Reverend Herb Daughtry, an African-American pastor in Brooklyn famous for his “Marry Baby Daddy Day” has left three messages now on my machine. I tried to call him back twice, reached his assistant, and we fell into in an overtime game of phone tag. “My heart and head are telling me to act now on Darfur,” he said when we finally got in touch. This metaphor is apt — when genocide looms, and governments can’t work with others to prevent…
Yesterday I spoke to AP news at a prayer vigil outside of the Sudanese embassy to raise awareness of the crisis in Darfur – a humanitarian crisis which has only gotten worse over the past few weeks and one which is threatening the lives of over two million Darfurians. To my left in the grey suit is Yahya Osman of the Darfur Rehabilitation Project – he is a Darfurian who is doing everything he can to mobilize the U.N. With…
What better way to celebrate than by posting this delicious Heschelalia. Thank you all for visiting and reading, and passing things on.
Monsters and Critics, a news blog in the UK, picked up my essay on stem cells for their OUTSIDE VIEW column. I hope that this piece gets out there — more people need to hear about Sen. Brownback’s campaign to spread misinformation on the progress of stem cell research. In other news, last week I was seated (thanks Alison) at a dinner with Judea Pearl, father of the late Daniel Pearl. Daniel was being honored by the Temple of Understanding….
For all those interested in hearing a group of New Jersey hipsters rocking out to the Nusrat Fathah Ali-Khan – esque version of Psalm 150, this podcast might do the trick. This here rabbi sings his heart out, sometimes on key. Enjoy.
Here is a contest that should win an award for the wackiest interfaith project ever: An art competition entitled the “Faces of God” by the New Seminary that will be put up at the United Nations in which there is an award for: “Best Representation of The Divine Universal Presence US $2000” That’s right folks, now is your chance to draw God and strike it rich! Yes, if you can draw God really well now is your chance to win…
A few of my comments appear today in the Jerusalem Post in an article about the effort to gather 600,000 Jewish folks online for a virtual ‘communal blessing.’ The article is one which relates to a piece I wrote a few years back about the changing nature of the ‘sacred’ in the digital age.
UPI will be now publishing some of my essays and other musings in the Religion and Spirituality section each week.For more, check out: AMERICAN RABBI
Last night I was down at Baruch College, checking out my friend Billy Yalowitz’s new theater show (written by Muhammed Ahmed Zaher.) The title, Six Characters in search of a Plot, was apt. There was little plot – the show is more a series of impressions on the process of creating political theater b/w Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs when you can’t even have a conversation about politics. My friend Hanin Tarabiya from Face to Face was in the show…
Last night we had a fantastic multifaith panel after the show Lemkin’s House by Catherine Filloux. Her play places Raphael Lemkin, the Polish lawyer who coined the term genocide, into an afterlife in a house hanuted by some of the genocides that occured after the Shoah. Particularly in Rwanda and Bosnia – and spilling over into the current turmoil in Darfur. On the panel, I was joined by Rev. Chole Breyer, an Episcopal priest and writer for Salon and Imam…