Times' Rave Review of the Met's Enchanted Island with the Met Videos

The Times raves some more about the Met's "Enchanted Island" which we enjoyed immensely on New Year's Eve.

The only remotely Talmudic connection we can find in this thoroughly pagan fantasy is the re-purposing of a Handel anthem from Zadok to Neptune, as the review explains:

What would a Baroque pastiche be without a star turn? This one had the tenor Plácido Domingo, no less, as Neptune: by his count, his 136th role (and first full-fledged god). Neptune, with flowing beard and silver raiment, is introduced in a dazzling underwater scene with an aquatic chorus of courtiers singing “Neptune the Great” (using “Zadok the Priest,” a Handel coronation anthem). Four mermaids float above. And Ariel, come to seek Neptune’s help, arrives in deep-sea diver’s gear.

Music Review Shiny Bibelot From Shakespeare, Handel & Co.

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

The Enchanted Island, with Plácido Domingo as Neptune amid an ocean of courtiers, had its premiere on Saturday night at the Metropolitan Opera.

“The Enchanted Island,” a pastiche incorporating elements from Shakespeare and Baroque works by Handel, Vivaldi and others, had its premiere Saturday at the Metropolitan Opera.

• Slide Show | Video: Metropolitan Pastiche

Another Shiny Bibelot: "God's Favorite Prayers"

The Jewish Channel: Steven I. Weiss' Exclusive Controversial Interview with Newt Gingrich

On the The Jewish Channel, Steven I. Weiss' conducted an exclusive controversial interview with Newt Gingrich. Newt called the Palestinians an "invented people."

"God's Favorite Prayers" - six invented people that you meet in the synagogue

Michelle Bachmann on Obama's Choot-spa

Hat tip to Yitz!

Is Larry David Jewish?

Yes Larry David is a Jew. He was born in 1947 to a Jewish family in the neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, New York.

He now has written a twisted essay about golf in the New Yorker, filed under the keywords: Golf; Sports; Elisabeth Kübler-Ross; “On Death and Dying”; Anger; Denial; Bargaining - really strange.

In March 2010 the Times wrote about David's plan for syndicating his show.

The HBO Larry David show is so far out and controversial that on more than one occasion we have come away from watching it shaking our head and saying out loud with a smile, "That guy is one sick puppy."

But he is a comic genius. In transforming his cable show to syndication, David made a deal, then changed his mind. The Times describes the drama, the problem and the solution, which includes adding a rabbi to a panel discussion on the ethics to accompany the airing of every show. Just brilliant. But we simply don't have time to join the panel. Too busy writing a serious book. Sorry Larry.

In Syndication, the Agonizing on ‘Curb’ Is Only Escalating
By BILL CARTER

The new owners of the TV Guide Network believed they had found just the right show to send the message that the channel was getting into the business of broadcasting programs instead of listing them.

In November, the channel — previously known for running a scroll of what’s on other channels — snapped up the first syndication rights to Larry David’s HBO comedy “Curb Your Enthusiasm” for an undisclosed price. There was only one problem: almost immediately after he agreed to the sale, Mr. David had seller’s remorse.

The reason? Almost every episode of “Curb” is 29 minutes long — or longer. That’s fine for HBO, which has no commercials; but in syndication, half-hour shows run only about 21 minutes to accommodate all the advertisements.

“I regretted it instantly,” Mr. David said in a telephone interview. “I knew there was no way they would be able to cut it down.”

YouTube: Explore Ancient Synagogues in Israel with Tzvee

Here are two levels of archaeology . First, our video presents our commentary to our visits in 1983 to ancient synagogue sites in Israel. We broke the video into three segments so that we could post it to YouTube.

We undertook a second archeological "expedition" in August 2009 to unearth and recover the video itself. We had to find the ancient video tape so we could use it as a supplementary resource for our course on Jewish liturgy at JTS. Then when we had it in hand, it would not play properly on one VCR so we tried it on another. To capture and convert the images we sent it through our wireless Hava device to our desktop and then we worked some magic on the capture. Enjoy. Zahavy's Channel. (repost)

60 Minutes CBS Video: City of David

Repeated on tonight's show from last October, the 60 Minutes CBS report on the City of David archeological excavations and their political implications.

Is Glenn Beck Jewish?

No, Glenn Beck is not a Jew. He was raised a Roman Catholic in Bellingham, Washington. Beck is a recovering alcoholic and a follower of the spiritual programs of Alcoholics Anonymous. He formally converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. "God stalked me!...He had a giant baptismal rifle," Beck has said melodramatically. "I thwarted him. I led people astray as much as I could, but he kept putting Mormons in my way."

Update: 11/12/2010 - Glenn does not like Jewish billionaire Holocaust survivor George Soros. The Daily Beast said, "The Fox host’s stunning two-day tirade against George Soros is a new low on American television."

Given the comical penchant that this right-wing, gingoistic, narrow-minded and bigoted Fox News TV and radio personality has for theatrical overstatement (he feigned crying recently about his love for America while on the air), we recommend watching this video clip of a hilarious parody of Glenn Beck by comedian Stephen Colbert.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The 10/31 Project
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

A good Glenn Beck watch page is here.

Update 6/2/2011: Beck is a hard line supporter of the State of Israel as the video demonstrates.


(Reposted)

Thumbs Up Review of Footnote at Cannes - a film about feuding Talmud Professors at Hebrew University

"There are things that are more important than the truth."

Who would ever believe that a film about Talmud professors at Hebrew University would impress the Cannes film festival?

Here is one fine review.

CANNES REVIEW | “Footnote” Finds the Comedy in a Talmudic Feud
by Eric Kohn
Israeli writer-director Joseph Cedar’s last feature, the Oscar-nominated “Beaufort,” was a tense war movie about the 2000 South Lebanon conflict. His latest effort, “Footnote,” involves a much more personal war, in which the opposing sides are a father and his grown son. In Cedar’s dark comic fable, bookish eccentrics pit their egos against each other on a shrewdly composed battlefield where the only potential casualty is self-esteem.

Cedar’s screenplay follows a tale two of Shkolniks: The aging Eliezer (Israeli comic Shlomo Bar Aba), a veteran Talmud professor at Hebrew University, and his middle-aged son Uriel (Lior Ashkenazi), a more established researcher in the same field. From the first scene, Eliezer sulks in his son’s shadow, as the younger Skolnick accepts an award while his father watches from the audience. Cedar quickly explains the context with an introductory bit that surveys both of their backgrounds, aided by words on the screen and a deadpan voiceover seemingly imported from Woody Allenville. Like Allen’s best creations, Eliezer and Uriel harbor neuroses that run deep.

This Liturgy really isn't Theology

Liturgy | NYC @ St.Vitus Bar | 06 May 2011 from (((unartig))) on Vimeo.

This Liturgy really is not Theology. It's a Brooklyn band.

Karen Armstrong and the Charter for Compassion

In 2008 Karen Armstrong undertook an effort to spread the word on a "Charter for Compassion" among the world religions.

A video of her acceptance of a TED prize is here:



FYI, TED is "a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design."

TED, "was established in 1996 by Chris Anderson, who was at that time a magazine publishing entrepreneur."

The goal of the foundation is to foster the spread of great ideas. It aims to provide a platform for the world's smartest thinkers, greatest visionaries and most-inspiring teachers, so that millions of people can gain a better understanding of the biggest issues faced by the world, and a desire to help create a better future. Core to this goal is a belief that there is no greater force for changing the world than a powerful idea.

The charter for compassion sponsored by TED and Ms. Armstrong can be found here.

It propounds, "The Charter for Compassion is a document that transcends religious, ideological, and national difference. Supported by leading thinkers from many traditions, the Charter activates the Golden Rule around the world."

In our view of religious typology, compassion is indeed central to one of the six archetypes of Judaism, the meditator. It is, in our scheme of analysis, diametrically opposed to the core value of another of our ideal categories, that of the celebrity-monotheist.

Accordingly, we do not fully agree that the world's religions are, "based on the principle of compassion" as Armstrong states in her wonderful 2010 book, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, page 24. That value is an important one among many others in Judaism and in most of the religious traditions that we know.

But we do agree that we ought to press forward towards a world more full of compassion and less populated by the religion-based triumphalism that feeds on, "pet hatreds and prejudices that give us such a buzz of righteousness (p. 23)."

Bravo to Ms. Armstrong for her efforts that we need to revisit more vigorously and frequently in these days of religious egotism.

YouTube Your Video Question to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu

World View is a series of monthly interviews with the World's foremost leaders where you ask the questions. The top-rated questions will be asked in live interviews.

Three days left to submit your question to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Purim Video from St. Petersburg Russia

The Purim Song and Dance, by St. Petersburg Hillel. It's really beautiful to see them celebrating Purim publicly in the streets of Russia like that. And note that a woman is playing Esther. How novel! Happy Purim!
-Susie

We also like the original Black Eyed Peas song, I Gotta Feeling, because they throw in two mazal tovs...

Maccabeats Take a Beating for Blotting out Women from Purim Video

Hat tip to the Blog in Dm Jewish music blogger, for picking up this Jewish Week op-ed with the ironic question of the week, "Where are the Women in the Maccabeats Video?" by Natalie Blitt and Rabbi Josh Feigelson.

The Jewish male a capella group has tried to follow up its big viral hit Hanukkah video with a sequel for Purim. Here it is.



The JW editorial's authors make one point about the new release, "The video is once again slick and professional, and the music is catchy. But in a song and video devoted to the story of Esther, there’s one major missing element: women."

They then argue with eloquence that the role of women in the Orthodox world needs attention. They are right on that score too.

Then if you read the comments on the JW site, you get treated to a dozen or so pro-Maccabeats, pro-Orthodox entries -- that we think were all written by the same person using sock-puppet identities -- yes it is that obvious.

The mistake of the editorial is that the writers assume that Orthodoxy prohibits women from appearing in videos on YouTube. This is nonsense. There is no such prohibition.

Try watching this video of a wonderful instructional Torah class by Mrs. Shira Smiles. She practically sings her lecture, and nobody will question her Orthodox credentials. She's got dozens of equally lyrical and erudite videos online.

It immediately creeped us out when we realized that on the new Maccabeats video there was not a woman to be seen, not one sitting at the table, nor serving food, clapping, watching the men sing, clearing off the dishes, no women, none, though there were some little girl toddlers running around in the video. To us it was quite odd and we asked some of our friends and relatives and found that to others too all of this was noticeable and the video was a puzzling gaffe.

It's a shame, because these boys have talent, now spoiled by a bizarrely off key video -- one that parodies the wrong song too, as pointed out by authors Natalie Blitt and Rabbi Josh Feigelson. Pink's song "Raise Your Glass," they correctly tell us is, "a provocative salute to women’s empowerment." (Yes Pink is Jewish.)

Well, we think this failed parody version of Pink is a salute to the invisibility of Orthodox women that might have to be called, "Put Down Your Gals."

YouTube Video for the People of the Book

If you spend your weekend rearranging your books...
Hat tip to Miriam G.

Is Harry Potter Jewish?

No, Harry Potter is not a Jew. He is a fictional character.

A real Harry Potter is dead and buried in Israel.

YouTube: "A grave in the Holy Land is now an unlikely tourist attraction, because the person buried there is one very real Harry Potter, a forgotten soldier of a forgotten war. Although it is the final resting place of a teenage British soldier killed decades ago, that has not stopped wizard fans from flocking to visit."

A Major Jewish Women's Art Exhibit at Columbia Barnard

Our classmate Fay Grajower has organized a major Jewish art exhibit at the campus of Columbia / Barnard University in New York City. Fay also edited a wonderful 48 page color catalog of the exhibit.

The Theme is "Sanctuaries in Time" and the exhibit runs from until March 1, 2011 at Columbia/Barnard University, Kraft Center for Jewish Life, 606 W 115th St, NYC.

For more information see the Women's Art Caucus site. You can watch the video below for a two minute preview of the art.

Video: Hawaii Senate Proposes to Stop All Religious Invocations; Medved Calls it Insane

The above incident captured on video in April in Hawaii has led to controversy and now a proposed cessation of all religious invocations at the state Senate.

We believe this is a sane and sound proposal. Right wing radical demagogue Michael Medved calls this decision by state legislators "insane".

Hawaii Senate may end religious invocations
HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii Senate leaders are recommending that the chamber end religious invocations before floor sessions.

The change is meant to respect each individual's religious beliefs, Senate President Shan Tsutsui, D-Wailuku-Kahului, said in Wednesday's editions of The Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

"We respect everybody's different levels of faith and the different religions that they support," Tsutsui said. "We're not making any type of statement, but rather we're respecting each individual's religious beliefs."

The new policy is part of a proposed Senate rules package that will be considered before this year's legislative session begins Jan. 19.

The move away from religious invocations came after a complaint from the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii that the invocations often included "decidedly Christian prayers — with reference to Jesus Christ."

Updated: Use the Vulkano iPad or Android App to connect to your Hava Titanium HD TV Device with WiFi

The company that makes the Hava TV place shifter has discontinued that model and come our with the Vulkano, an HD upgrade with several models.

We were bummed out to learn that there would be no support or update for the Hava... until we happily discovered by chance that you can download the free app for the Vulkano for an iPad, iPod or Android device... and you can log in and it will pick up your Hava feed and display it on your device.

See more about the iPad app and android app and other players here.

From December 2009:

Didn't get what you wanted for the holidays? Try this neat device.

Mandatory Joke. No, they do not have a Hava Nagilah model.

Is Robert Gibbs Jewish?

No, Barack Obama's former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is not a Jew.

Gibbs was born in Auburn, Alabama on March 29, 1971. He is married to Mary Catherine Gibbs, an attorney. They live in Alexandria, Virginia with their six-year-old son. Gibbs' parents now live in Apex, North Carolina, where his mother Nancy is acquisitions director for the libraries at Duke University.

Of note, Gibbs went on a tirade in 2009 against Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, on his show to prove the vacuity of charges of guilt by association that were being leveled at Barack Obama. To make his point, Gibbs forcefully charged that Hannity was an anti-Semite because he had previously had on an anti-Semitic guest.

YouTube: Animated Rabbi's Vort on the Parasha from Krumbagel

Animation and automation meet the yeshiva world.
Yeshiva guy says over a dvar torah he heard from his rebbe.
Absurdity ensues.
Hilarity follows.
Hat tip to Joel.