If you watch Battlestar Galactica and haven’t seen the finale yet, stop reading now. If you think that you might ever start watching BSG, you too should stop now. This is not an abandonment of this blog’s usual topic. This post is all about religion, just as BSG has often profoundly been.
There has been a [...]
I know that Rabbi Leon Morris is my kind of guy because when commenting on how nice the spring weather was Friday afternoon, we both said, “Pesach must be coming.” Discussion of seasons in Israel and of the line in G’vurot that will shortly change followed.
I first met Rabbi Morris, one of the most important [...]
Crossposted to Jewschool.
The JTA brings us this today: “Figuring out why promising Conservative alumni set up ‘indy minyans.’”
The article is basically a summary of the Conservative movement’s mostly ineffectual attempts to draw in former members who have left for the indie minyans, or the emergent scene.
The most interesting qutoe in the article, to me is [...]
Shabos Zmiros is my weekly attempt to bring a little song into the space between the week and Shabat.
SXSW–South By Southwest, for the uninitiated–is currently underway in my hometown of Austin, Texas. It’s one of the largest music, film and multimedia conferences in the country. The sheer scale of the music festival never ceases to [...]
I shall now paraphrase Professor Alan Nadler in class today. The following is a tangent regarding the halachic loophole of “selling” your chametz to a goy and then buying it back at the end of Pesach.
This was a big thing in Poland back then because Jews were not only the vast majority of the producers [...]
Meanwhile, at Jewschool, I’ve written a bit about the new biblically-inspired NBC series, Kings.
Professor Alan Nadler, in class yesterday:
Of course, false messianism and figures like Shabetai Tzvi led to all sorts of the catastrophes for the Jewish community. Such as Chasidism.
I just about died.
On a related note, an exchange from Limmud NY 2009:
Getzel Davis: I’m a Neo-Chasid.
Dan Sieradski: Well, I’m a Neo-Litvak.
In other news, for those wondering when [...]
Cross-posted to Jewschool.
Curious to hear an insider perspective on the Union for Reform Judaism’s new resturcture, I got in touch with a friend on the URJ Board of Trustees. He sent me the following in his e-mail response.
The Union is required by its constitution to operate on a balanced budget, and given current income projections, [...]
Crossposted to Jewschool.
Though I usually scoff at anyone attempting to meld Jewish and Eastern spirituality, Kirtan Rabbi caught my ear. An e-mail promoting an upcoming Kirtan Rabbi event I recieved from Andrew Hahn, the Kirtan Rabbi himself, today explains Kirtan Rabbi like this:
Kirtan is call-and-response devotional chant, originally developed in India; it is a practice where [...]
I’ll let Jewschool speak for itself:
“The most important thing happening online in the Jewish community
today.” –Noted Jewish sociologists Ari Kelman & Steven M. Cohen
Rated “the third most influential faith blog” by The Times of London
Jewschool is the web’s leading source for alternative Jewish views and
culture. Winner of eight Jewish & Israeli Blog Awards, Jewschool has
been [...]
