Yes, Glenn Beck is mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
We don't really like to say, "Is the Pope Catholic" when we want to make a point that something is plainly obvious. So we now can start to say instead, "Is the Jewish Theological Seminary Jewish?"Goodbye Wissenschaft, Hello Relevance
Now and Then
By Jonathan D. Sarna
The Jewish Theological Seminary’s chancellor, Arnold Eisen, recently unveiled a bold new strategic plan aimed at transforming the school’s curriculum, redefining its purpose and setting forth its future direction. The plan called to mind a story that my late father used to tell about a modest change that he proposed to the JTS curriculum as a young professor there in the 1950s.
Dad had been asked to teach the school’s traditional course on the Book of Psalms. Looking through past syllabi, he came up with a new idea that he proposed to his senior colleagues at a faculty meeting. “How about revamping the class so that we teach those Psalms that appear in the Siddur,” he suggested. “That will make the class more relevant to rabbinical students. Down the road, they will be able to use what we teach them to instruct their own congregants in the meaning of the prayers.”
The members of the faculty, my father reported, were aghast. The very idea that the content of JTS courses should be influenced by what might be relevant to rabbis greatly troubled them....more...
Lately, Teaneck is getting to be a nastier place. The local election a few weeks back was beset by dirty tricks. A local Rabbi mouths off with sarcasm at just about every service, sometimes attacking Arabs who aren't there and sometimes just insulting his own membership....Siegel believes in the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. He decided to get his views out there in a very assertive way by putting four bumper stickers on his 13-year-old gray Honda Civic. His wife was OK with it. Two of the stickers said, "Free Palestine, End the Occupation." Another said, "Stop US Aid to Israel," and another said, "We refuse to be enemies. Christians Jews and Muslims working for peace and justice."Update: Trau apologized to Siegel and the matter was resolved outside of court as reported here.
The bumper stickers got attention. A lot of people give Siegel the thumbs-up, or honk approvingly. But Teaneck/Fairlawn are a hotbed for Gush Emunim-land-of-Israel types, and many people get ticked off by the Honda and give him the finger. He's used to that. Some have vandalized his car.
On the afternoon of April 20, Siegel noticed a Toyota following him a little too close as he was headed home down River Road in Teaneck. The car followed Siegel after he turned on to one side street and then another, traveling into his neighborhood. Siegel says the driver followed him right up to his house and then pulled up alongside his parked car and gave him the finger. Then he drove to the end of the block and turned around and drove slowly past Siegel's house again.
Siegel had the presence of mind to record the man's license plate number and decided to file a police complaint against him. The driver was Bernie Thau, who is active in the Jewish community of Fairlawn, New Jersey. After a probable cause hearing a couple weeks back, at which Thau appeared and denied his guilt, Judge James Young of the Municipal Court found sufficient evidence to hold Thau for trial for harassment..more...
We are of two minds regarding the Dalai Lama's op-ed about compassion in the world's religions in the Times. On the one hand, we have been working in a chapter of our new book on the premise that the birkat hamazon - the grace after eating - is the quintessential Jewish meditation of compassion, with certain caveats about the universality of that prayer.Take Judaism, for instance. I first visited a synagogue in Cochin, India, in 1965, and have met with many rabbis over the years. I remember vividly the rabbi in the Netherlands who told me about the Holocaust with such intensity that we were both in tears. And I’ve learned how the Talmud and the Bible repeat the theme of compassion, as in the passage in Leviticus that admonishes, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”Not a very deep or profound insight, but well-meaning and he does mention the Holocaust.
Barry Schwartz at Rusty Brick Inc alerted us to his new and incredible iPad Torah App today. So now we have it on our iPad.
It's a matter of perspective. For most readers the hilarious Paul Rudnick parody in the New Yorker ("Hi From Heidi") of Heidi Montag (just who is she anyway?) was about her ten-plastic-surgeries-at-a-time mentality.The reality-show personality Heidi Montag recently underwent ten plastic-surgery procedures on a single day. Montag told People that, before deciding to take these measures, “I prayed about it for a long time and said, ‘God, if it’s wrong, then I won’t do it.’ ” The full text of Montag’s prayer has only recently been made available:And what about that Jewish correction of the week in the same New Yorker issue? It is just a riot.
Dear Lord:
As You probably know, because I guess You sort of know everything, I’m thinking about having a mini brow lift; lipo on my neck, waist, hips, and thighs; a chin reduction; an ear job; fat injections in my cheeks, nasolabial folds, and lips; a revision of my previous rhinoplasty; a redo of my earlier breast implants; Botox injections in my forehead and frown area; and a buttocks augmentation, if that is Thy will.
I won’t go ahead with any of this if You don’t approve, but I keep thinking, Why would God have made my plastic surgeon, Dr. Frank Ryan, so totally cute if He didn’t want me to use him?...more...
Last month the State of Israel banned the iPad for several weeks.A report from Yahoo Sports suggests that the Yankees have decided in all their infinite, historic wisdom that the iPad falls under its "No laptops" policy.
Spacekatgal, a poster on the IGN boards and who first caught Yahoo Sports' attention, said: "The security people told me it was not allowed and I was turned away at the gates. Why on earth would they have this policy? Terrorism concerns? I couldn't get an answer. I snuck it in under my jacket...I bring it to Fenway all the time and they don't care."
Not just another news aggregator, the SkyGrid iPad app is something special. Impossible for us to describe, so we will just cite what the developers say:SkyGrid filters the information to find the things we think you’ll find exciting to discover and share with others. Common examples are world events, sports updates, entertainment news, and other things that people like to share. SkyGrid has over 25 different filters to make the streams you view high quality. Some of the things people using SkyGrid are most excited about are our patented SkyView™ algorithm that filters for reputation and velocity. These words probably sound a bit technical, and let us quickly describe each one. Reputation just means we always want to show things only from people you trust (think about the difference on Facebook from getting a friend request with a picture of someone you may know vs. the blank silhouette image). Velocity shows you the information that’s changing the fastest. It’s always exciting to know what others are also finding exciting.Honestly, we go to the SkyGrid "Latest on iPad" category at least once a day to see what people are saying and doing about and with the revolutionary new device.
Peter Beinart, Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, wrote a provocative essay for the New York Review of Books, proclaiming, "The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment." ...Among American Jews today, there are a great many Zionists, especially in the Orthodox world, people deeply devoted to the State of Israel. And there are a great many liberals, especially in the secular Jewish world, people deeply devoted to human rights for all people, Palestinians included...We just don't know what Beinart is talking about. His categorization of US Jews is crude and broad and his terms of analysis are soft and vapid.
...The same AJC study found that while only 16 percent of non-Orthodox adult Jews under the age of forty feel “very close to Israel,” among the Orthodox the figure is 79 percent....
From Josh Lipowsky:
Yes, New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik is a Jew.Gopnik, who would seem to be as obviously Jewish as anyone might imagine a New York intellectual to be, professes surprise at being pegged as a Jew. In his essay, "A Purim Story," which forms a chapter in his recently released book, "Through the Children's Gate" (Knopf, 2006), he describes a conversation with his wife:Now, in an essay (A Critic at Large: "What Did Jesus Do? Reading and unreading the Gospels") that treats an assortment of new and recent books about Jesus and early Christianity (e.g., Diarmaid MacCulloch, “Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years” and Bart Ehrman, “Jesus Interrupted"), Gopnick rambles on and on in an entertaining and literary way about Jesus.
"The thing that puzzles me ... is how they ever figured out I was Jewish."
She executed what I believe our fathers would have called a spit take. "That is the most ridiculous question I've ever heard. There's your name, for one thing, and then the way you use Jewish words in writing."
"What Jewish words have I ever used in writing?"
She thought for a moment. "Well, 'shvits.' And 'inchoate.'"
"'Inchoate' is not a Jewish word."
"It is the way you use it. You've got 'Jew' written all over you. It's obvious."
"It's obvious," my six-year-old son, Luke, echoed, looking up from his plate. "It's obvious." I was startled, though not entirely...."
This headline will be given an award by the right wingers as the most distorted and misleading anti-teacher attack. Sure sounds like half the teachers make more than $100,000. Whoops. You mean that is not true? No it is not even remotely close to true.The Record STAFF WRITERS
A few weeks ago we were privileged to be asked to present an academic paper on Jewish prayer at a conference Bard College in upstate New York.
Today's Times article raises a number of issues about an American born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki who resides in Yemen and is plotting terrorist acts against the US. The CIA has targeted this person for assassination. The main question the Times probes is under our laws, what are this person's rights?U.S. Approval of Killing of Cleric Causes UneasePS: We do not believe in or endorse assassinations of any kind. That approach is a quick and dirty way to go after your perceived enemies. Admittedly it does take more resources and time to take the moral high road, i.e., to capture, try and convict your foes. But in the long run such a course of action will benefit us all.
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s decision to authorize the killing by the Central Intelligence Agency of a terrorism suspect who is an American citizen has set off a debate over the legal and political limits of drone missile strikes, a mainstay of the campaign against terrorism....
... As for the question of whether Mr. Awlaki is a legitimate target, Mr. Radsan said the cleric might not resemble an American fighting in a Nazi uniform. “But if you imagine him making radio speeches for the Germans in World War II, there’s certainly a parallel,” he said...more...
What can we say to Bar other than, "Been there, done that"? Only we were bringing in a slightly bigger Kaypro in 1982 on a sabbatical. For the technological advancement of the state, it's a dumb self-defeating tax, kept alive by politically connected importers who want to squeeze out more profits.Supermodel Bar Refaeli in iPad trouble in Israel
JERUSALEM -- A famous Israeli export is in trouble for her import.
Supermodel Bar Refaeli was caught at Tel Aviv's international airport this week trying to bring in her newly purchased iPad without declaring it at customs. Items brought into Israel worth more than around $200 are subject to duties.
Refaeli told Israel's Channel 10 TV that she had an iPad in a suitcase that was lost in transit. She said she didn't declare the iPad upon entrance to Israel for a brief commercial appearance.
She is now required to pay 650 shekels ($170) in taxes and fines to get it back.
Israel lifted its ban on the popular tablet computer two weeks ago. The restrictions were initially imposed over concerns the gadget's wireless signal could disrupt other devices.
Not the right question. Those Mighty Morphin Power Rangers are characters in children's TV shows and movies. ... the chairman and part owner of Univision, the nation’s leading Spanish-language media company; a staunch supporter of Israel (he has dual citizenship); and one of the largest individual donors to the Democratic Party. “Haim is a force of nature,” his friend Barry Meyer, the chairman and C.E.O. of Warner Bros., said. As a youth in Israel, Saban attended an agricultural boarding school where, he says, immigrants like his parents sent children they could not afford to feed. When he was expelled for being a troublemaker, he began attending a night school, where the principal told him, “You’re not cut out for academic studies; you’re cut out for making money.” The prediction seemed to come true in 2001, when Rupert Murdoch and Saban sold their joint venture, Fox Family Worldwide, to Michael Eisner, the C.E.O. of Disney: Saban made one and a half billion dollars. It was—and still is, he points out—the biggest cash transaction by an individual in the history of Hollywood. In March, Forbes estimated his net worth at $3.3 billion...more...
Yes, Solicitor General of the United States Elena Kagan is a Jew. She is also President Obama's nominee to be a justice on the Supreme Court.
We said we wouldn't get involved, but now we changed our minds. Too much petty nasty stuff has been going around before the local Town Council election here.I am writing to endorse Joseph Steinberg in his run for Teaneck Council. Steinberg grew up in Teaneck and he and his wife have chosen to live and raise their family here. But even more importantly, he has made Teaneck and its welfare a top priority. He has already devoted many hours and much thought to improving the quality of life for all residents. For instance, as Chairman of Teaneck's Financial Advisory Board he has worked hard to identify areas that could be improved, leading to sounder and more sensible fiscal practices.For more see, www.ElectJosephSteinberg.com.
I have been dismayed by the divisiveness and rancor that has been occurring within our political framework. He has pledged to work towards a government that values unity and cooperation as it tackles the daunting challenges. The positive change that Joseph represents - financial responsibility, unity, excellence in education, and transparency in government - would benefit all residents.
I have served with Steinberg for two years on the New Jersey board of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science, a group that assists with fundraising for that well-known science institute. The board includes members who are highly accomplished individuals. Steinberg is the youngest member of the board - yet he has earned the admiration and respect of the other members. His counsel and ideas have been useful and valued in that charitable enterprise.
He is an accomplished and successful businessman. His experience in enhancing efficiency has already been widely recognized - helping earn him recognition as one of NJ's top businesspeople under the age of 40. I am so pleased that he is running for council as he will be able to use his insight and experience in the business world to address the deep financial crisis that our town and others like it are facing.
On May 11 residents will have the opportunity to vote for four people to join the Council. If we want a person of insight and business savvy who brings fresh ideas to get Teaneck's finances under control, help restore the unity that our diverse town so desperately needs, and who truly loves Teaneck, vote for Joseph Steinberg.
Jeff Strickler reported recently in the Star Tribune religion column about the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit and drifted off to other topics like this one:Onward Christian cheapskates
There's somebody studying just about everything these days, including, it turns out, the relationship between our religious affiliation and our tipping habits at restaurants. The study was done by HCD Research, based in New Jersey. Their findings: The best tippers are Jews, followed by people with no religious affiliation. Penny-pinching Christians bring up the rear.We looked for more on the study and found it here, with a breakdown by political affiliations:
For good service, Jews tip an average of 20.8 percent, people with no religion tip 20.1 percent, and Christians tip 18.3 percent. For bad service, Jews tip 11.4 percent; no affiliation, 9.9, and Christians, 9.0.
When restaurant service is good, Democrats reported that they leave an average tip of 19.8% of the total bill while Republicans reported leaving 18.0% and Independents reported leaving 17.9% of the check. When restaurant service is bad, Democrats reported leaving an average tip of 10.8% of the total bill while Republicans left 8.7% and Independents left 8.4% of the check.Note well. This study appears to account for what the groups report - which may or many not be what they do.
So much about Jews in the Times Book Review this week. So much about what other people think about Jews though, mostly negative and stereotypical, ranging from the historical and philosophical to the fictional. And in all of this writing that surrounds Jews, so little about us as actual people, what makes us who we are beyond the accidents of tribal birth, what comprises our character, nature and talents.
The stock market drops 900 points on the national day of prayer........
A different National Day for Praying comes up next week for Jews.
Yes, in our opinion, the Shroud of Turin is a hoax.In December, Shimon Gibson, an archaeologist and senior research fellow at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jersualem, announced tantalizing results from a new study that he and Boaz Zissu, an archaeologist at Bar Ilan University, just completed on a 1st century B.C. shrouded burial they excavated in a tomb in Jerusalem. Gibson and several colleagues published the first part of the study in a paper in PLoS One on December 16th.
"United Nations should take heed lest the world organization suffer the fate of the Tower of Babel and collapse in 'utter failure' through neglect of moral law."
and have mixed reactions to it, but mainly because we don't know what to make of what she calls her "spiritual autobiography." This is a work of diligent and extensive research and thinking about so many aspects of the phenomenon we call the Sabbath. And it is also an account of many chunks of the life of the author mixed in with her discussions of the practice and conceptualization of the Sabbath throughout history and across cultures. For us, that whole stratum of the book could have been dispensed with altogether. We aren't that much interested in Shulevitz after what we learned from her slightly banal yet pompous interspersed accounts of selected chapters of her rather offbeat Jewish upbringing, education and life experiences. The book, without that information, would stand quite strong as a rapid overview of the Sabbath idea broadly construed.
