The Gmail blog informs us:Imagine the sinking feeling of logging in to your Gmail account and finding it empty. That’s what happened to 0.02% of Gmail users yesterday, and we’re very sorry. The good news is that email was never lost and we’ve restored access for many of those affected...more...OMG, the blog tells us that, "To protect your information from these unusual bugs, we also back it up to tape."
Memo From Ramat Gan -
Rediscovered, Ancient Color Is Reclaiming Israeli Interest
By DINA KRAFT
RAMAT GAN, Israel — One of the mysteries that scholars have puzzled over for centuries is the exact shade of blue represented by “tekhelet,” which the Bible mentions as the color of ceremonial robes donned by high priests and ritual prayer tassels worn by the common Israelite...more...
"? (The similar question may be raised for Hebrew discourse about the Talmud. It too is in a dialect separate and apart from the secular modern Hebrew that is spoken in the marketplace in Israel today.) And second, Why do some university scholars speak about the Talmud in inaccessible learned terms?
When my dear friend Alan F. Segal died at age 65 on Sunday, February 13, this earthly world lost a diligent, productive scholar of religions and a sparkling lecturer and teacher. And more than that, a great force of positive energy departed from our midst.
Subsequently, Alan spent a decade investigating death and the afterlife in the world’s religions and published the results in "Life After Death: The Afterlife in Western Religions." His final book, which turns to subjects of ancient Israel, is complete and at the press awaiting publication. It surely will be influential in its own right. All of his books are widely cited in the scholarly literature.
(a) Glenn Beck, come to my local synagogue where an Orthodox rabbi talks radical right wing politics every week.Here is the recording, check it out at minute 3:00, and the transcript, courtesy of Media Matters. Thanks guys, for trying to keep them honest.
(b) Have you lost your mind making such comparisons? No wait, obviously you have.
Yes, Rahm Emanuel is a Jew. He was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1959. In Hebrew the name Rahm means "lofty" and the name Emanuel means "God is with us."
Yes, hip hop artist Drake is a Jew. The Canadian, former child actor with the number one (rap) album 
appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show where he discussed his Jewishness and compared it with Jewish reggae hip hop artist Matisyahu."Drake is a pretty good man. He's got his thing, but it's different than what I do." Continuing, he says of Drake: "He's Jewish, but he's not representing Judaism.Putting aside the debate over who is a better Jew, or more analytically, who is Jewish and who is Judaic, the funny Kimmel video clip is over at HipHopWired, we are not able to embed it here.
"He happens to be Jewish just like Bob Dylan happened to be Jewish, but what I'm doing is really tapping into my roots and culture, and trying to blend that with the mainstream...Drake's being Jewish is just a by-product."
No, superstar singer and dancer Madonna is not a Jew. She was born and brought up Catholic. But in recent years she has been linked to the Jewish mystical practice called Kabbalah.
the tenth track is controversial because it is called Isaac and contains allusions to the Kabbalah. Rabbis in Israel (mistakenly) thought Madonna was trying to cash in on the good name of Isaac Luria, the Ari, the great founder of Lurianic Kabbalah. So those good men condemned the singer and the album.
has wonderful credentials as the publisher tells us:Michael Broyde is a Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law and a Senior Fellow and a Project Director at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. He was the founding Rabbi of the Young Israel of Toco Hills in Atlanta, GA, and serves as a rabbinical judge (dayan) at the Beth Din of America, the largest Jewish law court in America. Rabbi Broyde received advanced rabbinical (dayanut) ordination at Yeshiva University and a Juris Doctor from New York University, and has published more than seventy five articles and three books on various aspects of Jewish law, ethics and religion.The book he published has a stated agenda:
Havineinu, an abridged version of the daily prayer (Shemoneh Esreh), was once a useful, well known prayer said in pressing situations. Because it is brief, it is an ideal prayer for dangerous situations where one's ability to pray or concentrate on the longer text of the daily prayer is compromised.
The Forward recognizes in an editorial and story this week (finally) that Jews do not need synagogues. Jews may pray anywhere that they gather. Judaism in its essence is not an institutional religion....Josh Nathan-Kazis reports this week, many independent minyanim have no interest in affiliating with this or any other denomination. “We don’t need the movement,” one minyan leader boasted. Perhaps not the “movement” as it is now structured, but engaged Jews — from establishment and upstart congregations — need to find a way to work together to shape a common future, especially if committed, egalitarian, non-Orthodox Judaism is going to survive. To do that, they must stop talking past one another and recognize some central truths....And we add for those who will understand to what we allude, independent prayer groups have nothing to do with barefoot jogging, no how no way. They are the essential expressions of the primary modes of praying as articulated in the Mishnah and the Talmud, the rishonim and acharonim. Institutionalized synagogues as they are today are not the authentic representations of the preferred modes of prayer in classical Judaism.
The Republic - Alan F. Segal, leading religious scholar, dies at 65
HACKENSACK, N.J. — Alan F. Segal of Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J., a leading religious scholar whose views on the origins of Judaism and Christianity and on the afterlife were much sought after, died Sunday. He was 65.
Does anyone want Bernie Madoff to vouch for them? Oy, bad idea, that makes no sense at all.Madoff: Mets owners 'knew nothing'
by Adam Rubin
The beleaguered owners of the New York Mets received a show of support Tuesday from none other than convicted swindler Bernard Madoff.
In a prison interview, Madoff told The New York Times that team owners Fred and Jeff Wilpon and Saul Katz had no knowledge he was operating a Ponzi scheme.
"They knew nothing," Madoff told the newspaper. "They knew nothing."
Trustee Irving Picard is seeking to recover as much as $1 billion from Mets ownership based on the premise they knew, or should have known, Madoff was perpetrating a fraud.
Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo has been appointed a mediator in the lawsuit, which was filed in December in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
Picard seeks $300 million in what he has labeled "fictitious profits" from Mets owners -- allegedly money the family withdrew over the principal they invested in certain accounts. The other $700 million is alleged principal Picard asserts should be forfeited because the Wilpons allegedly knew, or should have known, a fraud was taking place.
Madoff did tell The Times in a two-hour interview in a prison visiting room Tuesday that he believed banks were complicit in his fraud.
"They had to know," Madoff told the newspaper. "But the attitude was sort of, 'If you're doing something wrong, we don't want to know.'"
My friend and colleague Alan F. Segal passed away yesterday, Sunday Feb. 13. I knew Alan for over thirty years and treasured his friendship and collegiality. He was a great intuitive scholar and thinker whose mind sailed across centuries and disciplines. He made great contributions to his fields of study in numerous books, articles, reviews and lectures.To Alan זכר צדיק לברכה
a scholar of proper priestly demeanor,
a writer with a mystical imagination,
a researcher with immense scribal erudition,
a lecturer with a great performer’s talents,
a defender of his people with a celebrity’s prominence,
and a true friend with meditative graces and compassion.
What the heck? We got three issues of New Yorker delivered in two days this week. How did that happen? How will we ever get through them?Have you ever thought that Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling books were a bit on the formulaic side — from the punchy titles to the clean white covers to the mix of academic research and pop science? Check out the Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator, a Web site launched yesterday that cranks out Gladwell-like book titles. Sample: “Power: How Power Powerfully Powers Power.” The Observer has a story on one of the site’s creators, who says he’s a Gladwell fan. Mockery is the sincerest form of flattery?
In the "wow we must be getting close to the age of redemption" story of the day, the Times reports that Christians are adopting Jewish marriage contracts in their wedding ceremonies.Christians Embrace a Jewish Wedding Tradition
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
In a San Antonio chapel last August, after reciting their wedding vows and exchanging their rings, Sally and Mark Austin prepared to receive communion for the first time as husband and wife. Just before they did, their minister asked them to sign a document. It was a ketubah, a traditional Jewish marriage contract.
The Austins’ was not an interfaith marriage. Nor was their ceremony some sort of multicultural mashup. Both Sally and Mark are evangelical Christians, members of Oak Hills Church, a nationally known megachurch. They were using the ketubah as a way of affirming the Jewish roots of their faith.
In so doing, the Austins are part of a growing phenomenon of non-Jews incorporating the ketubah, a document with millennia-old origins and a rich artistic history, into their weddings. Mrs. Austin, in fact, first learned about the ketubah from her older sister, also an evangelical Christian, who had been married five years earlier with not only a ketubah but the Judaic wedding canopy, the huppah.
Sometimes a book sale is just a book sale. And sometimes it is so much more. I’m delighted to share with you a piece from today’s New York Times that reflects the dynamic and diversity of our school and our community through the vehicle of the Seforim Sale. As so many of you know, the Seforim Sale is more than a magnificent collection of contemporary books and sacred texts. With 15,000+ visitors, it is something of a Yeshiva University annual homecoming. So many educational values and unique Yeshiva University characteristics are reflected in this short article – the centrality of education, student leadership, community, diversity, safety, the sanctity of learning and, of course, the Rav. In essence, it captures and celebrates the dynamic of ennobling and enabling.The Times' story is here, Yeshiva Fair Is a Bastion for Jewish Books of the Printed Variety, By JOSEPH BERGER.
In 1976 the electronics store was called "The Sound of Music" and one of their main locations was on Hennepin and Lake Streets in Minneapolis. Best Buy may switch to Wal-Mart-style pricing
It's a strategy inspired by consumers' increasing use of smart phones to compare prices.
By CHRIS BURRITT and CLIFFORD EDWARDS, Bloomberg News
Best Buy Co. Inc., the Richfield-based consumer electronics giant, may curtail three decades of tactical discounting and move instead to its own version of the everyday prices pioneered by Wal-Mart Stores Inc...more...
Our good buddy Richard over at Tikkun Olam blog wonders, aloud, "Clearly, many national leaders expected Mubarak to step down. They said so publicly. So it’s mystifying that such figures understood Mubarak would resign and yet the man did a U-turn. Did he agree to resign and then change his mind?"
No, teen singer Justin Bieber is not a Jew. He is a devout Christian.For Justin Bieber, ‘Scooter’ and the Shema play a major presence
By Edmon J. Rodman
LOS ANGELES (JTA) -- Is “Never Say Never,” the biographical documentary and concert film that recounts the rise of Justin Bieber, also a message film of “Hear O Israel"?
The film, which opens Feb. 11 in wide release, has a genuine Jewish backstory due to the onscreen presence and production involvement of Bieber’s Jewish manager, Scott Samuel "Scooter" Braun.
By all accounts Braun, who discovered Bieber on YouTube -- a site where the teen sensation now has several songs with more than 100 million views -- plays an important role in Bieber’s life both on stage and off.
“On the road I take responsibility for him,” Braun, 29, told JTA in a recent interview, relating that his Jewish background helps Bieber to maintain a sense of balance.
Off stage, Braun also is a presence -- a kind of a Jewish road dad helping the 16-year-old Bieber face the challenges.
“The girls chase the car, they’re in the lobby,” Braun said. “They know where we’re going before we know.”
On stage, as reported by various sources, Braun, Bieber and some of the crew members say the Shema before beginning a concert.
"Originally Justin and the crew just did a prayer circle before the show that ended with Jesus Christ. I wasn’t into that,” said Braun, who grew up in Greenwich, Conn.
With another Jewish member of the crew, “we started saying the Shema. About the third time, Justin chimed in,” Braun recalls. “He had memorized it. Now others say it with us, too....more...
To us it seemed at the time in 2007 that the Australian reported that Pope Benedict XVI insisted in an address in Rome that hell is real and only he and the Catholic Church can save you from it.Pope says hell and damnation are real and eternal
By Richard Owen in Rome
HELL is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, Pope Benedict XVI has said.
Addressing a parish gathering in a northern suburb of Rome, the Pope said that in the modern world many people, including some believers, had forgotten that if they failed to "admit blame and promise to sin no more", they risked "eternal damnation - the inferno".
Hell "really exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more".
We've been in the higher education business for four decades. It's been our experience that online courses cannot replace in-person courses. Online instruction cannot replace face-to-face classrooms. Distance learning cannot replace in person learning....Developing that best-in-the-world online course — in which students would learn as much, or more, than in an ordinary classroom or a hybrid online class — requires significant investment. The Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University, which has developed about 15 sophisticated online courses, mostly in the sciences, spent $500,000 to $1 million to write software for each. But neither Carnegie Mellon nor other institutions, which are invited to use its online courses, dares to use them without having a human instructor, too...more...And you know what? Because it's in the Times we tend to cut an article some slack, to allow it some credibility, on the assumption that it has been vetted by professionals.
Jewish Week reports that a kashrut official and an area rabbi and several others are speaking out last-minute against a planned New Jersey Hebrew charter school.Rabbis backtracking on support for N.J. charter school
NEW YORK (JTA) -- Two Orthodox rabbis who had supported a new Hebrew-language charter school in New Jersey reportedly are now saying they have reservations.
Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO for kashrut at the Orthodox Union, and Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, first vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America, had contributed letters of support as part of the 2010 charter application for the Shalom Academy in Bergen County, near New York City.
But Genack now says that the academy, which is scheduled to open in September, could “destabilize” yeshivas and day schools in Bergen County by drawing from those religious schools’ populations, The New York Jewish Week reported.
And Goldin said, “I’m always concerned, especially in the current financial climate, that people will see this as an alternative to day school, and I don’t think it’s a viable alternative.”
The school is set to provide a Hebrew immersion program for up to 240 students in grades kindergarten to eight.
Also opposing the project are Yossi Prager, executive director of the Avi Chai Foundation, and Sara Berman, chair of the Hebrew Charter School Center. Berman said Shalom Academy "does not match our vision of a Hebrew-language charter school.”
The local school board also has opposed the academy, saying it would harm its public school students.
Shalom Academy has drawn support from prominent Jewish figures, including New Jersey residents Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and Foundation for Jewish Camp CEO Jeremy Fingerman.
If Shalom opens as planned, it would be the seventh Hebrew charter school in the United States and the third in the New York area. Hebrew charter schools, which offer nonreligious but Hebrew-focused curricula, are being looked at across the country as less expensive alternatives to Jewish day schools. Several of the schools are operating in New York and Florida.
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There is one ultra-right wing nationalist Zionist theme song whose refrain is that Israel is never wrong:They warned us. The geniuses at Peace Now warned us. The brilliant diplomats warned us. The think tanks warned us. Even the Arab dictators warned us. For decades now, they have been warning us that if you want "peace in the Middle East," just fix the Palestinian problem. A recent variation on this theme has been: Just get the Jews to stop building apartments in East Jerusalem and Efrat. Yes, if all those Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem would only "freeze" their construction, then, finally, Palestinian leaders might come to the table and peace might break out...(David Suissa, Founder, OLAM magazine, "Israel's Never Looked So Good," Huffington Post, hat tip to Mimi)And we would agree with that part of the refrain except nobody literate and educated about the region says that.
Today, I believe President Obama should put his own peace plan on the table, bridging the Israeli and Palestinian positions, and demand that the two sides negotiate on it without any preconditions. It is vital for Israel’s future — at a time when there is already a global campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state — that it disentangle itself from the Arabs’ story as much as possible. There is a huge storm coming, Israel. Get out of the way.No doubt the presence of an actual democracy in the region is galling to the totalitarian Arab states. And the politics of the area are complex and irreducible to simple formulas.
Looks like a major find archaeological find in Israel, as reported by MSNBC...
