My Jewish Experience

"The Birth of Smoked Meat"

2007-04-01T07:55:00.000-04:00

37th Canadian Student Film Festival Winner

Third-year Cinema students Jeanne Pope and Zoé Mapp received one of the night’s two main prizes, the Kodak Imaging Award – which includes an all-expenses paid trip to the 2007 Cannes Film Festival – for their film about Montreal’s legendary deli, The Main.

“A gorgeous, black & white look inside The Main, inspired by the late great Stanley Lewis.”

“When they announced the winner, I nearly fell on the floor,” said Pope, who juggles filmmaking with being a single mother and a massage therapist.

The Birth of Smoked Meat was the result of teamwork, she emphasized, and would not have happened without cinematographer Glauco Bermudez.

Pope’s first film, Where’s Stanley? documented the life of the late Montreal sculptor Stanley Lewis. She also credits him as the inspiration behind Smoked Meat and an upcoming film about L. Berson and Sons, the headstone carvers of St. Lawrence Blvd. His atelier had been in the same building.

The 19 minutes movie is scheduled for distribution on the students’ website later this year.

Dylan: Still one of us?

2007-01-28T08:30:00.000-05:00

Despite the scholarship applied to Dylan's career, his Minnesota roots have gone largely unexplored, including his time at what biographer Robert Shelton calls the "university of Dinkytown."

From February 3 through April 29, the Weisman Art Museum on the Twin Cities campus will explore that sound as well as Dylan's contribution to American music and art with Bob Dylan's American Journey, 1956-1966. The exhibit comes from Seattle's Experience Music Project, but is augmented to reflect Dylan's Minnesota roots. Lectures, workshops, and a three-day symposium will add richness and depth to the exhibit.

Slide Show http://www.startribune.com/10137/rich_media/962755.html

Mazal Tov!

2007-01-25T21:42:00.000-05:00

Shoah survivor celebrates belated Bar-Mitzvah.

By Neta Sela

The Jewish community in Rome celebrated on Monday with 77-year-old Samuel Modiano on the occasion of his Bar-Mitzvah.

Modiano, a member of the community, was born in Rhodes. Sixty-four years ago, at the age of 13, he was a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp and was unable to celebrate his Bar-Mitzvah.

Modiano lost 60 family members in the Holocaust.

On Monday, in the Great Synagogue of Rome and in the presence of hundreds of community members, he completed what he had missed as a result of the terrible events that he endured in his youth.

Most Jews ever set to enter Congress

2007-01-25T13:30:00.000-05:00

3 minyanim in the House + 1 minyan in the Senate

A record number of Jewish members will enter Congress Thursday, but more remarkable are the unparalleled positions of power they will hold on committees related to Israel, many local Jewish activists say.

Six new Jewish legislators will be joining 37 familiar faces as the 110th Congress convenes, making the total the highest-ever, according to Doug Bloomfield, a former legislative director for AIPAC.

"It's unprecedented that there have been so many [Jews] in so many positions of leadership in both houses," Bloomfield said, using a Jewish simile for how that fact will affect support for Israel: Like chicken soup, it won't hurt.

By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER WASHINGTON_JPost

Auschwitz escapee hoped to warn Hungarian Jews

2006-12-10T08:35:00.000-05:00

Rudolph Vrba, one of five Jews who escaped from Auschwitz and delivered the first report about the shocking reality of the Nazi concentration camp to the Allied forces, has died in Canada at the age of 82.

Born in Slovakia in 1924, the Holocaust survivor was arrested by the Nazis when he was 18 and was soon transferred to Auschwitz. He managed to escape past Nazi guards in April 1944 with his compatriot, Alfred Wetzler. They then delivered a detailed, eyewitness account about Auschwitz, considered the first document to have alerted the outside world and Jewish leaders about the workings of the death camps.

The report was was initially given to Hungarian Jewish leaders and was in the hands of the Allies by June 1944.

Canadian Jewish Congress chief executive Bernie Farber said: "There are very few stories from those that were actually there... his story was breathtaking".

"He had what's been described as a photographic memory," he said.
Mr Vrba fought with a partisan unit following his remarkable escape.
In 1967, he emigrated to Canada, where he became a professor of pharmacology.

Israel Under Attack

2006-12-09T13:05:00.000-05:00

The Bnei Menashe

2006-11-28T22:40:00.000-05:00

'lost tribe of Israel'

Recognize 200 members of group believing it descended from Joseph

By Aaron Klein© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

An official delegation of Israeli rabbis arrived in India last week and began converting to Judaism members of a group that believes it is one of the ten "lost tribes" of Israel, jump starting a process many hope will bring the tribe's remaining 7,000 members to the Jewish state.
The Bnei Menashe say they are the descendants of Manasseh, one of biblical patriarch Joseph's two sons, and a grandson of Jacob. They live in the two Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, to which they claim to have been exiled from Israel over 2,700 years ago by the Assyrian empire, and have been trying the past fifty years to return to Israel.

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46540

Montreal artist Erik Slutsky

2006-11-25T11:30:00.000-05:00

Am I a Jew.

"Artist not sure how his work fits into Iraq Museum show"

Montreal artist Erik Slutsky did what many other artists do in their spare time. He checked out his name on Google a few days ago and discovered, to his amazement, that his work was being showcased in the Iraq Museum International Poster Exhibition. He

figured it was probably another Eric Slutsky, until he visited the museum website and saw his art on display.

http://pages.videotron.com/slutsky/News.html

Jewface

2006-11-16T10:30:00.000-05:00

Minstrel Show

Parodies that make us cringe today used to make people roar. A music critic discovers Abie Cohen, the Jewish version of Aunt Jemima.

by Sara Ivry

Irving Berlin, the man responsible for "God Bless America," was also the brains behind "Cohen Owes Me 97 Dollar," a 1916 number which sent up the stereotype of the tight-fisted Jew. It was one in a slew of Tin Pan Alley minstrel songs that made fun, often affectionately, of greenhorns and their slightly savvier predecessors. Jewface, a new album from Reboot Stereophonic, introduces several of these songs to listeners far removed from the immigrant experience and the Yiddish inflections that infused it.

http://www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=455

The Klezmer Mountain Boys

2006-11-04T09:29:00.000-05:00

Margot Leveret and Barry Mitterhoff

Margot Leverett and Barry Mitterhoff are bandmates in the klezmer-bluegrass band Margot Leverett & the Klezmer Mountain Boys. They played a Kentucky mandolin medley of two tunes by bluegrass architect Bill Monroe ("Kentucky Mandolin" and "Wheel Hoss") and put a klezmer dance tune in the middle.

Click below to listen.
http://c-n.com/specialsections/podcasts/cafe/margot.htm

www.klezmermountainboys.com

The Waters Of Healing

2006-10-01T12:01:00.000-04:00

The lovely Jewish healing verses below are written by Rabbi Shohama Wiener

Moses prays for his sister Miririam's healing by calling out:
"Ah-na El na", "PLEASE RESPOND GOD!" "r'fa na la", "HEAL HER."

Many find it comforting and effective to draw on this ancient plea in praying for our own healing. Chant it over and over. Perhaps a melody will come to you. Perhaps focus on the pure water of the falls soothing you. If you can, sit near water or an open sky and chant the verse, notice your breath as you do.

May the waters of healing, flow through my soul.
May the waters of healing, flow through my heart.
May the waters of healing flow through my form.

Ah-na El na, please Holy One

R'fa na la...Let your healing be done

Ah-na El na, Please heal my soul

R'fa na la...let me be whole.

The Position of Judaism on Organ Donation.

2006-09-30T15:19:00.000-04:00

With few exceptions, the obligation to preserve human life ("pikuah nefesh") is an overriding principle of Jewish law. This would support the idea of organ donation.

At the same time, Jewish law prohibits desecration of a dead body ("nivul hamet"). A dead person's body, since it once housed the holy soul, is to be treated with the utmost respect. Every part of the body must be buried - which is why you see the heart-wrenching images of religious Jews dutifully going around after a terrorist bombing, scraping up pieces of flesh and blood for burial.

How do we resolve these two principles?

Complete article: http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_o/bl_simmons_organdonation.htm

Congregation Sons Of Israel, Chambersburg, PA

2006-09-17T07:16:00.000-04:00

"Together we can extinguish the fire that consumes our sense of unity, and stoke the glowing embers of faith, that build our sense of oneness."

"We are a community of many voices."

Dr. Steve Schwartz,
president, CSI

Website http://sonsofisraelchambersburg.org/

Rosh HaShanah

2006-09-14T13:25:00.000-04:00

Irish Hersh, Public Opinion

Growing up in the 1950s in the Bronx, Dr. Steven Schwartz, president of Congregation Sons of Israel Synagogue, Chambersburg, remembers how school didn't get started in earnest until the High Holy Days were over.

"Unlike the secular holidays, the Days of Awe for me were about feeling a special sense of Jewish identity. I fondly remember walking with my big brother and our dad to the synagogue all dressed up in our best clothes. Back home, Mom was preparing for our return with a hearty meal."

Rabbi Natan Gamedze

2006-08-28T15:55:00.000-04:00

An accidental encounter with Hebrew alters the destiny of an African prince.

http://www.aish.com/spirituality/odysseys/The_Royal_Jew_From_Swaziland.asp

2006-07-30T08:51:00.000-04:00

God, The Ideal Parent
Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman

Complete article: http://www.thejewishweek.com/middle/sabbathcontent.php3

2006-07-30T06:45:00.000-04:00

Like the Borg

Hezbollah possesses a shared consciousness

infused with a ferocious determination

to crush their enemy,

at any cost.

Magen David Adom

2006-06-25T08:58:00.001-04:00

MAGEN DAVID ADOM ADMITTED INTO INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS AND RED CRESCENT SOCIETY

Complete story: http://www.afmda.org/site/PageServer

"Housewitz"

2006-06-04T05:57:00.000-04:00

'Housewitz' director gets

40 hours labor

Dutch court sentences 23-year-old student to community service for making video clip inviting people to Auschwitz-themed party

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3254679,00.html

"The disgusting tale of a Dutch video clip...Racism?...Anti-semitism?...Just insensitivity and ignorance?...You be the judge..."
Marty Roberts podcast, June 1st, 2006 http://israelnewsradio.net/

The Video:
http://www.heretical.com/houswitz/index.html

Free Radical

2006-06-03T21:08:00.000-04:00

Baruch Spinoza inspired Rebecca Goldstein.
So why is she out to betray him?

Interview by Stephen Vider

Betraying Spinoza, the fourth book in Nextbook's Jewish Encounters series, presents the 17th-century rationalist as both the first modern thinker and the original yeshiva dropout. Baruch Spinoza's rejection of traditional tenets—and his questioning of what it means to be a Jew—scandalized his Amsterdam community....

Rebecca Goldstein, a novelist and professor of philosophy at Trinity College, Goldstein dares to inhabit the mind of a man who preached objectivity, offering a lucid and often surprising exploration of how Spinoza's Sephardic roots informed his greatest work, The Ethics.

Entire Article:
http://www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=263
Author's Portrait:
http://log24.com/log/saved/021217-goldstein.html

2006-06-03T18:46:00.000-04:00

I Have a Little Dreidel — The True Story
by Susan Wolfe

Everyone knows the song, My Dreidel ("I have a little dreidel, I made it out of clay…"). It’s the obligatory Jewish song tossed into the grammar-school Christmas concert to convert it instantly into a multicultural "holiday" program...and it’s the Jewish folk song seemingly so old that it’s no longer attributed.

When he was a young man living in Brooklyn Heights, eking out a living between the Kane Street Synagogue and the Bureau of Jewish Education of New York... Sam Goldfarb, wrote My Dreidel...

Along with his brother, Israel, he wrote many, many liturgical and holiday melodies, including the haunting Shalom Aleichem, the Friday night Kiddush (the blessing over the wine), Adon Olam,and the "traditional" Birkhat Hamazon (blessing after meals).

Complete Article:
http://beingjewish.org/magazine/winter2001/article4.html

http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=89

Remembering the First Five Jewish Justices of the Supreme Court

2006-05-27T13:49:00.000-04:00

Lives — and Legacies — in Law

Remembering the First Five Jewish Justices of the Supreme Court

By RUTH BADER GINSBURG

There is an age-old connection between Judaism and law. For centuries, rabbis and other Jewish scholars studied, re-studied and ceaselessly interpreted the Talmud, producing a vast corpus of juridical writing, which to many was the very heart of the Jewish religious tradition. Jews have always prized the scholarship of judges and lawyers in their own tradition. When antisemitic occupational restrictions lessened, they were drawn to the learned professions of the countries in which they lived, including the United States. Law figured prominently among those professions. Law became and remains an avenue of social mobility, a field in which intellectual achievement is rewarded. And, as it evolved in the United States, law also became a bulwark against the kind of oppression Jews historically have encountered and endured. Thus, Jews in large numbers became lawyers in the United States, and some eventually became judges. The best of those lawyers and judges used the law not only for personal gain, but to secure justice for others. So it was with my predecessors, the first five Jewish Justices of the Supreme Court. To celebrate the 350th anniversary of Jews in America, I will recall in quick snapshots their lives in the law, and the legacies they left.
Complete article:
http://www.forward.com/issues/2004/04.01.09/350years1.html

Kielce Memory/Memorial

2006-05-23T20:00:00.000-04:00

Friday May 12, 2006

New monument to commemorate 1946 Polish pogrom

by ruth ellen gruber
jta

kielce, poland The American son of Holocaust survivors is creating Kielce’s first permanent public memorial to Poland’s most infamous episode of postwar violence against Jews.

The monument, designed by New York-born artist Jack Sal, is to be unveiled July 4, the 60th anniversary of the Kielce pogrom, an attack by a Polish mob that killed 42 Jewish Holocaust survivors and injured another 50 or so.
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According to the artist, "The opportunity to create a work to bring people to visit a monument in the public park of Kielce will allow a meeting of the past and present out in the open, a forum of great importance for this wound of Planty Street to begin to heal."

http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/29210/format/html/displaystory.html

http://www.jacksal.com/permanent_installations/kielce_memorial.html

Bernard-Henri Lévy

2006-05-22T20:34:00.000-04:00

Touring With Lévy a Dizzying Experience

by Marc Ballon, Senior Writer,

The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles

Date: Saturday, April 8, 2006.

Time: 9 a.m.

Place: The Beverly Hills Hotel lobby.

I have come to this palace of privilege to meet Bernard-Henri Lévy, France’s philosophy king, the author of 30 books, including best sellers “American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville,” released earlier this year, and “Who Killed Daniel Pearl?” (Melville House, 2003).

“I believe [being an agnostic] is one of the best ways to be a Jew,” he says. “Jewishness is an experience of the nonevidence of God. That’s one of the main differences between Judaism and other faiths.

The Jewish faith, the Jewish relationship to God, is the one most aware of [God’s] absence sometimes, the silence often.

If you read really the prophets of the Bible, you’ll find that their main experience isn’t one of the warm presence of God, but of the despairing absence of it.”

Passionate Jews like himself need not believe in God to embrace the bedrock Jewish value of tikkun olam.

Complete Article:

http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=15777

2006-05-21T15:31:00.000-04:00

First in North America: Kosher Subway@the J
By: ARLENE FINE, Staff Reporter

Beginning in early May, Subway@the J will be open for business.

This flagship fast food restaurant, the first and only kosher Subway restaurant in North America, will be located in the spacious, sunny living room area at the Jewish Community Center’s main entrance.

Over the next few weeks, this central spot, which at one time housed an Arabica Coffee House, will be refurbished with a warm, Tuscany look.

The meat and pareve (permissible to be eaten with either meat or dairy) menu will feature the traditional Subway fare, but every item served will be strictly kosher and under the supervision of Cleveland Kosher.

Pareve cheese will be used, and beef fry will be substituted for pork products. The mashgiach (kastrut supervisor), partner, and co-operator is Avi Cohen, former owner of Brooklyn Bagels.

All bread baked on the premises has the approval of the Orthodox Union.

http://www.kosherblog.net/2006/04/03/americas-first-kosher-subway-to-open-in-cleveland/

Rabbi Michael Lerner

2006-05-13T08:02:00.000-04:00

Democrats Need a Religious Left Values that the Left already holds, like loving your neighbor and turning the other cheek, need to be embraced politically.

By Michael Lerner

For years the Democrats have been telling themselves "it's the economy, stupid." Yet consistently for dozens of years millions of middle-income Americans have voted against their economic interests to support Republicans who have tapped a deeper set of needs.Tens of millions of Americans feel betrayed by a society that seems to place materialism and selfishness above moral values...

Read article....http://www.beliefnet.com/story/155/story_15583_1.html
Book.....................http://www.tikkun.org/rabbi_lerner/books/left-hand

"THE ORIGINS AND ACTIVITIES OF CASA SHALOM THE INSTITUTE FOR MARRANO-ANUSIM STUDIES"

2006-05-07T07:49:00.000-04:00

The origins of the work conducted today at Casa Shalom are perhaps unusual , but is an entity that has within a few years made considerable strides, having become both internationally and academically respected and a clear example of how from unexpected events can emerge a catalyst to unique and important research.

The whole concept was initiated almost as a holiday hobby in the Spanish Balearic Islands of Ibiza and Formentera, known as the Pitiuses Islands, in 1978, when it emerged that within these backwaters Jews had been protected by the Islanders and survived after the expulsion in 1492 until modern times.

As Jewish customs and ritual were discovered, as well as documents, which included a 14th century Megilla Esther, (now being restored by the Spanish Government) and four buildings that had been secret synagogues, some in use until the Civil War in 1936, the importance of the discoveries began to be appreciated more widely. Within a few years the research expanded to the larger Balearic Islands of Majorca and Minorca.

http://www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/043/12.html
http://www.casa-shalom.com/

Elie Cohen

2006-05-07T07:38:00.000-04:00

THE HISTORY OF ELIE COHEN : AN EGYPTIAN BORN JEW WHO BECAME ISRAEL'S GREATEST SPY.

One most memorable story of spying during the Arab- Israeli conflict is attributed to Elie Cohen who was born in Alexandria, made aliya to Israel and subsequently was selected by the army secret services, for a most daring attempt to infiltrate Syria which at that time was on Golan Hights, and very frequently shelled at Israeli farmers down below. Maurice Mizrahi, the author of «l'Egypte et ses Juifs». «Le temps révolu (19-20e siècles)», reports on the fact that Elie Cohenworked in his business. Mizrahi noticed that Elie took a long time to carry out his duties outside the business. At that time, Cohen was connected with the movement of the young Zionists which explained these long absences. In 1949, Cohen and all other Jewish students were expelled from Farouk University and an investigation was carried out because of their Zionist activities. In 1956, he was jailed during the Sinai campaign and subsequently expelled from Egypt in 1957....

http://www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/043/10.html

2006-05-06T15:37:00.000-04:00

Jewish Emancipation.

by Isaac Leeser

Our readers are aware that the liberty of conscience and political equality enjoyed by the Jews in Northern America (United States and Canada) and the West India Islands, as also in France, Belgium, and Holland, are not granted to them in other countries, but that we are subject more or less to certain disqualifications for the sake of our religious opinions. It is not alleged that we are not intelligent enough for the rights of men, but that it is unsafe to intrust us with political power in Christian countries. Even in at least one state of this confederacy, to wit, Massachusetts, and probably also in New Hampshire, Jews are ineligible to certain offices; in North Carolina they are eligible to none whatever....

http://www.jewish-history.com/Occident/volume3/jun1845/emancipation.html

2006-04-23T07:38:00.000-04:00

Nestle, Slavery, and the Festival Of Freedom

Reprinted from Jewlicious.com
http://www.newmansownorganics.com/food_chocolate.html#

Even though we don’t go to brothels and don’t own our own slaves, in the global economy, none of us are as innocent or as removed from slavery as we’d like to think.

One of the more poignant examples of that is chocolate.
Most of the world’s chocolate is made in West Africa, with 43% of it coming from in the Ivory Coast.

The majority of chocolate workers there are boys below the age of 16. A number of them are trafficked from neighboring countries with promises of good work and high wages. After being sold to plantation owners for around $30 US they are held against their will, working 80 to 100 hours a week. Violence or the threat of violence is omnipresent and they receive no money.

One escaped slave, Aly Diabate has testified “The beatings were a part of my life, anytime they loaded you with bags (of cocoa beans) and you fell while carrying them, nobody helped you. Instead they beat you and beat you until you picked it up again.”

Dear Nestle,

As Jews worldwide observe Passover, the Festival of Freedom, it was brought to my attention the evils of slavery that still persist in the world. Children and others are caught in a web of slavery on cocoa plantations in Africa and elsewhere.

I have since learned that Nestle promised to make their product slave-free by 2005, and have not done so.

Please heed the call of freedom. Stop purchasing cocoa from plantations that exploit and enslave children. Invest in sustainable cocoa industries that heal not destroy lives. Urge competitors to abide by anti-slavery commitments.

I will inform all my congregants, thousands of people that read my websites and listen to my classes to avoid buying your products until Nestle takes action that is independently verified.
We must act now to stop suffering and make the world a better place.

Sincerely

Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

The Jews of Venta Prieta

2006-04-22T15:27:00.000-04:00

Emerging From the Shadows A Visit to An Old Jewish Community

The Jews of Venta Prieta say their ancestors accomplished the impossible -- they remained Jews throughout the Inquisition, even though they had no synagogue and no rabbi to instruct them during the long centuries of hiding.

BY ALISON GARDY

It is easy to miss Venta Prieta. There is no welcome sign, no landmark visible from the road. It appears at first to be nothing more than a cluster of small stores, unpaved streets, and low flat houses hiding among the dry brown and yellow hills on the outskirts of the old mining city of Pachuca in central Mexico. But visitors keep coming -- journalists, anthropologists, curiosity seekers. If it could choose, Venta Prieta would remain anonymous. Go away, say a man's eyes when a visitor asks if she is in the right place. Leave us alone. And then with words, We are not objects in a museum.

Founded in the 1850s, this small Mexican community lived through its first century guarding a deep secret -- its Jewish identity. Its founders and most of its inhabitants were descendants of families who had spent 300 years hiding in Mexico's mountains after escaping the Spanish Inquisition. The community's founders, a couple named Téllez, settled in Venta Prieta when it was just an outpost, a ghostly presence that came to life with the visit of the occasional traveler. Today the village sits in the shadow of a giant new shopping mall across the road, and its secret has been out in the open for 30 years. But secrecy is an old habit, a vestige of a survival skill that kept the community alive for centuries.

The story really begins with the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims from Spain in 1492, during the Spanish Inquisition. The Holy Office of the Inquisition, established by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1478, had already burned thousands of Jews at the stake in the decade before the expulsion decree. In the half century following the expulsion, roughly a third of Spain's Jews were burned at the stake, a third fled, and another third were forcibly converted to Catholicism. Of those who converted, many maintained Jewish customs in private.

Many Jews left Spain on ships bound for the New World, where they hoped the Inquisition would be less severe. So many took this path of survival that by 1550 almost 25% of Mexico City's Spanish population was known to be Jewish, and the community had its own Grand Rabbi. The number might have been even larger, since many Jews disguised themselves as Catholics.

"The great majority of Mexicans today have Jewish blood, though very diluted," says Orthodox Rabbi Jan Knippers Black is a professor of International Policy Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. Abraham Bartfeld of Mexico City.

New Spain was not the haven Jews imagined. In fact, the Inquisition there lasted longer than it did in Spain, where it was finally suppressed in 1808. In Mexico, the Spanish authorities established a Tribunal of the Inquisition in 1571 which existed until the colony's War of Independence in 1821. During the war, the Inquisition accused the revolutionary priest José Marίa Hidalgo y Costilla, the father of Mexican independence, of practicing Judaism, among other "crimes." By then the Inquisition had become so despised by the general population that it was commonly referred to as the "Unholy Office."

Historians have generally contended that Mexico's colonial Jewish population was either wiped out or converted. But the Jews of Venta Prieta say their ancestors accomplished the impossible -they remained Jews throughout the Inquisition, even though they had no synagogue and no rabbi to instruct them during the centuries of hiding. In the last 50 years, they have built their own temple, bought their own Torah, and, in keeping with biblical tradition, have had an eternal flame of olive oil -- which requires constant attention-burning inside the temple.

But Mexico's orthodox rabbinate, wary of the long centuries that the Inquisition's refugees spent underground, disputes Venta Prieta's claim that it is Mexico's oldest Jewish community. "They can't prove their ancestry goes back to colonial times," says orthodox Rabbi Bartfeld. While he admires their "spirituality," Rabbi Bartfeld considers the heritage of the people of Venta Prieta to be as much Catholic as Jewish. He believes the only legitimate Jews in Mexico today are twentieth-century immigrants from Europe and North Africa and their descendants.

Mexico's entire Jewish population numbers about 50,000.

http://www.bh.org.il/Communities/Archive/VentaPrieta.asp

Amitai Sandy

2006-02-21T12:36:00.000-05:00

Born 1976

Graphic artist, comics creator, illustrator, designer, publisher.

Studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, and won an award for outstanding achievements in illustration for his final project.

Published and edited (together with Yaron Nisky and Eyal B) the notorious Israeli comics magazine "Penguins' Perversions".
'Penguins' presented to the baffled audience a combination of raw, black & nonsense humor on the surface, and serious social criticism as an undercurrent.

Since 2003 he's a member of the Dimona comix group, and also the group's publisher. Dimona has participated in European comix festivals and group exhibitions, and the books are distributed all over Europe.

Along with illustrator and animator Uri Ashi he runs Ashisandy studios, and together they illustrate and design books, some of which became Israeli best-sellers. They also do flash animation e-flyers, and other creative projects.

Amitai also dabbles in gig-posters, flyers and e-flyers design for dance clubs and music events. Some of his works appeared in art book collections of gig-posters art, including the prestigious "Art of Rock" book, from Chronicle Books (in the U.S.).

Amitai(at)ashisandy.com

Matisyahu Hasidic Reggae Superstar

2006-02-19T20:10:00.000-05:00

Funny, He Doesn't Look Jamaican

Chart-Topping Matisyahu Wants to Be More Than Just a Hasidic Reggae Superstar

By Teresa WiltzWashington Post Staff WriterSunday, February 19, 2006; N04
NEW YORK

Backstage at Madison Square Garden, Matisyahu cuts a striking figure, more rabbinical than reggae, 6 feet 3, all Talmudic beard and tzitzit fringe, shaking hands with the men, smiling at the women, saying, yes, yes, hopefully, one day soon, he'll be the one headlining. God willing .
Just minutes before, he was onstage, rapping and beatboxing, singing praises, bouncing like Bob Marley. Folks in this mostly white crowd of college kids were standing in their seats, arms in the air, jamming to the beat. Hollering. Not a bad way to debut at the Garden, especially for an opening act with an unusual concept -- a Hasidic reggae singer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/17/AR2006021700451_pf.html
http://www.chabad.org/magazine/article.asp?AID=376787

Hidden synagogue a relic of early era of intolerance

2006-01-29T09:15:00.000-05:00

By BARRY HATTON
The Associated Press

PORTO, Portugal — A chance discovery during renovations of a building in this Atlantic port city has revealed a dark secret from Portugal's past: a 16th-century synagogue.

Built at a time when Portugal's Jews had been forced to convert to Catholicism or risk being burned at the stake, the house of worship was hidden behind a false wall in a four-story house that Father Agostinho Jardim Moreira, a Roman Catholic priest, was converting into a home for his old-age parishioners.

A scholar of Porto's Jewish history, he says that as soon as the workers told him of the wall, "I knew there had to be some kind of Jewish symbol behind it."

His hunch was confirmed when the wall came down to reveal a carved granite repository, about 5 feet tall, arched at the top and facing east toward Jerusalem. It was the ark where the medieval Jews kept their Torah scrolls. Pieces of decorative green tiles in the ark further confirmed the age of the ark when experts dated their glazing to a method used in the 16th century. Only two other arks from the period have been found in Portugal, and last month the Portuguese Institute of Architectural Heritage authenticated this one as the third.

Jardim Moreira, 64, knew his parish had been an officially designated Jewish quarter in the 15th and 16th centuries. He also knew that after they were forced to convert to Catholicism in 1496, many Jews privately kept their faith and worshipped in secret, while behaving like Catholics in public. "I suspected that false wall was hiding something," the priest said. The secret synagogue dates from a convulsive period in the Jewish history of the Iberian peninsula.

In 1492, neighboring Spain had expelled all Jews who refused to convert to Catholicism, and some 60,000 poured across the border into Portugal. At a time of Portuguese empire-building, they prospered, but they were kept at arm's length, forced to live in a Jewish quarter subject to a curfew.

Then came the harsher crackdown. Portugal's King Manuel I, hoping to seal a royal alliance with Spain's powerful rulers, Ferdinand and Isabella, by marrying their daughter, forced the Jews to convert. Some fled, but those who stayed were subjected to humiliating public baptisms.

Jardim Moreira says he intends to place a protective glass screen over the ark while authorities decide how it can be exhibited.

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

Torah and Jewish Spirituality

2006-01-29T07:26:00.000-05:00

A rabbi once told a fellow rabbi, "People aren't coming to synagogueas much these days because they're just not spiritual!"

The other rabbi answered, "You've got it all wrong! They're not coming because they ARE spiritual!

They come to synagogue looking for something uplifting and meaningful. When they don't find it, they don't come back!"

http://www.onemovement.org/torah.html

http://www.onemovement.org

Man for all seasons conquers mental illness

2006-01-02T11:09:00.000-05:00

One bright sunny day, Barry Shainbaum, 18, stood at a bus stop in his hometown of Hamilton with a guitar in his hand. As he got on the bus, he had a premonition that he was somehow leaving.

Shortly after, standing in his girlfriend’s living room, he experienced a mental breakdown.
Two days later, he awoke from a long sleep to see his mother sitting beside his bed in the psychiatric ward of a local hospital. “You’re sick, and you will be for the rest of your life,”
she said, repeating the doctor’s comment. “We’ll take care of you.”

This was where he spent the rest of that summer before returning to school. Then at age 21, Shainbaum experienced another episode while on his way to see his psychiatrist, who then diagnosed him as manic depressive. Now known as bipolar disorder, the condition is characterized by a series of moods that fluctuate between mania (feeling indestructible and hyperactive) and depression. He was then put on Lithium to level his moods and was told he’d be on the medication permanently.

Today, youthful looking, with a zest for life, Shainbaum, 53, is completely cured of a mental illness rarely defeated. He continuously sprinkles inspiration working as a successful commercial photographer, author, professional speaker, musician, and most recently, host of his new Jewish talk show Sundays at 11 a.m. on Kitchener’s Christian radio station, CJTW 94.3 Faith FM.

“I once read that God doesn’t give someone any more challenges than he or she can handle,” he said, his eyes sparkling as he smiled from his seat on the black leather couch of his downtown Toronto photography studio. “I think there’s a lot of truth in that. And we strengthen ourselves through life’s challenges.”

Shlomit KrigerTribune Correspondent

To read complete article follow link below.
http://www.jewishtribune.ca/tribune/jt-050922-18.html

The Afternoon Prayer of Isaac

2005-12-11T08:33:00.000-05:00

"Isaac went out to meditate ('lasuach') in the field toward evening."

[Gen. 24:63]

"The soul is always praying.

It constantly seeks

to fly away to its Beloved."

According to Rav Kook,

what we call 'prayer'

is only an external expression of the inner prayer of the soul.

In order to truly pray, we must be aware

of our continuous inner prayer.

Through prayer, the soul flowers with new strength...

just as a tree naturally flowers and sends forth branches.

http://www.geocities.com/m_yericho/ravkook/HAYASARA58.htm

The Birth of Eve

2005-12-09T11:00:00.000-05:00

Eve was created from Adam’s rib,
which also can mean in Hebrew, shadow.

How a man views the opposite sex is

a shadow of his own self-esteem.

Kinky Friedman For Governor 2006

2005-12-08T20:01:00.000-05:00

Kinky makes his case for governor at UTB

Written by Kevin Garcia--The Brownsville Herald
Friday, 02 December 2005
November 30, 2005 — Independent candidate for Texas governor Kinky Friedman said during a visit to Brownsville on Tuesday that he’d like to see the border closed so a new system for keeping it open can be made..........
http://www.kinkyfriedman.com/
http://www.kinkyfriedman.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=102

"They don't make Jews like Jesus anymore."

Fractal Geometry of Torah

2005-12-07T19:23:00.000-05:00

Richard S. Ellis
Professor: Department of Mathematics and StatisticsAdjunct Professor, Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies

The Book of Leviticus and the Fractal Geometry of Torah

By Richard S. Ellis

The statement of Galileo that "the great book which ever lies before our eyes—I mean the Universe—is written in mathematical language and the characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures" applies as well to the Halakhah. And not for naught did the Gaon of Vilna tell the translator of Euclid’s geometry into Hebrew [R. Barukh of Shklov], that "To the degree that a man is lacking in the wisdom of mathematics he will lack one hundredfold in the wisdom of the Torah."

The Archangel Gabriel warned the prophet, "God is hidden by 70,000 veils of light and darkness............http://www.math.umass.edu/~rsellis/Fractal-Geometry.html

Human Logic, G-d's Logic, and the Akedah By Richard Ellis
http://www.math.umass.edu/~rsellis/pdf-files/Akedah.pdf

The Mandelbrot Set

2005-12-06T22:00:00.000-05:00

Benoit Mandelbrot

Born: 20-Nov-1924 Birthplace: Warsaw, Poland
Gender: Male Religion: Jewish Occupation: Mathematician

Benoit Mandelbrot is a Polish-born French mathematician best known as the father of fractal geometry. In addition to coining the term "fractal" to describe objects and surfaces which are irregular at various dimensions of scale, he also introduced such concepts as "fractal dimensions" and the particular fractal known as the Mandelbrot set, frequently represented with the mathematical formula z -> z^2 + c . Mandelbrot joined an IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in 1958, and remained with the company ever since, eventually becoming first an IBM Fellow, and then a Fellow Emeritus. He is currently a Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences Emeritus with Yale University.

Mandelbrot means "almond bread" in German..........................
http://www.nndb.com/people/752/000022686/
The Torah is a fractal because, as the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot explained, each small portion can be viewed as a reduced scale replica of the whole.
http://www.math.umass.edu/~rsellis/Fractal-Geometry.html

The Jewish Atheist

2005-12-04T19:16:00.000-05:00

A Jewish Atheist?

OY!

A Jewish Atheist!

by Dave Silverman

I know a lot of Atheists, many of whom hate the reaction they get when they tell people what they think. We've all seen it, the rolling eyes, the open mouth, and the obvious questions.But there's one thing that you can tell people and get an even stronger reaction, one so strong that even I am hesitant to tell someone unless I know I'll have the time to explain. You see, I'm a Jewish atheist. Telling people this has almost always followed with a long drawn-out explanation of how the two ideas are not mutually exclusive and how I'm "really an Atheist" even though I also call myself a Jew as well............

Click the link below to read the entire article

http://www.americanatheist.org/columns/rm3-98.html

Rabbi David Zeller

2005-12-03T15:57:00.000-05:00

"Living Judaism is not meant to cut you off from the world around you.

It is intended to keep you from getting cut off from the world within you. "

http://www.davidzeller.org/

WOODY ALLEN

2005-12-01T19:41:00.000-05:00

Allen Stewart Konigsberg
A few notable quotes

When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.

What is it about death that bothers me so much? Probably the hours.

The good people sleep better, while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.

To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.

The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won’t get much sleep.

(Born to an Orthodox Jewish family Dec. 1st ,1935)

Cantorial Music Catching On

2005-11-30T20:40:00.000-05:00

Yitzchok Helfgot

Cantor Helfgot was born in Tel Aviv, Israel. At the very young age of five, after hearing Moshe Koussevitzky's recording of "Akavia Ben Mehallel" Yitzchok Meir knew what his life calling was to be.

At age eight, Cantor Helfgot recorded his first works. He spent the majority of his childhood and teenage years studying voice and Nussach (The Art Of Prayer). He married at the age of twenty. At age 23, Cantor Helfgot held his first concert, he performed three great works, Zilbert's "Mimkomcha", Kwartin's "Tiher Yishmael" and Rosenblatt's "Ad Hena", all of which were masterfully executed, not to mention extremely well received by those in attendance.

It was at this point the world began to realize it had been given a gift from above in Cantor Helfgot, a reincarnation of cantors Rosenblatt, Koussevitzky and Kwartin rolled in to one. Truly living up to his name Helfgot, which is defined as someone who helps G-d, he accomplishes this with his golden voice.

The first position formally held by Cantor Helfgot was at "The Great Synagogue" of Bat Yam, Israel. At 26, Cantor Helfgot was called to be the Head Cantor of "The Central Synagogue" in Frankfurt, Germany where he spent five years until he was recruited to be the Cantor at "The Shule" in Bal Harbor, FL.

Cantor Helfgot regularly appears for Shabbatot around the world where he routinely draws record crowds. Leading the way in the revival of Liturgical Music, Cantor Helfgot has given concerts, spanning six continents. He is currently booked for Shabbosim and concerts through the Spring of 2005. His most recent recording, entitled "Borchi Nafshi“ - Bless O My Soul" has broken Jewish recording sales records. A new album has just been released, "Habeit Mishamayim".

Cantor Helfgot resides in Israel with his wife and six children.

http://www.cantorsworld.com/

http://www.israel-music.com/cantor_yitzchak_meir_helfgot/avot/

Nostra Aetate / Debru Emet

2005-11-27T13:46:00.000-05:00

Conference recalls historic Vatican document.

Jews and Catholics must continue with interfaith dialogue and educate their co-religionists on their historic rapprochement that began a scant 40 years ago, a day-long conference at the University of Toronto heard last week.

After nearly two millennia of hatred, oppression, vilification and annihilation of Jews by Catholics, the last four decades of reconciliation are "just the beginning of the beginning," and there’s much work to be done, more than 100 Christian and Jewish participants heard at last Thursday’s seminar, which marked the 40th anniversary of a landmark Vatican document that laid the foundation for the Catholic Church’s improved relations with non-Christians, especially Jews.

Nostra Aetate, (Latin for "In Our Time"), issued by the historic Second Vatican Council on Oct. 28, 1965, represented a turning point for the Church. The document deplored Christian anti-Semitism, stated that God’s covenant with Jews is irrevocable, and repudiated the age-old deicide charge that blamed Jews for the death of Jesus.

Another major achievement of Nostra Aetate has been that Catholics no longer missionize to Jews and have abandoned the notion that Judaism is a failed religion that has been replaced by Christianity. Christianity has not replaced Judaism, but improved it.

In 2000, scholars produced Dabru Emet ("Speak the Truth"), a Jewish response to Nostra Aetate that suggested Jews should view Christians in a better light. Many Jews, he said are "unaware" of the respect and friendship for them that Nostra Aetate produced. "For that, we need education."

Opening the archives "will remove suspicions and contribute to a more mature understanding," he said, but he didn’t indicate when or if that would happen.

While Jews and Catholics disagree on who is the messiah, what unites them is the shared belief "in an unredeemed world that needs a messiah," Cardinal Cassidy said.

A gloomier picture was painted by the chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, who said that Catholics tend to regard Jews "like a beautiful piece of silver on a shelf to be shown to guests, but not as a vibrant religious people that has a mission and strength."

The two faiths have had 40 years to implement mutual respect, but Rabbi Di said he can’t agree that "the era of suspicion is finished."

Adapted from an article by Ron Csillag staff reporter to the Canadian Jewish News

Hebron Massacre 1929

2005-11-27T08:09:00.000-05:00

Hebron preceded Jerusalem as Israel's first capital under King David.

The year 1929 dealt a heavy blow to the Jewish settlement with the killing of many of Hebron's Jews by Arab rioters. The assault was well planned and its aim was well defined: the elimination of the Jewish settlement of Hebron. The rioters did not spare women, children, or the aged; the British remained passive. Sixty-seven were killed, 60 wounded, the community was destroyed, synagogues razed, and Torah scrolls burned. However, those who remained did not surrender and 35 families went to resettle in 1931. The community slowly began to rebuild itself, but everything was again destroyed in the upheavals of 1936. On the night of April 23, 1936, the British authorities evacuated the Jewish inhabitants of Hebron. The Jewish settlement of Hebron thus ended and only one inhabitant remained there until 1947.

After 1948. In 1948 Hebron was incorporated into the kingdom of Jordan. It was captured by the Israel army in the Six-Day War of June 1967, and Jews again returned to visit Hebron. The old Jewish quarter was found destroyed and the Jewish cemetery almost obliterated.
According to the 1967 census, conducted by Israel, Hebron had 38,309 inhabitants, all of whom (excepting 106 Christians) were Muslim. Hebron has a smaller percentage of Palestinian Arab refugees than most other places of the West Bank.

Rabbi Meir Kahane

2005-11-27T06:24:00.000-05:00

The Jewish Defense League is the most controversial and effective Jewish identity, human rights, and activist organization. Founded in 1968 by Rabbi Meir Kahane, HY"D, the JDL has been responsible for confronting the all too real dangers presented by the white supremacy, neo-nazi, and fifth column movements in the United States and elsewhere.

The JDL works tirelessly to expose and defeat anti-Semitism and Jew-hatred, while building Jewish pride, self-confidence, and power in our People. The JDL continues to stress the absolute necessity for Jews to be learned in self-defense techniques of all kinds as though their lives depended on it, and has stood its ground in support of the Second Amendment.

Never Again, the JDL motto, often bumps up against the "mainstream Jewish leadership" attitude that Jews shouldn't make waves or fight back when are under attack. Such an attitude was sold to the Jews of Europe 65 years ago and the result was the murder of the Six Million.

The Jewish Defense League actively confronts the forces of Anti-Semitism, racial hatred, and bigotry, whenever, wherever, and by whatever means necessary within the limits of the law, while fighting for Jewish human rights guaranteed all people under international law and the Chosen People under our Torah.

Larry King interview with Rabbi Meir Kahane

Surfing Rabbi

2005-11-27T05:42:00.000-05:00

Rabbi Nachum Shifren is a Southern California native. A disciplined athlete, competitive swimmer, runner and triathlete, he served for 10 years as a Los Angeles County Lifeguard and received a commendation from the Mayor for lifesaving water rescue.

At the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War he became a kibbutz volunteer, and in 1977 emigrated to Israel. Shifren served in the Israeli Defense Forces and received a degree in Combat Fitness Training at the prestigious Machon Wingate Institute for Sports in Netanya, Israel.

Shifren received a Bachelor of Arts degree from UC Santa Barbara in Spanish and German Literature. He continued graduate studies in West Germany at the University of Goettingen. Rabbi Shifren is a language teacher and is fluent in Spanish, German, Hebrew and Yiddish.
Rabbi Shifren attended Toras Chayim Yeshiva in Jerusalem and Yeshivat Tomchei Tmimim in Kfar Chabad, Israel, where he received his rabbinical ordination in 1990.

He has been featured in People magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Jerusalem Post, GQ magazine, The Jewish Press, Surfer magazine, The Jerusalem Report, as well as Le Figaro, The Manchester Guardian, Sud-Deutsche Zeitung, and other international media. He has appeared on ABC's Good Morning America, CNN, Phil Donohue, NPR radio, JTN, Fox TV, Deutsche Welle TV, Dutch, Spanish and Canadian National TV, KNX Radio, KBRT, and KFI Los Angeles.

He founded Jewish Surfers International and the Surf & Soul newsletter. A movie based on Surfing Rabbi is currently in development.

Rabbi Shifren lives in Los Angeles and Israel. He is actively involved in physical fitness training, surfing and water safety. He continues to publish, lecture and teach and is known worldwide as "The Surfing Rabbi."

All Rights Reserved © 2004Design by CityNetMedia

Mississippi Jews

2005-11-25T19:09:00.000-05:00

Almost every Friday at about 7:45 p.m., auxiliary police officer Joe Erber calls in "Ten-Six" (or "busy") to his dispatcher. He cruises over to West Market Street on the outskirts of downtown Greenwood, Mississippi, and strides into Ahavath Rayim, the last Orthodox synagogue in the state.

Erber grabs a prayer shawl off the rack, kisses it, and drapes it over his police uniform. Then he makes his way to the pulpit and begins the services: Hebrew with a drawl. For years, Erber has served as the de facto rabbi of Ahavath Rayim, spiritual leader to a once-thriving congregation that has dwindled down to almost nothing.

It's a story that can be found in small communities throughout the South. At the turn of the century, Jewish immigrants poured into towns like Greenwood, seeking relief from the stifling tenement life up North. They arrived as peddlers, saved money, opened up stores. By the 1930s, Jews formed the backbone of the merchant class in hundreds of these towns. Soon after, though, young Jewish people began leaving, opting for the larger cities. By the early 1950s, this small-town Jewish exodus was in full swing. Today, the exodus nearly complete.

Note: For the first time in well over 100 years, it appears there will be no minyan in Greenwood, Mississippi, to celebrate the high holy days in 2001; there are now less than ten Jewish men over the age of thirteen in the area. If you or someone you know can help Congregation Ahavath Rayim make minyan this year, please e-mail Joe Erber at joe_erber@hotmail.com.

To Be A Torah Jew

2005-11-23T16:21:00.000-05:00

A Jew must always ask onesself: When will my actions be of the same caliber of holiness and spirit as those of my forbearers?

Pride in ancestry is necessary and commendable. But if it only remains a matter of pride without advancing the covenant, commitments and goals of those who went before us, then that pride of ancestry is almost worthless. It leads only to assimilation, anonymity and eventually the disappearance of the knowledge of ones own ancestry itself.

All of Jewish history testifies to this truism of Jewish life, both in individual and communal terms.

Excerpt from the writings of Rabbi Berel Wein

Chassidic Music

2005-11-20T21:05:00.000-05:00

A People And Its Music

The Baal Shem Tov

Flies Overhead On Shabbos

The Steven Spielberg

Jewish Film Archive

http://w3.castup.net/jfa/filmsscreen.asp?ai=148&ar=CMID23206

Chaim Ginott

2005-11-20T07:30:00.000-05:00

Our Education Philosophy

The late Chaim Ginott, who was a teacher, principal, as well as a psychologist, wrote the following to his teachers:

Dear Teacher:

I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness:

Gas chambers built by LEARNED engineers,
children poisoned by EDUCATED physicians,
infants killed by TRAINED nurses.
Women and babies shot and buried by HIGH SCHOOL
and COLLEGE graduates.

So, I am suspicious of education.
My request is: Help your students become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmans.

Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more humane."

Famous Quote By: Chaim Ginott, Happiness... is not a destination: it is a manner of traveling. Happiness is not an end in itself. It is a by-product of working, playing, loving and living.

Chaim Ginott died at age 51 from cancer in 1973.

Monday Night At Morton's

2005-11-16T21:02:00.000-05:00

We are not responsible for the operation of the universe, and what happens to us is not terribly important.

God is real, not a fiction, and when we turn over our lives to Him, he takes far better care of us than we could ever do for ourselves. In a word, we make ourselves sane when we fire ourselves as the directors of the movie of our lives and turn the power over to Him.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human.

I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin....or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them. But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and,above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help) I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.

An excerpt from Ben Stein's last column "Monday Night At Morton's

Modeh Ani

2005-11-15T21:54:00.001-05:00

i thank you God for most this amazing day.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e. e. Cummings

Yashrus

2005-10-27T20:35:00.000-04:00

There are high points and low points in a person's life. There are peaks and there are valleys. When a person can look back and see the straightness (Yashrus) of life -- that somehow, after a while, things tend to work themselves out and become straight -- that is the time when a person can utter Shirah [Song]. In retrospect, the person can see that what happened was 'straight'.

Parshas B'Shalach is the parsha of life. Life is all about the highs
and lows, the peaks and valleys. That is why this parsha, which
teaches us this lesson, is called Shabbos Shirah (the Shabbos of
Straightness, or equilibrium).

When one can look back on his life and recognize that while
there have been defeats and low moments as well as the high points,
he sees the Yashrus (straightness; fairness) of it all in retrospect, then
he can indeed utter songs of praise to G-d.

Edited here from a transcription by David Twersky; Seattle

Rev. Harter Engages Judaism

2005-09-24T14:49:00.000-04:00

Rev. William Harter of Chambersburg, Pa. told The Jewish Week that based on the history of Jews as the original people in covenant with God, and the centuries of brutal religious persecution and forced conversions of Jews by Christians, that Jews should not be proselytized like other ethnic groups that the church is missionizing.

As a co-convener of Presbyterians Concerned for Jewish-Christian Relations and Secretary- Treasurer of NCLCI, Harter commented that opposition to the divestment resolution has succeeded in doing what no other issue has done – it has united all segments of the church.

Chambersburg Jew Defends Our Faith

2005-09-24T12:52:00.000-04:00

Dr. and Mrs. Theodore Prowda and Mrs. Muriel Wiseman contributed funds with which the Syracuse University Library purchased the first report of the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews (New York, 1823). This missionary organization, which included in its membership such distinguished Americans as John Quincy Adams, sought to convert Jews in America. Dr. and Mrs. Lawrence Myers Jr. enabled the Library to buy Israel Vindicated (New York, 1820), the first American work to reject Christian efforts to evangelize the Jews. The book consists of letters discussing the injustice of the Christian claim to superiority over the Jews.

The missionary Bokum, representing the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews, visited Chambersburg during the month of March, 1843, to establish branch societies to act in connection with the parent society in New York.

Bokum repeatedly urged Lawrence Blumenthal of Chambersburg who held no office in the Jewish church, being a merchant, and pursuing an active business, to speak at the German Reformed Church, and assured him that it was the earnest wish of the majority of the clergy of Chambersburg that he should do so.

It was Bokum's plan to later discredit Blumenthal's address. That plan failed to materialize.

Mr. Blumenthal succeeded in stepping forward in time of need to defend by sound argument and the force of truth, the religion of our fathers.

Today, "Jews for Judaism" is playing the same role to defend our faith against "Jews for Jesus."

I extend credit to the 19th C. monthly periodical, The Occident and American Jewish Advocate, for much of the source material.

The Old Jewish Cemetery

2005-09-23T19:48:00.000-04:00

The "Old Jewish Cemetery" in Chambersburg is a wonderful repository of historical knowledge. It was the central focus of a nineteenth century society of Orthodox Jews who immigrated from Germany beginning sometime before 1840. The cemetery, which contains over 75 gravesites, has been recently restored.

The cemetery was dedicated on May 6, 2001, along with Greystone Neighborhood Park, which was created from a gift of part of the cemetery property to the people of Chambersburg. In addition, the Sons of Israel Cemetery Association has been granted a Pennsylvania Historical Marker.

The "Old Jewish Cemetery" is the first cemetery outside of Philadelphia and the first rural cemetery to receive a PHMC (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission) historical marker. It is believed to be only the fourth Jewish cemetery in America to receive a state historical marker. The other three are in Philadelphia and Columbia and Georgetown, South Carolina.

The "Old Jewish Cemetery" and the burial society that administered it represent an important example of the history of ethnic groups in Pennsylvania. In particular, its story exemplifies an important element of the pattern of growth and development of the 19th century German wave of immigrants who developed Orthodox Jewish societies in the smaller towns of Pennsylvania. The burial society was formed in 1840 as a first step in establishing a Jewish community. A building was erected for the sole purpose of ritual purification of bodies to be interred. All other traditional Orthodox Jewish rites of burial were followed.

The cemetery is unique in several respects. Founded during the German Orthodox Jewish immigration wave of 1825-1850, the Chambersburg Jewish community was one of a small number of destinations for the immigrants of this wave.

It is believed that Isaac Burgauer is the only Jewish Confederate soldier to be buried in a Northern Jewish cemetery. Research continues to confirm this. He was transported there by horse and carriage and buried after his death July 19, 1863, according to Wolfson." [January 2001]

Teshuva

2005-09-23T12:26:00.000-04:00

What role does repentence (teshuva) play in your life.

For me it means getting another chance

to turn my life around.

How about you.