So sayeth Larry

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I love and generally agree with Larry Kaufman (North American Board of the Union for Reform Judaism, National Board of the Association of Reform Zionists of America, Executive Committee of the World Union for Progressive Judaism’s North American Council, other impressive things). 
 
 
Larry recently posted on the URJ’s [...]

The Forward 50

I just browsed the Forward 50, the Forward’s annual list of 50 influential American Jews. The list gives us many reasons to be proud and a few to be disappointed. Here are my faves.
 
Pride:
At the top of the list, Rabbi Morris Allen, the Conservative Rabbi responsible for the creation of the first heksher dedicated to [...]

Sefer Ha-Bloggadah 1:5:112

Over at one of the other of the blogs I write for, Sefer Ha-Bloggadah, a daf yomi-style exploration of Sefer Ha-Aggadah, I wrote this on today’s reading:
Like prominent Jblogger DovBear, I’m all for reversing negative perceptions of minor character traditionally cast as villains. Today’s selection from Sefer Ha-Aggadah is a perfect chance to do just that.
We [...]

Shabos Zmiros – The Northwoods

This guitar work is crazy cool and definitely qualifies as Shabatstic in my sefer! This is Elijah Palnik. He and my cousin, Jeremy Shanas, met at Camp Ramah in the north woods of Wisconsin. Now they have an awesome band together called The Northwoods.

via YouTube – Drumming on the guitar – [...]

Shabos Zmiros – Fleet Foxes

So, OK, this has nothing to do with Shabat. But if this band, Fleet Foxes, and this song, Ragged Wood, isn’t Shabatastic, I don’t know what is. Enjoy
Shabat Shalom.

via YouTube – Fleet Foxes “Ragged Wood” Music Video

24 hours later

24 hours later and I haven’t woken up. It must be true. The next president of the United States is a black man and his middle name indeed Hussein. And it looks more and more like his chief of staff, arguably a more influential role than that of VP, is gonna be a Yid.
I’ve essentially [...]

The sound of enfranchisement

I’ve heard a lot of sounds on campus tonight.
When Virginia came up blue, I heard a surging mass of privelaged white liberal arts students bounce off the walls screaming and hollering with victory.
I heard the rolling waves of my fellow students surge out of a multi-purpose room, onto the paths of Drew University, joined by [...]

Voting booth t’filot

There has been much heming and hawing across the Jewish blogosphere about prayers to be said at the voting booth. It may seem an odd notion to Americans, so dead set are we on seperation of religion and government. Yet it is a classically Jewish thing to do to sanctify a seemingly mundane act by [...]

David goes to Yale, has an interesting conversation

An old Kutz friend of mine is now a freshman at Yale. In high school, she lived in Florida and I in Texas, so we hadn’t seen each other in a while. I paid her a visit this weekend, spending one very strange Halloween at Yale.
Saturday afternoon, after a gorgeous walk in some gorgeous weather, [...]