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The Telegraph

Shabot’s Yom Kippur Confession

By Daniel Sieradski · October 7, 2008

0 Comments | Share This | Comedy |

Preparing for Yom Kippur

By Uriel Heilman · October 7, 2008

As society becomes fragmented and increasingly frenetic, there is more value than ever in the spiritual audit Yom Kippur provides, write Zaki Cooper and Michael Harris in the U.K. Guardian.
Slate unpacks Kol Nidre – that prayer used by everyone from Neil Diamond to Beethoven, and by anti-Semites as evidence that Jews are duplicitous and two-faced.
A Houston mother writes about her difficulty communicating with God on Yom Kippur ever since her prematurely born son, Aaron Joseph, died 13 years ago after just a few weeks of life.
Haim Watzman links the U.S. elections and Yom Kippur in the Huffington Post, comparing the penitent Jew to the reflective voter.
The "Big Brother" TV program being filmed in Israel will take an unprecedented one-day break – for Yom Kippur, reports The Associated Press.

0 Comments | Share This | High Holidays, Judaism |

Durban has become a dirty word in some international circles, a reminder of the 2001 U.N. anti-racism conference that devolved into an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish debacle. Now as preparations for a follow-up conference proceed, worries abound that efforts to once again villify Israel and the West are gaining the upper hand.

One U.N. watcher analyzes the latest document to emerge from the pre-conference planners.

Others, too, are sounding the alarm about the latest developments, but the World Jewish Congress is opting for a more optimistic note, hoping that the new High Commissioner for Human Rights will work to avert another failed conference.

As JTA reported back in July, it's too early to know which groups will prevail – or even show up – in pursuing their agendas, but at least people this time around are paying attention in advance rather than getting caught unprepared like last time.

0 Comments | Share This | Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism, Israel, U.N. |

Benyamin Cohen debuts with #1 Jewish bestseller

By Daniel Sieradski · October 7, 2008

Former American Jewish Life editor Benyamin Cohen's book, "My Jesus Year," debuted today at #1 on Amazon.com's Jewish bestseller list. The book catalogs the year Cohen, the son of an Orthodox rabbi, spent visiting Southern churches while trying to figure out why he found synagogue so unfulfilling.

Publisher's Weekly has called it "a delicious olio of guilt, longing, surprise, wonder, unease and of course humor." You can order the book online here, but if you happen to pick it up in a bookstore, take a photo of the display and send it to Cohen. He'll pay you back with a shout-out on his blog.

Cohen also spent a half-hour with NPR's Lynn Neary yesterday discussing the book. You can tune in to a recording of the broadcast here.

2 Comments | Share This | Christianity, Literature |

Edgar Bronfman on money, the Jews’ God and Sarah Palin

By Uriel Heilman · October 7, 2008

In a Q & A in the New York Times Magazine, Jewish billionaire philanthropist Edgar Bronfman, Sr., the former Seagram chairman, talks about why the Jewish community should welcome interfaith marriages, why he gives his money to Jewish causes even though he doesn't believe in the God of the Old Testament and why he'd vote for Mickey Mouse before voting for a McCain-Palin ticket.

My favorite exchange in this piece:

Did you lose a lot of money in the Wall Street meltdown last month? I don't know. I don't watch it on a day-to-day basis.

Do you get upset when you lose large sums of money overnight? I get over it very quickly.

You don't get ulcers? My father put it right when he said: I don't get ulcers. I give ulcers.

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Rap artist reps for French-Israelis

By Daniel Sieradski · October 7, 2008

Meet Shmoolik, A.K.A. Shmouel Halimi, the French-Israeli Chasidic hip-hop artist and graphic designer. As a rhyme spouting ba'al teshuva Chabadnik, the comparisons to Matisyahu are inevitable, but Shmoolik is very much in a class of his own.

Now that you've met the man, hear the music. Here's the video for his track, "Les Enfants d'Isra�l." Written and recorded in the midst of the Gaza disengagement, the track samples Serge Gainsbourg's 1967 coming-out-as-a-Jew song, "Les Soldats Et Le Sable."