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The Jewish Angle✡ הזווית היהודית



Last Updated: 7/1/2009

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Country: US
Signup Date: 7/14/2006

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Wednesday, July 01, 2009 

Current mood:  chipper
Category: Religion and Philosophy
I’m collecting ideas for a d’var Torah — a talk about the Torah portion for July 11. The portion is Pinchas – Numbers 25:10-30:1 

One thing that strikes me is that this is the place where Moses’s parents are given names (Numbers 26:59). In the story of the Exodus, and in the traditional Passover Haggadah, they go unnamed.

Any thoughts?

More blogging at DavidWroteThis.
Currently watching:
The Leopard - Criterion Collection
Release date: 2004-06-08
6:18 PM 
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Friday, June 26, 2009 


http://davidwrotethis.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/dyl...

Dylan’s 7 Mirrors « David Wrote This

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Through the years, the mysterious image of the mirror has appeared in Bob Dylan's work. I went searching and found a mirror in these seven lyrics.

8:48 PM 
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Wednesday, June 03, 2009 

Current mood:  awake
Category: Religion and Philosophy
In time for Father's Day, Rabbi Charles E. Simon offers an ethical dilemma to wrestle with: What happens when mitzvot come into conflict? Big mitzvot.

Rabbi Simon is the executive director of the Conservative movement's Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs. He was the one who alerted me to Birkat Hachamah, the Blessing of the Sun.

In the current issue of CJ, the Conservative movement's magazine, he writes about a friend who was put in the awkward position of being invited to a teacher and mentor's 100th birthday party. The party for this mentor -- who was like a second father to Rabbi Simon's friend -- "would be held on a Saturday afternoon at a catering hall miles from any hotel," Rabbi Simon writes.

Attending would certainly force him to break Shabbat, and the friend told his teacher he didn't think he could make it. The teacher's answer was heartfelt, I'm sure, but reads like Jewish theater:
“Don’t worry about it. I understand," the teacher said. "Maybe you’ll be there for my 200th.”

Then there was Rabbi Simon's colleague who struggled over whether to attend his father's second marriage -- a church wedding taking place on a Saturday.
"Should he attend the intermarriage ceremony to honor his father, or should he refrain from showing his father the love and respect that is the duty of every child in order to observe the Sabbath?" Rabbi Simon writes.

I finished the article, eager to find out what these grown sons decided to do about their troublemaking dads. How did they handle these cases of conflicting mitzvot?

But Rabbi Simon never said. So I emailed him, and asked him how the stories ended. For him, it was obvious:

"Of course he attended the wedding," Rabbi Simon wrote me. "Honoring one's parents is one of the Big Ten. And of course he attended the birthday -- it’s the same thing."

Meditate on that until Father's Day.


♦          ♦          ♦



You can visit my other blog, DavidWroteThis.  Please stop by.



Currently listening:
Upright
By Philip Aaberg
Release date: 1989-10-04
1:48 PM 
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Sunday, May 31, 2009 


http://davidwrotethis.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/fm-...

FM radio has more drama than you might think.

11:35 PM 
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Friday, May 08, 2009 

Current mood:  pleased
Category: News and Politics
In brief, this post, to which I was alerted by Nextbook, reveals the increasing popularity of Cohen as a baby name. A first name.

"What’s especially ironic, and to some galling, about the rising popularity of Cohen as a first name is that the people who love it seem to be just about as un-Jewish as you can get," the article says. "Google 'Cohen is my favorite name' and you’ll find family pictures featuring toy guns and rebel flags. On being assured on one name board that using the name Cohen would not necessarily offend Jews, one mom-to-be wrote, 'That's great to hear!! We live in a small town in the Midwest and I've never met a Jewish person IRL.'

The article gives good background on the Jewishness of Cohen, and mixes it up with the reality-TV nuttiness of the new Cohen-namers. Popular culture is behind the Cohen Craze, it says, but there is more than a little internal poetics as well. (Wired weighs in on the social science of baby naming.)

Only in America, yes?

Take a read and let me know your reaction.

♦     ♦     ♦


See also The Jewish Angle on baby names here and here.

And please visit my new blog, DavidWroteThis.

Currently watching:
M*A*S*H (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
Release date: 2006-02-07
8:05 PM 
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Tuesday, May 05, 2009 

Category: News and Politics
Haaretz has reported that Israelis get more Jewish when they're in the Diaspora, at least if they live in New York. More startlingly, they're more Jewish than Jewish New Yorkers.

This finding, from a study for the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York (although I can't find a copy on its website), may be "partly due to the relatively high percentage of Orthodox Israelis in the area," Ha'aretz wrote.

What do they mean by Jewish? Synagogue attendance, lighting Shabbat candles, keeping kosher.

If this weren't surprising enough, the article ends with a real stunner, for which no explanation is offered: "While previously it was estimated that 1.5 million Israelis live in the East Coast metropolis, the study showed the actual number to be 41,000."

If so, who's really driving the moving trucks and running those kiosks at the mall?

♣

Don't stop now, visit my other blog, DavidWroteThis. There's more to read at The Jewish Angle ezine.

Currently watching:
Man on Wire
Release date: 2008-12-09
5:03 PM 
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Wednesday, April 29, 2009 

Current mood:  satisfied
Category: Blogging
I've begun a new blog somewhere out there among the galaxy of blogs. Its theme might be called "Not the Jewish Angle." Although there seems to be a Jewish angle to nearly everything, this new blog means I don't have to strain so hard to always find one.

I will update here, too.

So to whet your appetite, here is how it begins...

‘It is unfair to bore someone who doesn’t have the opportunity to bore you right back.’


So please visit, please read, please comment, link, subscribe, tell your friends.



Currently reading:
John Lennon: The Life
By Philip Norman
Release date: 2008-10-28
12:58 PM 
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Thursday, March 19, 2009 

Current mood:  discontent
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

I have a traffic counter on my ezine. It reveals that traffic on the site nowhere approaches rush hour. It's low density and quick, as a matter of fact. But for all that, there's one particular page that most visitors land on. Most reach it after a web search, and the search words they use to get there makes for odd reading:



From New York --
is jon stewart jewish

From Charleston SC --
jon stewart is a jew


From Curious in Berlin, Germany --
jewish jon stewart


From Jersey City, Chicago and Toronto --
jon stewart’s real name


Zephyrhills, Florida, wants to know --
jon stewart’s real last name

Aston, Pennsylvania, is on the line --
is jon stewart a Jew

And for variety, this from Los Angeles --
martha stewart jew

All these are from today.

I wonder if Stewart is secretly a Hebrew name.


You can subscribe to this blog here. And to the Jewish Angle ezine feed here.


Currently reading:
John Lennon: The Life
By Philip Norman
Release date: 2008-10-28
10:43 PM 
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Thursday, March 05, 2009 

Current mood:  focused
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural


If you have the time, watch this 1924 Soviet propaganda animation to the end. Ask yourself:

What if Disney had done this cartoon?

What would Warner Brothers have done? How would the greedy capitalist sound if he was voiced by Mel Blanc?

Could Hanna-Barbera have done a better job?

Note that at the end, the victorious worker and peasant also string up the only woman character. That can't be correct.

But at least they didn't go after the Jews.

The Jewish Angle ezine is updated. See it here.


1:13 AM 
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Tuesday, February 24, 2009 

Current mood:  chipper
Category: Writing and Poetry

It's really true -- I've updated The Jewish Angle ezine. Please rush over there and you can read about:

The Inner Light: The Blessing of the Sun is one holiday you can't get enough of.


Boy Wonder: Why Irving Brecher may be the most famous Hollywood name you've never heard of.


The Wild One: The lastest from our poet laureate, Ben Pincus.


There will be more to come. But for now, please read, enjoy, comment, and pass it along.



4:45 PM 
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