Virtual Activities Compilation
Kate Jett has compiled a fantastic list of virtual activities so we don’t get bored during this period of social isolation.
jLab
Random posts on fun, creative, interesting Jewish or Congregation (members)-related topics.
New Podcast by Jeremiah Collins
We have a new podcast by Jeremiah Collins about his Grandmother Alda in Romania during WWII.
URJ Biennial 2019
Every two years, thousands of Reform Jews from all corners of the world gather at the Union for Reform Judaism’s (URJ) Biennial. Last year between 5,000 to 7,000 people attended the Biennial at the McCormick Place Conference Center in Chicago. If you’ve never been at a meeting with this many Jewish people of all ages, then this is the event to look out for. For me this was a first, and this is my personal lookback report of a few highlights on jLab.
The problem with Jews in fiction
Most portrayals of Jews in fiction are weak. It doesn’t matter if they’re on television, the stage or in print, Jewish characters seem to fall into a few broad classes. Token Jews show up for ethnic diversity. Sometimes, nothing about them seems Jewish other than the mention that they are. Sometimes, they drip Yiddishisms and Jewish steriotypes, but their purpose is to be Jewish, not to convey anything about Jews other than the fact that they’re different.
Saying Goodbye to Gusti Kollman
I went to see Gusti today. The hospice people told Gusti’s daughter “final days.” Gusti looked comfortable when I saw her, quiet and small and breathing well. No IV, no tubes, no oxygen. Just her face, soft and old, and her skin, thin and crinkly. She looked like she could open her eyes at any moment and smile, but she could not hear us and seemed to be starting a trip, an inward trip across an ocean.
D’var on Tsitsit
In 1930 Solomon Gandz claimed that Incas and Hebrews had invented in parallel, on separate continents, a common root of all literacy: knotted cord records. Gandz’s conjecture isn’t taken seriously today. Yet neither was it foolish of Gandz to wonder how threads and knots became a way to declare truths without words – and why knotted threads convince and compel us (and the Incas) in a way that seems self-evidently powerful.
Pungent Memories
The grapefruit brought it all back. And nothing points up our differences like a grapefruit. Everything she loves about it, save the smell, I hate.
Four Men, A Jewess, and a Somewhat Empty Nest
One of the signatures of our Seders has always been the requirement that non-Jews attend. But this year, no guests. No cast. No eldest daughter.
Designing a Logo
Designing the Second Century Fund Logo. In this post we explore the design process of the logo: why and how it was created. This a first post of a more experimental series of posts which you will find in future in a section named “jLab”: posts about creative, fun, interesting or random Jewish or congregation-related topics.
Introducing jLab: A page to Experiment
We are introducing a page where we can experiment: jLab. It is a page with blog posts about creative, fun, interesting or random Jewish or congregation-related topics. It is basically a online place where you can post anything that does not fit in the regular structure of this website. The only two rules are: you […]
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