HEY JEWS

I belong to a Jewish liturgical music group on fb whose only rule is no Carlebach

Mordy I think my wife signed me up for that group too but I don't really go on facebook anymore. It's a good rule to diversify things even without the metoo stuff

easy fast all

I was kinda weak this year and ended my fast in the late afternoon. My staking the kids to the shul in the afternoon plans were thwarted and just sitting around the house dealing with two small kids on an empty stomach for three more hours didn't seem tenable anymore. It's so much easier to fast when you're in services all day.

Tried a Reconstructionist Service for Kol Nidre. They did Adon Olam to the tune of "This Little Light of Mine". Interesting

x-post -- but yeah fasting in afternoon at home is harder.

“Adon Olam” can be sung to essentially any tune, I fondly recall singing it to the final Jeopardy tune

Hola judíos!

Hi Jews. I've been felled by a nasty virus and have not made it out of the house, much less to services, in days.

(also: Not Actually Jewish, but Yom Kippur is my favorite)

hope you get well soon. chag sameach

well that was exhausting!

by far the most intense part (for me, anyway) was a side-ceremony, a "healing circle", where people shared their personal struggles. Mostly health related, but just a lot of personal stories about sickness, fear of death etc

followed by a communal rendition of the least-Jewish thing in the whole service (but which I really dig playing), "Wade in the Water"

omg what kind of hippie shul are you attending?

A Reconstructionist one that's focused a lot on social justice/tikkun olam sorta stuff. The healing circle thing was an informal side-thing held in between the main Yom Kippur service and the Ne'ila (it was preceded by a yoga/meditation thing). Normally I wouldn't have gone, but the Rabbi needed a guitarist/accompanist.

Yeah my local Reconstructionist congregation is somehow both more and less hippy than the average Reform congregation. It is big on environmental activism but low on acoustic guitars. I like Reconstructionism a lot, am a Kaplan fan, etc., but I admit to eye-rolliness on some of the birkenstock aspects.

quincie convert already! you've done the work

take the magic bath

I def prefer our instrumental and audience-participatory set-up to the organ + cantor routine I grew up with. the cellos bring a bit of classical chamber music to it, the clarinet and guitar bring the klezmer/folk side, and then we have a choir. Plus the Rabbi + percussionist hand drumming which adds a sort of Israeli/north african feel to things. idk I guess that's pretty hippy but I like it.

There's also a couple classically trained vocal soloists, one handled Kol Nidre etc

A friend had a great facebook debate going on his wall about some nu-YK prayer where you congratulate yourself for your good deeds in addition to confessing your sins. It turned out it was created by the founder of "open orthodox" judaism, which was weird because it seemed at least as hippy-dippy and revisionist as anything you find in the reconstructionist movement.

Jewish pluralism is a beautiful and nonlinear thing

...take a sad song, and make it bubbe.

We didn't even have an organ, just a solo acapella cantor (which could be very haunting)

Our Reform temple is pretty reform, with choir, piano, guitar at times, social justice issues at the fore, etc. But last year I went to a bar mitzvah at a Reconstructionist synagogue in Oakland and boy, did it make our temple look stodgy.

There is a lot of singing and dancing

I was in Costco today and waiting in line I heard the (really friendly!) person working the register ask each customer if they were interested in buying any "holiday stamps." Being a smartass, when she asked me I just very dryly asked her "which holiday?" And she kind of paused and said, "well, they've got Santa on them, so ..." And then she realized I was just teasing, because of course it was just Santa. I do think it's kind of lame to bother calling them "holiday stamps" if it's only one holiday represented and how it's represented isn't fooling anyone.

Anyway: hey Jews! Do any of you have a good comparative Judeo-Christian religion book recommendation? I realized only recently that I know next to nothing about Christianity, and not much more about Islam, but they all share so much with Judaism there's got to be a good book about their relationships, textual, historical, etc.

might xpost this to outernational later but figure despite this not being an ilm thread it might be a good place to share this:
https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/the-hidden-world-of-psychedelic-jewish-folk

what the hell?

that Shmulik Kraus track sounds like a post-Tropicalia Caetano Veloso outtake

To offer a disrespectful I Love Comics answer to Josh’s question from November, I found Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe books to be (in)decent on that front.

You could also go crazy and try the MacCulloch route: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126226424

Josh - I asked a friend who teaches Judaism, Christianity, Islam and she recommended this text:

https://www.amazon.com/Jews-Christians-Muslims-Introduction-Monotheistic/dp/0205018254

lol at textbook pricing tho

true, might be able to grab a copy through the library? tho $40 for a used textbook isn't a terrible price.

it's on the grimly tolerable end certainly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkQATH3O1H8

p sure Jews and their cultural/media outlets aren't the source of anti-semitism but ok

New York is combatting anti-Semitism with a new ad campaign featured in Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish print and digital outlets, in addition to social media.

The New York City Commission on Human Rights launched a campaign to fight religious harassment and discrimination and to emphasize the city’s support for its Jewish population. The commission said in a release that the campaign was in response to rising anti-Semitic incidents in the city, the surrounding area and the country.

One of the new ads reads, “Jewish New Yorkers belong here. Anti-Semitism does not.”

The advertisements will be featured in Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish print outlets such as Hamodia, Jewish Press and Mishpacha, as well as online at The Jewish Week and in the NYC Human Rights Commission’s social media.

¿?

Kinda like someone wants to be seen doing something more than they want to do something

run those ads in the Stormfront newsletter, I hear they need the money

maybe the ads are more to make the jewish community feel safe and supported rather than convince antisemites to stop hating jews?

that was the only rationale I could come up with

idk how comforting a bunch of dumb ads are when people are getting randomly murderedq

A friend just had to cancel their daughter's bat mitzvah, which is in less than a month. Rescheduled date tbh. So ... will she have to learn an entirely new torah portion? I assume so!

our community's largest synagogue is not holding services this shabbat for the first time ever

we're still having small gathering stuff but I expect the kids' shul activities to shut down shortly. They were bummed about the purim megillah getting cancelled, and a shabbat thing we were gonna do next week is also not happening now.

(lol not rescheduled date tbh, tbd)

We got a generic warning for those at risk to take extra precautions, but also assurances that our synagogue will absolute abide by any recommendations and will be changing things as needed, either moving them to where there is more space or cancelling them outright.

My wife is the executive director of a synagogue. They're suspending all programs and operations as of today, including Shabbat services. We're in Western Mass. I know some places are going to be livestreaming services to an empty sanctuary.

Services are still going on here with distancing measures & no kiddush lunch, who knows for how long. We are organizing to shop for older congregants and leave groceries outside their doors.

A lot of older parents gonna be having seder alone this year. Ours are. I just see no way of traveling to their house and staying with them that doesn't involve a real risk of us bringing them virus.

So, um, what's the plan, everybody? A friend of mine joked that we're going to see more articles about Zoom seders than actual Zoom seders. The paltry Passover supplies around here get picked over pretty quickly in the best of times, so I hope no one is hoarding the matzoh.

On a slightly different note, current events will certainly lend an awkward vibe to tales of plague, first born and inviting in strangers. Keep your distance, Elijah.