Rabbi Daniel Brenner

Old shul in Asbury Park Old shul in Asbury ParkBlood of Christ Evangelical ChurchThe mikvah,Now baptizingRosario MendesFourteen years oldNinth graderGood in mathBad skinThe congregation was dyingNot figurativelyTwenty seven funerals in one yearRabbi Furst again in the Skylark, again with the black suit, Again with his wife “the funeral shoes, not the good ones.”Yes, the soundtrack has changed, but the ruach hakodesh has not left the building.The choir still sings Halleluyah,(now to the thump of an electric bass,praise music they call…

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After the 9/11 ceremonies I met with Dr. Mohammed Essawi and the faculty of Al-Qasemi Academy from Baaka El Garbia, Israel. It was a wonderful hour with an inspiring group of Muslims from Israel who are working on coexistence education. (thanks to Trinity’s Rev. Hoke and the AJC’s Ari Gordon for making this meeting happen.) From there, my 9/11 themed week continued with a trip to Montreal to participate in the ‘World’s Religions after 9/11’ conference sponsored by McGill. (I’ll…

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Tommorow morning, the fifth anniversary of the September 11th attacks I’ll be with a group of New York City religious leaders: Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, and Jews, who are joining together to ringa bell at Trinity Wall Street, a few short blocks from Ground Zero. Apparently ABC Good Morning America will be airing the 8:35 ceremony. It is hard to believe that it has been five years. It was all so surreal. I remember looking down from 28th Street watching the first bellows of smoke rise up, thinking that maybe a commuter plane had hit the building, and that a few people might have died. By the time I got to work, one of the towers had fallen. Then I watched as every Emergency vehicle in the city headed downtown. When the second tower fell,I left work and began to walk. Some people were laughing, saying how…

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I just read the news that one of my most beloved teachers, Tikve Frymer-Kensky passed on to the next world. Tikve, who we once dubbed the red-hot Mesopotamian Momma, was a wondorous teacher. She gathered us on the back porch of her suburban Philly home and told us the Gilgamesh Epic, translating Sumerian terms in a sing-song. Her most notorious moment came when she asked us to draw the outline of an uncurcumsized penis on the chalkboard so that she…

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Hezbollah, Heschel, and HopeRabbi Daniel BrennerAugust 27, 2006Presbyterian ChurchRensellearville, New York Last summer, Lisa and I and our three children were in Israel, visiting a kibbutz on the border of Lebanon to see my cousins’ new home. It was Friday night, and we were seated around a table on the porch watching the sun set over the green hills. There were three generations gathered at the table and we all sang the Sabbath hymn to the messengers of peace. We…

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What is summer without a strenuous mountain hike that leads to a chilly waterfall? Here is one of the many views we took in as we traversed the Blue Ridge Parkway on our recent trip to my homestate – North Carolina. Other highlights included chanting the Book of Lamentations with my parents’ chavurah, enjoying the waterpark at Carowinds, seeing my kindergarten and sixth grade teachers at Temple Israel (Ruth Goldberg and Raph Panitz) and eating at Gliberman’s Deli! Now I’m…

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Below is an email that we just got from one of the Israeli participants in our Face to Face/Faith to Faith program. A ray of hope at a difficult time. July 27th — Hey everybody…. When I lived in a settlement in the West Bank, Fakir, I had very nice neighbors—the Yaakobi family. They had a son, Nathaniel, who was the best friend of my brother Tamir. The mother was Hannah, a very nice woman who worked in my school….

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As the artillery fire continues to rain down on Israel and Lebanon, I’ve been reading Etgar Keret’s short story collection The Nimrod Flip Out.Keret has been heralded as the leader of the next generation of Israeli writers, and the stories reflect a post-modern, post-zionist attitude. Oddly funny, the stories often mine the Jewish tradition of fantasy tales and bring up new gems. One other item worth mentioning is a blog post by the Orthodox Anarchist. http://www.orthodoxanarchist.com/2006/07/to-live-and-die-in-jlm-anarchy-jewish.php He reflects on the…

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The best part of the latest report is that Reb Blog has been read in 64 countries! Only 73% of readers are U.S. based. The countries include such places as: Norway, Turkey, Estonia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, India, Chile, Mali and Iran. It is great to see that folks are stopping by.

This week I’ve been working on a new project that weds the best of religious documentary film to more traditional topics in education – like, for example, figuring out what films on Buddhism or Hinduism to watch alongside reading Hesse’s Siddhartha, or what films on Judaism to watch while reading Elie Weisel’s Night or Islam & Reading Lolita in Teheran. I’d love to hear folks ideas about curricula – and we do have a budget to pay teachers $500 to…

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