Kesher Talk

Jews in odd places: Greece: The Interior Ministry of Greece recently presented an amendment to Parliament establishing January 27 as “a day of remembrance of the Greek Jewish martyrs and heroes of the Holocaust.” The date commemorates the day in 1945 when the Red Army arrived at the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps.

posted by William @ 1/09/2004 10:01:00 AM links to this post

In D.C.? Support Israel's wine industry: from Zagat's:

January 27: The Israeli Embassy showcases its nation's vintners at this reception where over 30 wines will be complemented by a kosher buffet of falafel, lamb schwarma, dolmas and other specialties, and music from jazz guitarist Avi Rothbard and his band (7-9:30 PM; $59; reserve by January 16th; 202-244-3700).

posted by William @ 1/08/2004 05:05:00 PM links to this post

Orthodox Jewish Feminist Comedienne: Did you hear the one about the Orthodox Jewish woman who entered a stand-up comedy contest?

She won.

“I’m a feminist. I believe in a woman’s right to choose her own jewelry,” cracked Joan Weiner, in wig and long skirt, grabbing the mike at the Gotham Comedy Club Monday night.

Weiner, a 30-ish unemployed writer and multimedia producer, was the first woman to win The Jewish Week’s fifth annual Funniest Amateur Jewish Comedian competition.

posted by William @ 1/08/2004 08:48:00 AM links to this post

Arafat wants to end terrorism, right? Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has sacked the head of military intelligence in the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, who was accused by hardliners of "collaborating" with Israel.

Fatah security sources say Mr Arafat has sacked Tareq al-Wahidi and appointed one of his deputies, Mohammed Zawahreh, as interim head of the service in Bethlehem.

Wahidi was accused of handing over a "collaborator" to Israel two weeks ago who gave Israel information that led to the killing of the local head of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Mahmud Salah, and one of his lieutenants, Anan Jawarish, last April.

posted by William @ 1/07/2004 04:21:00 PM links to this post

The proliferation of Jewish schools: Education in Jewish day schools is enjoying a boom across Long Island. More than 7,500 students attend these private schools -- a 50 percent jump in enrollments in 10 years.

At least 31 such schools, mostly Orthodox in religious orientation, now offer instruction across the region. Schools range in size from full-fledged campuses to small storefront operations. Many are concentrated in the Five Towns area, though there also is growth in other communities such as Great Neck and Jericho.

Along with traditional studies in the Bible and Judaic law, such schools are expanding secular classes. Hence, the demand for experienced public-school administrators such as Blumenstein.

Growth reflects the upward mobility of Jewish families -- many headed by sons and daughters of Eastern European immigrants -- who have moved to the suburbs in recent years from Brooklyn and Queens. The movement has brought with it a degree of well-publicized political friction that often revolves around contests for local school boards.

posted by William @ 1/07/2004 08:58:00 AM links to this post

With friends like these. . . Transcript of SNL skit wherein Gore announces his support for Dean.

Al Gore: Like you.. Howard Dean knows.. that, under our current asministration, life in america has been good mainly for the wealthy! For everyone else.. it's a living, breathing nightmare. As Paul Krugman has pointed out in the New York Times.. George W. Bush is not only.. the worst president in american history.. he is the worst leader of any nation on Earth.. going back more than 500 years!

Howard Dean: Really? I mean.. I'm no fan of President Bush, but uh.. but what about Hitler?

Al Gore: Number Three.

Howard Dean: Pol Pot?

Al Gore: Number Six.

Howard Dean: [ scoffs ] I'm not sure I'd buy that.

Al Gore: Oh no, that's accurate. It's from Tuesday's column. [ back to his sales pitch ] Like you, Howard Dean knows.. the wreckless.. foreign policy of the current administration has alienated our allies.. and left us in a hopeless quagmire in Iraq, where, quite frankly, our military's looking like a bunch of incompetent.. cowardly.. losers!

Howard Dean: Let me just say that I, uh.. I have nothing but.. respect for our troops.

Al Gore: As President, only a Howard Dean.. could end this insanity. Only a Howard Dean.. could go to Saddam Hussein and say, "Look! Why are we fighting each other? Our real enemy.. is George.. W. Bush."

Howard Dean: For the record, that is, uh.. not actually my position on Iraq, I.. don't know where you got that. . .

(via LGF comment thread)

posted by Judith @ 1/06/2004 03:07:00 PM links to this post

The rise and rise of "Jewish Studies" higher education courses: From the most recent National Jewish Population Survey, Bethamie Horowitz finds that, among students enrolled in college and or graduate school in 2000-2001, 41% have taken such a course, representing a "sharp and steady increase" relative to their older counterparts.

What does this mean? It means that there are more courses being offered. It means there are tons of Jews going to university. More importantly, it means that young Jews are interested in their own religion and their own heritage -- a heart-warming sign amidst rising assimilation:

While living on campus may offer young people a haven away from their parents, going to college no longer functions as a ticket out of a lower middle-class, parochial Jewish life into the mainstream of America — Jews in America are already there. Today the college experience for young American Jews is more about personal adult development than about the sociological transformation of a whole aspiring minority.

California State University (Los Angeles), however, presents a case study in why this proliferation in Jewish Studies courses could be a negative, not a positive. CSU-LA recently became

the latest college campus without a large Jewish presence on campus to offer classes in Jewish studies. Cal State-Los Angeles has some 21,000 students, of whom more than half are Latino, almost a quarter Asian-American, and 8.4 percent African-American. Among the 15.7 percent that are non-Hispanic whites, Jews make up such an insignificant portion that no statistics, or even good guesstimates, are available. The campus site is near Boyle Heights, home to a vibrant Jewish community before and during World War II. But by the time the campus was opened in 1956, almost all Jews had left the area. That means that few students have had any regular contact with Jews, leaving only a residue of anti-Semitic stereotypes and myths.

The Jewish studies program will start out fairly modestly in 2004 by expanding existing courses to reflect Jewish contributions in a given field. Selkin expects that the first such courses will be those covering the history of the film industry and American literature. As the program’s financial resources grow, he hopes to add Jewish-oriented lectures by visiting experts, research projects, scholarships and special events.

Jewish "culture", as in Jewish influence on American culture, may be interesting. But it is not particularly Jewish.

posted by William @ 1/06/2004 08:23:00 AM links to this post

On a similar note... The Hip Hop Hoodios are responsible for "Havana Nagila," (from their EP Raza Hoodia) available as a free download from Amazon.

The ensemble is comprised entirely of bilingual musicians from Jewish/Latino backgrounds, out to redefine the nature of Jewish and Latino music by showing what happens when you get chocolate in your peanut butter. This is not your father's Jewish music, unless your father is a member of Ozomatli.

I found the chorus to "Havana Nagila" so catchy that I've been humming it all day. Now I can hardly believe the folksong wasn't written with conjunto/Tejano-style instrumentation in mind...

posted by Rachel @ 1/05/2004 04:28:00 PM links to this post

Jews in odd places: Uganda: Rabbi Jeffrey Summit, an ethnomusicologist at Tufts University and the executive director of the university's Hillel foundation, has managed to maintain contact with the Abayudaya, a small and little-known community of African Jews, whose music he recorded for the recently released " Abayudaya: Music from the Jewish People of Uganda" (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings).

The Abayudaya are a bush community in eastern Uganda comprising about 700 people whose ancestors converted to Judaism in 1919. (Abayudaya means "the Jewish people" in Luganda, the main language of Uganda.) Today, the Abayudaya walk an hour or two to the nearest town, Mbale, to Internet cafes where they e-mail messages halfway around the world to Summit, who is working on a Web site for the Smithsonian Institution, translating the community's songs into English from the five dialects of Ugandan language in which they were recorded.

Indeed, upon first hearing "Abayudaya," I did a double take: The voices and melodies are clearly African, but the words switch between Hebrew and the Baganda, Basoga, Bagisu, Bagwere and Banyole dialects. As reported in the Forward last January, the songs include familiar prayers such as "Adon Olam," "Lecha Dodi" and "Hinei Ma Tov," as well as Ugandan folk tunes, political songs and psalms. (from The Forward)

posted by William @ 1/05/2004 08:31:00 AM links to this post

Ladies and gentlemen: the bagel. Living in Austin for 10 years taught me to appreciate real bagels when I can find them. As a New Yorker, Ed Levine understands one of my pet peeves:

A bagel is a round bread made of simple, elegant ingredients: high-gluten flour, salt, water, yeast and malt. Its dough is boiled, then baked, and the result should be a rich caramel color; it should not be pale and blond. A bagel should weigh four ounces or less and should make a slight cracking sound when you bite into it instead of a whoosh. A bagel should be eaten warm and, ideally, should be no more than four or five hours old when consumed.

All else is not a bagel.

Ed gets that

the large doughy orbs that many New Yorkers have come to think of, incorrectly, as "good bagels"

are not. A real bagel is small and chewy, with a hard crust. A real bagel is not made with dried fruit, jalapenos, nuts, curry spices, or other ethnically syncretic abominations. Coated with poppy seeds, onion, garlic, or salt, or made with pumpernickel flour - authentic Ashkenazic flavors - yes. Maybe even sesame seeds. But anything else is a muffin, not a bagel.

(via Oxblog, properly brought-up young men all well-versed in true native foodways of New York)

UPDATE: Ilyka responds with her own memories of inappropriate bagels.

UPDATE: Gary agrees for the most part, although in his view the author doesn't understand the fine distinctions between Nova and lox.

posted by Judith @ 1/04/2004 01:49:00 PM links to this post

Welcome a new contributor to the Kesher Talk Team: Rachel Barenblat: Rachel blogs ordinarily from The Velveteen Rabbi, but she has consented to join the team of contributors here at Kesher Talk as well.

Here is Rachel's bio, which henceforth can be found on our FAQ page:

Rachel Barenblat is founder and executive director of Inkberry, a literary arts nonprofit in western Massachusetts. She holds an MFA in Writing and Literature from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and is author of two chapbooks of poems. Her writing appears in Lilith, Dovetail, and The Jewish Women's Literary Annual, among others, and she was recently published in The Women's Seder Sourcebook and The Guide to Jewish Interfaith Family Life (both Jewish Lights, 2003). She is working on a book about the art of Jewish ritualcraft.

posted by William @ 1/04/2004 09:21:00 AM links to this post