Rabbi Daniel Brenner

Cash for Clunkers A Poem for Rosh Hashannah Hitch your rusty old heart to the tow truck (We’ve got an old 8 track of Yossele Rosenblatt Sings Holiday Favorites up in the cab.) Chains of prayer pulling you alongthe glass walled showroom by the old highway eternal light a red neon “open” Plastic banner whipping in the windTrade-ins WelcomeGates of repentance marked by an “ENTER” arrow, slightly bent. And here you are, Your clogged heap,Your worn tires,Your gunked up insides….

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(PHOTO: Birthright Israel NEXT alumni from Brooklyn dance at the National Yiddish Book Center) Way back in 1997 I was a Steinhardt Fellow at CLAL – the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. Fresh out of rabbinical school, I was thrown into a rowdy crew of Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative rabbis – all of whom were dedicated to finding some way that we could transcend those very labels and yet still be true to our convictions. (I was trained…

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Well the good people over at Amazon.com have a list of the best 100 world music albums of all time and I spot three Jewy ones in the bunch. The kicker: none of them break into the top fifty! Ofra Haza comes in at 61 Idan Raichel at 75 and Andy Statman at 93 (how is he world music btw? World Music being defined here as non-Western) Where is Habreira Hatvit???? Shlomo Bar was world music before world music even…

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Believer, Beware got this wonderful write up in Huffington Post while I was off in Israel drinking Yotvata’s delicious chocolate milk. “I hate anthologies — all that stopping and starting, just as you get into a writer. I loved this one though because it reflects the theme of my own disjointed weird life. I grew up as a missionary kid, pastor’s sidekick, God merchant, Religious Right leader, you name it. I long since escaped if not to sanity then to…

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Slouching towards Bushwick, posed a few questions to me. It’s been a while since I had time to blog, but I felt guilty for not responding, so I sat down and wrote….here goes…. A blog wherein Rabbi Daniel Brenner answers Samantha’s Questions. (or attempts to do so) Does “being Jewish” mean having a daily practice? Do you do things each day to “be” Jewish like praying before eating, after going to the bathroom, performing mitzvot, etc. or can you just…

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Leaving for Tel Aviv this week…with a stop-over in Paris. Looking forward to speaking English in a French accent the entire time…a la inspector cluseau. .Here’s two quick movie reviewsAway We Go: Loved Maya Rudolph.Took me a while to get into it, but once I did, fantastic.stroller scene is a gem. Up! What is it with Pixar and “cute” fat people?

We need Grandpa Boris’ wisdom now more than ever. WWGBD? Noone ever comments on this blog, but maybe a few brave souls will play screenwiter for the next zinger from Boris’ chapped lips…..

The good people over at Nextbook have launched an online magazine of sorts with the chisl-icious title “Tablet” — check it out. The style is clean — more texty than photo-heavy and relaxing on the eyes. But if you stare at it too long it becomes white fire on black fire.

The New York paper The Jewish Week is running a piece I penned about the last two years of my professional life. (has it been that long?) Here goes: Reaching Birthright Alums: The Follow-Up Dietby Rabbi Daniel BrennerSpecial To The Jewish Week Shimshon Shoshani, the man tapped by Prime Minister Netanyahu to steer Israel’s educational system back on track, is about as direct and honest a critic as you can find. A year and a half ago, when I was…

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“Shocking, exhilarating, and never dull…. Highly recommended.” — Library Journal, starred review. “Smart, candid, and insightful… The voices are refreshingly honest.” — Publishers Weekly Read more of what they have to say at our special feature:Praised Behttp://killingthebuddha.com/mag/dogma/believer-beware/ Believer, Beware lands on July 1, but no need to wait. Pre-order now at Amazon.com.http://www.amazon.com/Believer-Beware-First-Person-Dispatches-Margins/dp/0807077399