HEY JEWS

from fb:

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/479881_571694366182740_1908504065_n.jpg

a friend translated the hebrew text below the pic:

What is the Mimuna about?

My grandmother told me that in Morocco, Passover was the one week that Muslims and Jews were apart. All year, they would sit together, eat drink, drink, talk, laugh, and raise their children together. However, on Passover, because it was forbidden for Jews to eat chametz at their neighbors' they would separate a bit. Therefore, they came up with the custom of Mimuna, so that their neighbors would understand that the reason they didn't get together over the course of the week was because of the holiday - and not because they didn't want to be friends. It was important for them to demonstrate their love and closeness, and therefore they made a large feast that all of the neighbors were invited to. It is a celebration of hospitality, of neighborliness, and of coexistence.

i think this is pretty good at speaking to an issue that isn't always represented accurately: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-outreach-revolution/

In off-the-record interviews with outreach workers associated with Chabad, Aish HaTorah, Modern Orthodox organizations, and community kollelim, I received the same response, sometimes offered with a shrug, sometimes with strong conviction: If the Jews whom I have taught and mentored become more active in their Reform or Conservative synagogues, they say, or in their federations or Israel-oriented organizations, or in their willingness to marry another Jew and raise a Jewish family of any kind, I consider that to be a success.

A good many non-Orthodox leaders probably would respond to this flat assertion with incredulity, for it has become an article of faith that Orthodox outreach is cult-like and intentionally designed to raid the non-Orthodox sectors of the Jewish community. With a few exceptions, this is simply false. In fact, what is actually happening is far more interesting: Kiruv has become a powerful vehicle for re-engaging Jews with the non-Orthodox sectors of the community. Leading members of Conservative and Reform synagogues attend Chabad educational programs or community kollel study sessions and then return to their home congregations, probably as better-informed Jews. Individuals who have had little contact with organized Jewish life are turned on to Judaism by kiruv workers and in many cases find their way into non-Orthodox synagogues or secular organizations.

Their numbers are not negligible. Though no one has collected definitive figures, a quick back-of-the-envelope estimate yields eye-opening results: Assuming that there are between 5,000 and 7,000 kiruv workers today and each interacts annually with an average of no more than 100 non-Orthodox Jews (a conservative figure given the size of most Chabad centers and the popularity of kiruv events sponsored by other organizations), the collective impact of Orthodox outreach may touch between a half million and 700,000 Jews each year, rivaling the impact of the Conservative and Reform movements, and in the majority of cases complementing and enhancing the work of those important movements.

The history of song & dance Hava Nagila movie doc is at the West End Theatre in W. DC

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/44219/hava-nagila-reviewed-the-story-of-americas-favorite-nigun-told/

my jew b-day is tnite/tmmrw :)

chag sameach mordy

wait no

yom huledet sameach

as we would sing in a linguistically suspect fashion to the happy birthday song at shul when I was small

http://jewishmorocco.blogspot.com/

blog for fans of Jewish Moroccan music

happy jewish bday!

http://www.israelhebrew.com/wp-content/uploads/happy-birthday-in-hebrew1.jpg

mazels on your "j-date"

https://twitter.com/hashtagjewbrag

http://forward.com/articles/176823/reform-rabbi-urges-hebrew-union-college-to-reconsi/

:/

man some of those comments are whoa

I am still not a jew, but I felt this thread may enjoy that a local group was able to register jewishfoodfair.com for their event this weekend. Why would this domain not be in high demand?

man some of those comments are whoa

― quincie, Friday, May 17, 2013 3:52 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah. but i guess i embrace a third position: the sooner we all assimilate and become secular the better.

i just mean assimilate to secularism, not give up all traces of jewish cultural practice & tradition btw

last I checked even Reconstructionist Rabbinical College had a quiet policy of not admitting people partnered with non-Jews, though it's possible that that's been revisited since they merged with JRF.

hm, still extant in the catalog, "An applicant who is married to or in a committed relationship with a non-Jewish partner will not be admitted to the rabbinical program."

I had no idea about these policies, and they make me really sad. Also pissed, and embarrassed.

2 questions for hey jews:

1. should i attend this event?

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/v/960125_10151614880369795_36079337_n.jpg?oh=fd4259584e298c1c530f31ed7e759966&oe=519EFEE8&__gda__=1369385540_406c143860cdd4f5210ffa12c12c300e

2. should i liveblog it???

just made myself some matzah brei with maple syrup. <3

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/birthright-alumni-marry-later-and-are-more-likely-to-marry-jewish.premium-1.529422

His latest findings show that among Birthright participants involved in interfaith marriages, 13 percent had spouses who underwent formal conversions. Among members of the non-participant group, formal conversions were almost non-existent. In general, Birthright participants are far more likely to marry within the faith than are non-participants. The latest research shows that 73 percent of participants in the program ultimately marry other Jews, as compared with just 50 percent among non-participants.

correlation vs. causation

dramatic either way

over-the-top bar mitzvahs, discuss:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g-ByhUDUllM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-ByhUDUllM&list=TLMyknLhRCbP8

My Bar Mitzvah was 30 kids and a DJ on the upper floor of a family friend's Italian restaurant. No one danced.

substituting tackiness for tradition

tackiness has now become the tradition for some

tacky bar/bat mitzvah parties are the jewish community's own personal quid/ag.

At my bar mitzvah, I specifically asked the DJ to play the single edit of "Pump of the Volume," and the jerk played the 12".

Has there been any notable late converts to Judaism? I mean, apart from, say, Sammy Davis, Jr.

Catherine Zeta-Jones! Kate Capshaw!

so whose kid is this kid anyway

Isla Fischer

Ivanka Trump who apparently covers her hair.

if u want to read something really really good:
http://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/interview-with-prof-jacob-wright-of-emory-university/

Why would the basic features of the Torah have assumed literary shape from the late 8th century and thereafter? It is because this is when the states of Israel and Judah faced momentous political challenges.

The Assyrian armies conquered the kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE. The earliest biblical authors realized that if Israel were to survive this political catastrophe, it would be in a new form: as a people without a king. Now the kings of Israel may have the ones who originally promulgated accounts of Yhwh’s great deeds, such as the Exodus story. After all, Israel’s kings would have seen themselves as the representatives of the state’s chief deity, as was the case in directly neighboring lands. Yet what sets the pace for the formation of the biblical tradition is a demotion of the king and a shift of attention to the people as a whole (“all Israel”) under the aegis of its God. Judahite authors, already before their subjugation to Babylon in 587 BCE, inherit this “demotic” project from Israel.

The Torah is the beginning of a longer history (stretching from Breishit to Melakhim) that tells how Israel emerged and existed for a long time as a people before its kings established centralized states. The history ends with the demise of these states, affirming the central message: All Israel is in direct covenant with its God. Its kings are, accordingly, not essential to its identity and its survival. What’s determinative is the nation’s corporate adherence to the conditions of the covenant (the mitzvot).

This message, which pervades the Torah and the rest of the history, is the reason why the Torah owes its penultimate form to the 8th-6th centuries, the time when Israel and Judah ceased to be ruled by native kings.

cool. i find this stuff fascinating

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00vFNzlXmNU

http://www.theonion.com/articles/jews-to-celebrate-rosh-hashasha-or-something,4532/

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/143410/rosenzweig-yom-kippur-conversion

presented essentially w/out comment except that even the highest intermarriage percentages were smaller than i would've guessed:
http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/will-your-grandchild-be-jewish-chart-graph.htm

idgi

what are they using to denote Jewish identity - strictly genetics?

fwiw I married a non-Jew, we're raising our children in I guess what falls under the "Secular" grouping there (ie we don't belong to a temple but we celebrate the holidays and identify as Jewish, when they're old enough for Hebrew school I will probably look around for options etc.)

i don't know what they're using for that particular study by the two metrics i've seen commonly used are self-identification or halachic judaism (matrilineal descent)

It's obvious that that "study" is using "intermarriage = non-Jewish children" as an assumption which is blatantly false.

That's just clear from the numbers.