer in the street -- there's nothing like providing that target-rich an environment -- but we crowd the shul and whirl and jump and sing and twirl as the band plays louder and louder. It's not what you'd really call dancing -- it's basic Israeli dance steps combined with lots of running and jumping in place and banging into people -- but it's sweaty and thrillling and wonderful. There are finally no more words. There is nothing to try to believe, nothing to pretend to believe, nothing to wish to believe, just the sounds and the whirling. I wore a black-and-white silk skirt with gored insets that twirled all around me; I loved watching it.

At the end, when all the hakafot were done and the last reading was done and the Torah was turned and the first reading was done, my daughter and husband and I were given the honor of carrying the three scrolls around the room and back into the ark. We walked down the center of all those people, like the spinal cord going through vertebrae, as they all kissed the Torah and many of them kissed us as well. I looked at them -- among them were many of my best friends, other people I'd like to know better, and still others who I know entirely well enough, thank you -- and realized that this is my community. There could not possibly be a more loving way to begin a year.

posted by Joanne @ 10/21/2003 07:00:07 AM  

Jews against Israel: The Pakistan Daily Times has an investigative article on the "silent majority American Jewry" who are opposed to the state of Israel... call it Jews against Judaism, or something like that. You have to read it to believe it.

posted by William @ 10/20/2003 08:51:10 AM  

Silly rabbit Dept. I thought the Simchat Torah service would be about three hours long. It was six hours long. It was also hot and sweaty and loud and exhausting. And funny and musical and moving and engrossing. And it was shorter and less of a mob scene than the legendary Carlebach Shul all night hakafot of the night before (where I stayed till 2 AM). At both services I got to dance holding a Torah to my breast, surrounded by a frenzied circle, and even thrust it up in the air by its handles, so I feel I have discharged my obligation to be joyful this season. And now back to my regularly scheduled depression (well, I hope not).

I told my unsuspecting aunt (who is very secular and was facing saying kaddish on her husband's yahrzeit): "You don't want to spend Simchat Torah at your boring suburban shul that you never attend anyway. Come into New York and I'll take you to a fun service where people sing and dance a lot." She was a trooper - she didn't dance but she enjoyed the vibes and didn't complain about the fact that we were there till 3 in the afternoon.

Actually, the punchline is: "silly rabbi, kicks are for trids." But I forget how the joke goes.

To answer your question Avraham, the one time I did it, it sucked.

posted by Judith @ 10/19/2003 10:04:10 PM  

All Easterbrook all the time. I sat out the Gregg Easterbrook thing, but I think Matt Stinson has the best take on it (and link roundup). Let's pick our battles, folks. (Now how do we point this impressive demonstration of Jewish influence and control of Western society in the direction of getting Arafat fired?)

UPDATE: Fine summary of the Easterbrook flap from Jeff Jarvis, who notes the subtext of the limitations and purposes of blogs.

posted by Judith @ 10/19/2003 09:38:24 PM  

Silly rabbit, Simchas Torah is for kids? I grew up believing just that--Simchat Torah was a holiday for kids to parade around with mock Torahs. Oh, and there were lots of readings, too, but you don't notice that so much as a kid.

Last night, I experienced the holiday the way it should be -- as a real celebration, for the young and the old. Following the basic service, we cleared all the chairs out of the room, a klezmer band started playing, and everyone danced. We did shots of some nasty liquor on the bima. Everyone hada turn dancing with the Torah.

And it was a blast.

I wonder at what point this great holiday, to celebrate our good fortune at being blessed with the Torah, was turned into a throw-away children's holiday by so many congregations? It was a shame. But it is great to see us celebrating it well, finally....

posted by William @ 10/19/2003 09:51:40 AM