This weekend at B’nai Keshet in Montclair, a member of the Ugandan Jewish CommunityJJ Keko, taught three songs during services. He did Psalm 92 and 93 and taught a L’cha Dodi. JJ is one of the singers on the Smithsonian Folkways recording (see link). It was great to meet him and to learn from him. We also got to drink the coffe he grows as part of Thanksgiving Coffee Company.
The Nationalism Project is a nifty site which explores debates on the origin of the concept of nation and nationality. I just happened across it while working on the curricula for Face to Face.
I was down at the Bowery Poetry Club last night for a show by Jake Marmer’s outfit Frantic Turtle. Marmer, sporting a Woody Allen themed t-shirt waxed poetic about fish soup, gabbais, russian novelists, shimon bar yochai while his laid back band did lots of reggae like things. It was all truly mesmerizing and wonderful. The spirit of Ginsberg lives on. Here’s a link where you can hear their fine work: Frantic Turtle Afterwards, we were treated to another wonderful…
Saul Brenner, Lifetime Achievement Award in Judicial Politics Professor Saul Brenner will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) this fall at the annual meeting of the association in Chicago. The award was announced by Melinda Gann Hall, Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University and chair of the selection committee. Dr. Hall stated: “The Law and Courts field is particularly distinguished by the number of outstanding scholars…
Once the realization is accepted That even between the closest of human beings Infinite distances continue to exist A wonderful living side by side can grow up If they succeed in loving the distance between them Which makes it possible for each to see the other Whole and against a wide sky. -Rainer Rilke
Reb Blog is now featured on My Jewish New Jersey! a nifty new portal of rabbinic rants from the capitol of golus.
Nextbook has got a little feature in their Religion section that riffs on my recent Revealer piece. (And while you are there, I recommend reading Shalom Auslander’s wacky memoirs.) Here’s their comment: Services for the Tragically Hip Questionable efforts to make shul cool continue with indie rock rabbis and Synaplex, a program that organizes Saturday “Tour de Torah” bike rides and “Jewpardy” sessions. The WSJ’s Naomi Schaefer Riley takes a critical look at the latter, and gets lambasted by Rabbi…
Or maybe not. So last night I got in a public verbal scuffle with playwright/poet Amiri Baraka, who was speaking after his show The Dutchman at Cherry Lane Theater. Baraka, questioned by another audience member about his controversial 2001 poem once again repeated the fabrication that he “read” that 4,000 Israelis were told to “not go to work that day” — he said that he read it in Ha’aretz and he could not understand why the Jewish people would not…
I was interviewed yesterday by Menachem Wecker for Iconia his blog about religion and art. I speak a bit about Ben Shahn, one of my favorite artists, and what ‘religious art’ means. To the left is a Shahn piece representing the three stages of a man’s/dog’s life. The eyes alone are riveting.
The Jewish Week’s Directions Magazine is running my latest piece on multifaith work. It is included in a collection of visions for the Jewish future. You can read it here. A Bridge Across About four years ago,the late Rabbi Balfour Brickner invited me up to the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue to meet with a small circle of his friends whom he affectionately dubbed “the woolly mammoths.” Sounds like a good name for a rock band, I thought. It was Balfour’s…