JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Simchat Torah in Egypt

By Uriel Heilman · October 23, 2008

Brenda Gazzar has a dispatch in The Jerusalem Post on spending Simchat Torah in Alexandria, Egypt. In the synagogue with just 25 members, minyans are hard to come by.

0 Comments | Share This | Holidays, Judaism

Why a chicken?

By Ami Eden · October 13, 2008

Ben Harris filed a report on the feud between animal-rights activists and Chabad-Lubavitch Chasidim over kapparos. Here’s his interview with Rabbi Shea Hecht about why the pre-High Holiday ritual must performed with a chicken.

[audio:/images/archive/hecht.mp3]
Audio sound funny?  Upgrade your Flash player.

To subscribe to JTA’s Behind the News podcast, click here.

1 Comment | Share This | High Holidays, Holidays, Judaism, Orthodox, Podcast, Religion, Ritual

The day Israel has no cars

By Uriel Heilman · October 3, 2008

For thoroughly secular Israelis, Yom Kippur is not so much a day of atonement as it is a national car-free day. Even in secular Tel Aviv, cars are parked for the holiday and the streets fall silent – of engine noise, that is. On Yom Kippur in Tel Aviv, and elsewhere around Israel, you can hear the birds, the wind through the trees, children playing in their gardens and the whoosh of bicycles going to and fro.

Orna Coussin writes in Ha’aretz:

It’s a mitzvah to leave the house on this day and roam the streets, to meet and be met, to see and be seen, to feel the stone and the asphalt, to take the measure of the roads, to get to know the city’s open areas. Because for thoroughly secular folks like me, Yom Kippur isn’t a day that atones for the sins of man against God (called hamakom in Hebrew, literally “the place"), but it surely is a day that connects man and place.

And now, this year more than ever, it makes sense to proclaim Yom Kippur an international day for pedestrians. Because a tremendously influential and historic event took place this week exactly 100 years ago: In October 1908, the first Model T rolled out of the Ford plant in Detroit, and thereafter the human race would never be the same…

How fortunate we are in Tel Aviv: We have Yom Kippur. Last year, on Yom Kippur, carbon monoxide levels fell from 205 parts per billion, on the day prior to the holiday, to just 2 parts per billion at its height - a phenomenon unmatched anywhere in the world. And pollution isn’t the only thing that’s reduced. So is stress and rushing around and grim purposefulness. You go out into the street and see the city in its nakedness, which is to say, in its simple beauty. Comprised entirely of short stretches of road, street corners, turns and stops. The neighborhood synagogue is necessarily nearby, since one isn’t supposed to travel on Shabbat and holidays. But in a good city, you have everything you need nearby and need not ride in a car to get there: to the pub and the cafe, the laundry and the grocery, the post office and the bank. Everything is close by, everything is plentiful and varied, no one feels like an alienated stranger here, everyone is different and everyone fits in, everything is outside, but nothing is “out.”

Walking in the city refreshes the soul, or redirects one’s attention from the news on the radio and the traffic on the street and the assembly-line atmosphere of the office and the mall inward toward the soul. Walking also opens up your eyes to your surroundings. One can roam the city in the spirit of Walter Benjamin, who wrote in praise of the urban wanderer who is both apart and near, observant and closely attuned. Or, say, in the spirit of Henry David Thoreau, who wrote of the marvels of walking and thinking, and of the thoughts that are formed while in motion, and the freedom that comes with the lack of a distinct purpose. But this year one may also wander the streets in a kind of protest. For Yom Kippur alone is not sufficient to atone for the sins between man and place; but one can at least get out there and make a start.

3 Comments | Share This | High Holidays, Holidays, Israel

Blowing in the new year

By Uriel Heilman · September 29, 2008

Nearly every newspaper in America seems to have a Rosh Hashanah story of one kind or another. Here’s a sampling:

• Alisa Israel Goldberg has some special guests to thank for the sweetness of her Rosh Hashanah table: 60,000 bees, reports the San Jose Mercury News.
• A project at the University of Washington Hillel called PostRegret asks local Jews to anonymously submit their most sincere regrets, which then will be posted at the school’s Hillel shortly before Yom Kippur.
• In Jerusalem’s Old City, the coincidence this year of the Jewish penitential month of Elul and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is a reminder of the perpetual tension in this prayer-filled city, the New York Times’ Ethan Bronner observes.
• For observant Jews, the month ahead is tough: Employees must take no less than seven days off from work over the next four weeks to take off for the Jewish holidays, some of which your employers probably never heard of, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.

3 Comments | Share This | Holidays, jerusalem

Old matzah, new matzah

By Ami Eden · April 16, 2008

The Free-Lance Star in Fredericksburg, Va., published an ode to good old fashioned fried matzah:

In a holiday filled with ritual foods, matzo is the oldest symbol of salvation in the Passover Seder. In fact, the Seder can’t end until the last piece of matzo has been recovered from its ceremonial hiding place and eaten.

My memories of matzo are long and fond. My dad’s mother, Nanny Ann, used to make matzo brei for us whenever she visited.

She was stout and matronly, given to much fretting and hand-wringing unless she was busy in the kitchen.

But for those looking for something more avant-guarde, check out Gothamist’s roundup of New York eateries offering creative matzah-based dishes.

0 Comments | Share This | Holidays, Judaism, Passover, Religion

The Matzah taste test

By Ami Eden · April 11, 2008

The L.A. Jewish Journal’s VideoJew, Jay Firestone, submits himself to a Matzah taste test.

2 Comments | Share This | Holidays, Passover, video

Running on Matzah

By Ami Eden · April 10, 2008

The Associated Press reports on the challenge facing Jonah Pesner, a Reform rabbi: This year’s Boston Marathon is on the second day of Passover, which means running on a full stomach of Matzah (to say nothing of yontif) ...

Jonah Pesner is looking ahead to his crucial carb-loading, fuel-up meal on the night before running his first Boston Marathon. On the menu: matzoh.

It’s not the usual choice for marathoners loading up on carbohydrates to drive their run, but Pesner, a rabbi, has limited options.

Passover begins just two days before the April 21 marathon, and the holiday’s strict dietary rules mean Jewish runners can’t eat bread and pasta, the normal staples in the days before the big race.

Besides matzoh, which is unleavened bread, Pesner plans to pound down foods such as potatoes during a rare “carb-load seder” the night before the race.

Pesner never considered breaking the dietary rules for the sake of the race, which he is running with his wife for an autism charity.

“For me, running the marathon is a very spiritual quest,” he said.

The marathon is always held on Patriots Day, a state holiday that falls the third Monday in April, and often comes within the weeklong Passover holiday.

At around the 15th mile, his stomach will probably be grumbling: If only you had gone to JTS or Y.U., we could be in shul right now.

But, really, we shouldn’t joke. Especially since the rabbi finds religious meaning in his running on Matzah:

Pesner never considered breaking the dietary rules for the sake of the race, which he is running with his wife for an autism charity.

“For me, running the marathon is a very spiritual quest,” he said.

The story also looks at the challenges facing a Conservative couple:

Sandy Karpen, a real estate agent from Scottsdale, Ariz., said he and his wife, Sharon, are changing their tradition of attending seders the first two nights of Passover to accommodate their training. The second seder is the day before the race, and Karpen and his wife wanted to rest, rather than attend a seder on what is typically a long night.

Their rabbi from the Conservative Jewish tradition advised them that Jews may fulfill their obligation by observing only the first day, and said they could do the same.

The 17-time marathoner admits to some guilt about straying from his lifelong tradition, but has no regrets.

“I guess sometimes you’re looking for justification for what you’re doing,” he said. “My rabbi said it was acceptable to do, and that was good enough for us.”

Maybe I was too hard on Pesner (after all, the Reform generally don’t believe in second-day yontif) ... It’s the Karpens’ Conservative rabbi who’s got some explaining to do.

UPDATE: Judging from the first comment, I should make it clear ... I was just teasing.

6 Comments | Share This | Denominations, Holidays, Passover, Religion

The Luck of the Irish Jews

By Ami Eden · March 13, 2008

The Connecticut Jewish Ledger has an article taking a look at how Irish Jews around the world mark St. Patrick’s Day.

The Lower East Side

The Loyal Yiddish Sons of Erin were a group of Irish-Jewish immigrants in New York City who, at least through the 1960s, would celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with green matzo balls. The Sons were actually Irish-born descendants of Polish and Lithuanian Jews who had stopped off in Ireland for a brief period on their migratory path to the U.S.

Ireland

David Briscoe experienced the day differently while growing up Jewish in Dublin as son of Lord Mayor Ben Briscoe and grandson of the city’s first Jewish Lord Mayor, Robert Briscoe.

“Irish Jews enjoy the day like everyone else and ensure it is a day to join in the celebration of Irish unity and culture,” says the associate professor of medicine at Harvard. “On a personal note, I plan to arrange a day of Irish music and dance for several of my colleagues to celebrate Irish culture.”

Israel

David Briscoe experienced the day differently while growing up Jewish in Dublin as son of Lord Mayor Ben Briscoe and grandson of the city’s first Jewish Lord Mayor, Robert Briscoe.

“Irish Jews enjoy the day like everyone else and ensure it is a day to join in the celebration of Irish unity and culture,” says the associate professor of medicine at Harvard. “On a personal note, I plan to arrange a day of Irish music and dance for several of my colleagues to celebrate Irish culture.”

Plus a list of prominent Irish Jews.

5 Comments | Share This | Culture, Holidays, Israel

Hitchens doesn’t light the menorah

By Ami Eden · December 4, 2007

We know that Christopher Hitchens doesn’t like God or Mother Teresa. So I guess it should come as no surprise that he’s down on Chanukah, too:

The Hasmonean regime that resulted from the Maccabean revolt soon became exorbitantly corrupt, vicious, and divided, and encouraged the Roman annexation of Judea. Had it not been for this no-less imperial event, we would never have had to hear of Jesus of Nazareth or his sect—which was a plagiarism from fundamentalist Judaism—and the Jewish people would never have been accused of being deicidal “Christ killers.” Thus, to celebrate Hanukkah is to celebrate not just the triumph of tribal Jewish backwardness but also the accidental birth of Judaism’s bastard child in the shape of Christianity. You might think that masochism could do no more. Except that it always can. Without the precedents of Orthodox Judaism and Roman Christianity, on which it is based and from which it is borrowed, there would be no Islam, either. Every Jew who honors the Hanukkah holiday because it gives his child an excuse to mingle the dreidel with the Christmas tree and the sleigh (neither of these absurd symbols having the least thing to do with Palestine two millenniums past) is celebrating the making of a series of rods for his own back. And this is not just a disaster for the Jews. When the fanatics of Palestine won that victory, and when Judaism repudiated Athens for Jerusalem, the development of the whole of humanity was terribly retarded.

From his own spot in the world, all of that makes perfect sense. But Hitchens could use a primer when it comes to the miracle of the oil. Here’s what he has to say:

And, of course and as ever, one stands aghast at the pathetic scale of the supposed ‘miracle.’ As a consequence of the successful Maccabean revolt against Hellenism, so it is said, a puddle of olive oil that should have lasted only for one day managed to burn for eight days. Wow! Certain proof, not just of an Almighty, but of an Almighty with a special fondness for fundamentalists. Epicurus and Democritus had brilliantly discovered that the world was made up of atoms, but who cares about a mere fact like that when there is miraculous oil to be goggled at by credulous peasants?

By emphasizing the miracle of the oil, the rabbis in the Talmud were essentially attempting to write the Hasmonean rulers that Hitchens so detests out of the story. Yes, the rabbis’ narrative is still an anti-Greek one, but even from Hitchens’ perspective, this shift in emphasis should be seen as progress.

0 Comments | Share This | Holidays, Pundits