Tu biShvat Holiday Kit

Tu biShvat (notice the 'funny' spelling*) falls on February 4th and if you want to know what it is, how it evolved, how it's celebrated, songs, videos, recipes, crafts, etc. then you should check out Jvillage Network's Tu biShvat Holiday Kit.  It even explains the *correct spelling of this holiday.

Check it out!

Want to know more about Tu biShvat? Follow our board    page.

Tu Bishvat is Coming February 4

Roz Chast Drags Us Kicking, Screaming, and Laughing, Into the Land of the Infirm

During the Hebrew month of Tevet there are no Jewish holidays. Jvillage Network, therefore, will be printing articles relating to Jewish Arts and Culture.

The cartoonist’s grahic memoir made many Top Ten lists this year. Here’s what she had to say about it.

By Vox Tablet - Audio Podcast

[Podcast audio below.] Roz Chast is best known for her New Yorker comics—colorful and witty depictions of everyday humiliations and grievances. Often those come at the hands of the people closest to her: family members. In Chast’s recent book, a graphic memoir called Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? that has rightfully earned a place on many annual lists of the year’s best new non-fiction, she tells the story of her parents. In particular, she looks back at how, as an only child, she dealt with their steep decline at the end of their lives—with love and sadness, but also with frustration and guilt. It’s a poignant and often unexpectedly hilarious account and one that confronts head-on a dilemma most of us will face at some point if we haven’t already: figuring out what to do with an elderly relative who can no longer look after him- or herself.

Vox Tablet’s Julie Subrin visited with Chast in her Connecticut home last spring to talk about Chast’s reasons for delving into this depressing terrain and how the daughter of two extremely high-strung and rather humorless Depression-scarred parents stuck in the backwaters of Jewish Brooklyn became a successful and very funny cartoon artist.

Listen:


Follow us on   

Frederick Wiseman’s Cosmic Joke

The Old Master of documentary film talks about tantrums at London’s National Gallery, his curiosity, and his love of janitors

By Jeremy Sigler|for Tablet Magazine

Never before has such a mixed bag of “documentaries” been so instantly available through digital streaming. But Frederick Wiseman’s films are still hard to find, and equally hard to ingest. Other documentary filmmakers associated with the Cinema Verité movement are inclined to stalk a charismatic subject until something truly unprecedented is caught on film; Wiseman, however, lets the true drama of his subject speak, even if nothing especially dramatic happens. His mastery is in capturing the uneventfulness of everyday life. (Ironically, his films are a treasure trove of mind-boggling, often hilarious occurrences.)

Wiseman is now in his eighties (born in 1930) and has made more than 30 full-length feature films, mainly ingenuously non-opinionated accounts of American institutions (public high schools, factories, the military, and hospitals), most of which originally aired on PBS. His historic contribution to the art of 20th-century cinema is a given, yet each new film retains an innocence and curiosity that thrusts us yet again into a new context. There we may witness another collection of performances by “normal” people who often don’t realize they are “acting” in a movie. In his latest slice of reality, National Gallery, Wiseman immerses his audience in a cinematic “behind the scenes” choreography of the London museum’s blockbuster Leonardo da Vinci show, as well as its magnificent collection of Old Master paintings. Never before has da Vinci been upstaged by painfully long administrative meetings; verbose docents; framers; restorers; museum workers erecting and breaking down galleries, painting walls, installing paintings, polishing floors, tilting lights, and even tending bars—and I almost forgot: hordes of art-loving, googly-eyed museum-goers.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   


 

Is it "OK" to Celebrate New Years?

From Ask the Rabbi on Virtual Jerusalem

Q: "Is it wrong for a Jew to celebrate the secular New Year? Is there an actual commandment against doing so? I commemorate Rosh Hashana every year, and I know it's not 'Jewish' to go out on Dec 31., but what harm can it do?"

A: This is an excellent question and one that has been addressed by several contemporary (or at least in the last 100 years) Halachic authorities, in their discussions concerning secular American holidays. They've invariably discussed the halachic issues from the standpoint of three principles: (1) avoda zara (Idol worship); (2) chukot hagoyim; (customs and mores of the Gentiles) and (3) adding mitzvot.

I don't recall #1 or #3 having any significant relevance to the observance of January 1st as a New Year, for rank and file Jews would never attribute divinity to a day (some) associate with the anniversary of Jesus' brit milah, or consider celebrating New Years as some additional "mitzvah." We know what Rosh Hoshana means to us, and never the twain do they overlap or share any form or notion of comparison.

Continue reading.


Follow us on   

 

Jews & Christmas

What attitudes toward Christmas tell us about modern Jewish identity.

By Rabbi Joshua E. Plaut for MyJewishLearning.com

For the majority of Americans, December 25 is a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but for Jews it is a time to consider ones relationship to the wider society.

Some Jews have chosen to adopt the Yuletide festivities. Some have emphatically rejected the rituals and symbols of Christmas. Still others have sought ways to meld Christmas and Hanukkah. Christmas, in effect, has become a prism through which Jews can view how living in this land of freedom has shaped our religion, culture, and identity. 

Background: Europe
For centuries, the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe feared Christmas-time. At any other time, pious Jews would be studying Torah in the synagogue, but not on Christmas. Wary of being attacked in the street, they took refuge in their homes, playing cards or chess with their families.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

A Zionist View on Chanukah

Golda Meir in 1919

From unitedwithisrael.org

From the very beginnings of the Zionist movement, the story of the Maccabees would serve as an inspiration. As Theodore Herzl wrote, “The Maccabees will rise again.” Vladimir Jabotinsky similarly declared, “Yes, they have arisen—the children of those whose ancestor was Judah, lion of the Maccabees.” Similarly, Ahad Aham, founder of cultural Zionism, proclaimed, “We celebrate not only the consecration and renewal of the Temple, some two thousand years ago—but also the renewal and revival of this same Jewish nation, reviving its soul once again for a new life.” David Ben-Gurion also believed Hanukkah is a major festival celebrating Jewish freedom.

The tale of the Maccabees, however, did not just serve as an inspiration for the Zionist movement but it also was incorporated into contemporary Zionist literature. For example, Leon Uris’ book Exodus, which did much to promote Zionism within popular culture and to convince people to support Israel, referred to the Etzel and the Levi as “Maccabees,” as a way to allude to the fact that the “New Jew” was a direct descendant of the Ancient Hebrews. According to the character David in Exodus, “Our very existence is a miracle. We outlived the Romans and the Greeks and even Hitler. We have outlived every oppressor and we will outlive the British Empire.” Thus, the example of the Maccabees was utilized to its fullest as an example of how the Jewish people could succeed to gain independence once again.

Continue reading.

For more great Hanukkah ideas, check out our    page.