HEY JEWS

Hey, Mordy, speaking of house pets, can you explain to me the tendency toward a dislike of dogs? A few years back, a friend & I were trying to get an apartment in a heavily u-O neighborhood and since I was referred by a religious person all the families were very supportive, until they heard that my roommate-to-be had a small dog, at which point all of them hastily backed out of the phone calls and practically hung up on me.

I asked my reference and she kind of glossed over it, so I know she doesn't hold with that idea, but obv enough people do that it's a thing?

It's generally a very religious thing (like more modern orthodox families will own dogs). I've heard a number of reasons for it.
1. The Talmud has serious problems with dogs. There are a number of mitzvot and things (like prayer) that you're not allowed to perform if a dog is in the room bc they're considered dirty.
2. I think dogs are historically considered as security/attack animals and there isn't really a tradition of owning them as pets which also leads to...
3. There's a kind of communal memory of dogs being used to attack Jews "in the old country" or during the Shoah. I've heard this third answer a bunch.

Two more dog things I can think of that may or may not shed light on the question:

A. During the Exodus narrative the Torah says that there was a miracle and while the Jews were leaving Egypt none of the dogs barked.
B. When talking about unkosher food the Talmud says that treifas (unkosher meat) should be fed to the dogs. (There's actually a Jewish joke based on this premise.)

So I don't know for sure, but this is what I've got.

a lot of religious muslims dislike dogs--iirc muhammad is said to have hated dogs, and i think mostly theyre thought to be unclean--so i wonder if theres a general semitic thing about them

tonight we're gonna party like it's 5999

(is what I say to my family every rosh hashanah)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_M5-qthA8w

Watching that is making me so embarrassed for those people that my skin is burning and prickling like pins.

I'm sort of thinking about going a checking out a synagogue or something tonight/tomorrow, just because. It would be my first time in 10 years+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZLq_JB8H44

^^^highlight of the holiday thus far!

Happy 5772, Jews!

EDB I am intrigued!

Essentially I moved overseas to start grad school in London.

Tonight I did have something that resembled a festive meal, and even marked the start of a new year. It was totally secular though.

Was just reading about the origin of the Jewish epoch, that is, the starting point - year zero, creation or whatever - of the 5772. I guess in the middle ages a bunch of rabbis simply added up the collective ages of each generational patriarch or whatever in a book of the Torah until they got back to Adam, or some such totally sound scientific method. The common rabbinical line is that years back then were longer than we know them now, which is convenient.

I did get looking at the origins of various other epochs. The Chinese calendar goes back 4700 years or something, and was started more or less arbitrarily by some emperor or something. The Muslim calendar only goes back 1400 years or so, obviously well after the advent of Islam but I believe linked to a famous speech by Muhammed or something like that. But then I got to thinking: why does the Christian calendar start with the birth of Jesus, when obviously time extends back beyond his birth?

It … doesn't?

But even religious Christians don't believe the world began with Jesus.

muslim calendar starts with the hejira, which is joni mitchells last great album. marking the calendar by the hejira represents muslims belief that joni will return and drop something even more bitching than court & spark.

I mean, there's that whole BC/AD thing for a reason. It acknowledges explicitly that time existed before Jesus.

I guess in the middle ages a bunch of rabbis simply added up the collective ages of each generational patriarch or whatever in a book of the Torah until they got back to Adam, or some such totally sound scientific method.

this is ref'd on the "a ho hoy liveblogs the Bible" thread and is also the reason creationists insist the earth is 6000 years old btw

otm

xxp about joni + muslims

i made some fried chicken for tonights rosh hashana potluck

The usage of BC apparently does not show up until somewhere between 1400 and 1600 or so.

My Hebrew School teachers used to say: BCE, Before the Common Era

have an easy fast folks

All mankind will pass before You like a flock of sheep. Like a shepherd pasturing his flock, making sheep pass under his staff, so shall You cause to pass, count, calculate, and consider the soul of all the living; and You shall apportion the destinies of all Your creatures and inscribe their verdict.

On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by upheaval, who by plague, who by strangling, and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquility and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted. But Repentance, Prayer, and Charity avert the severe Decree!

easy fast, all!

I've long been curious/suspicious of wishing people an "easy fast." Isn't it not supposed to be easy? Isn't that besides the point, insofar as it being easy is contra the notion of/reason for fasting in the first place, as if atonement could ever come from things being easy? (which I've always understood to be a form of ascesis that promotes self reflection) I think wishing people a meaningful fast makes much more sense.

NY Times

But the protests have also, on occasion, had a distinctly Jewish flavor: The encampment has coincided with the busy Jewish holiday season and has witnessed, in its midst or on its edges, a crowded Kol Nidre service on Yom Kippur, festive dancing with a scroll on Simchat Torah on Thursday night, and the sukkah.

Yeah, I wrote about Yom Kippur + Sukkot at Occupy Philly for the Jewish Exponent - it has really pissed off rabid rightwingers who are committed to proving that the protests are actually anti-Semitic. puts a crimp in your style when your anti-semitic protests include traditional Jewish rituals + services.

why do some people think that the protests are anti-semitic?

Capitalism is a Jewish stronghold, whilst banking throughout the world and throughout history has always had a high Jewish involvement.

The world of high finance is a Jewish world. War and revolution is interwoven with International Jewish Finance. These purveyors of disturbance have no political affiliations. National loyalty (if it exists for them ) is subordinated to the business of international finance.

Some of the main Jewish Banking Houses are :

Rothschilds

August Belmont & Co.

J. & W. Seligman & Co.

Kuhn Loeb & Co. (Warburg)

Lehman Brothers

Goldman, Sachs & Co.

The neon-cons and others saw a few signs and decided to pounce on the issue in an effort to discredit the movement.

^ this pretty much

bright fellows those neon-cons

neo-cons and bloggers including rightwing W. Post columnist Rubin, plus they got Rush and others to sign up on this meme

I'm trying to work out whether Conrad is outlining the opinions of anti-semites or BEING ONE HIMSELF.

But yeah, since the financial crisis started I have been wondering whether there was any prospect of rumblings against fat cat bankers turning into crypto racist rumblings against rootless cosmopolitans.

I'll never tell

copied and pasted from the internet

plenty on the internet too about money changers

I am sometimes amazed that there is still anti-semitism in the first world... not out of a feeling that people have become more sensible, more that it now seems so old fashioned, when there are so many other minority groups for racist nutters to obsess about.

ime there's some truth in that (in the uk at least) except amongst the 'anti-zionist' crowd of course who are generally a terrible bunch of cunts

http://joshreads.com/images/11/11/i111117dt.gif

happy purim!

I wore my hamantaschen earrings today.

i dressed my daughter as a ladybug!

Cute!

some serious costume action on my street today. hasidic kids are so awesome. adorbs.

there was like a bunch of 13-something boys on a stoop wearing cowboy hats and smoking cigars and talking traaaaash

guy in my (like 60% Jewish) office brought in some meh hamentashen today. Non-Jewish secretary got really excited about them and I felt like sort of a douche for telling her that they weren't that good and that there are much better hamentashen out there. They were the kind made out of that really mealy fake cookie shit!

I mean you know, it's not actually fake cookie, it's just very mealy and dry cookie

Just looked at the newspaper's photo gallery of the kids in costume in the local Hasidic village.

I think there's an Easter Bunny.

My Giant grocery store was sold out of hamentashen. Ended up getting some from Trader Joe's. Not as good as my Mom's home-made ones

my wife makes the best hamentashen but i'm trying to be less of a stuff-my-mouth with unhealthy food slob these days so i only ate two over the entire chag. :( generally i'd eat 30-40 of them...