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'Ive' Tag
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Festival of Freedom
June 15, 2010Jeeze, a guy gets busy for a few weeks and you turn this site into all Israel, all the time! (Okay, all Israel plus Kyrgyzstan and a touch of Talmud.) Anyway, while I’ve been gone, I’ve been busy. I mentioned that I graduated from Hebrew College. I was incredibly honored to be asked [...]
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A new phrase for the rest of us
May 7, 2010As I’ve written about before, I grew up with little connection to the State of Israel. Recently, I’ve come to consider the political, economic, and cultural realities that make advocating for the disassembly of Israel impractical and completely counterproductive to the struggle for peace, but I still feel uncomfortable calling myself a Zionist, or [...]
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Steinmetz Center Hosts Conference on Academic Freedom and Free Speech
April 27, 2010For the past month or so, I’ve inadvertently been focussing my blogging on the general issue of political speech in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict, and the ways in which the latter suppresses the free exchange of ideas both within Israel and Diaspora Jewish communities. Many of the most important subjects I’ve written about–Amzi [...]
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Do You Have Any Ideas For Funding Graduate Study In Israel?
April 20, 2010Dear Rabbi, I’m sorry to bug you about something so small, but I was wondering if you knew of any funding opportunities I may be able to take advantage of for a fellowship I’m trying to take part in in Israel. I’ve been accepted to the Israel Government Fellow program (igf.org.il). The program is $15,000 [...]
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Follow my training for Bike the Drive
April 2, 2010In the past I’ve posted progress reports on my training for Chai Lifeline’s Bike the Drive on this blog.
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Mizrachi Passover
March 29, 2010This is for me! Sigh. Every year around this time, without fail, my Mom asks me if I’m coming to Montreal for Passover. Since I’ve moved to Jerusalem however, while I’ve been back to Montreal, I never come back for Passover. “Mom!” I say, “every year when I was with you guys we’d end the [...]
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Describing DESCRIBE
March 21, 2010Though I’d heard some initial criticism from comrades, I just took the plunge and bought Describe’s new EP Harmony just out on Shemspeed. I’ve heard Describe songs that I’ve related to, and the masculine mix of Hasidut and singjaying resonated with my path from the Jewish afrocentrism of my youth to halachic observance and idiosyncratic [...]
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Free Matzah. Act Now.
March 8, 2010So part of my day job at MyJewishLearning is to come up with new and zany schemes to… well, basically, to keep the site from seeming old and un-zany. This Passover season, I’ve decided that we should buy someone more matzah than they’ll ever need. Even if they have a whole lot of friends coming [...]
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Burston on Gaza War as Root of All Israeli Evil
February 14, 2010Brad Burston, Haaretz’s columnist can be a helluva fine writer. I’ve written at least one laudatory post about him. After doing so, I read pieces by Burston which seemed almost to be written by a different person. They were churlish pieces attacking Israel’s Jewish critics. I chalked it up to a journalist feeling that it [...]
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Jerusalem Post, Australian Zionists Dump Chazan
February 5, 2010Haaretz reports that the Israeli rightist Jerusalem Post has dumped Naomi Chazan’s column in that newspaper. The editor refused to elaborate when asked. Clearly, this is connected to Im Tirtzu’s campaign of vilification against Chazan and New Israel Fund, which I’ve covered extensively here. The only progressive commentators left there are Gershom Baskin and Larry [...]
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Strange British hotel practices
February 1, 2010For the past eight years, I’ve had a brochure from the Talland Bay Hotel, in Cornwall on the southern coast of England, floating around in the slurry of papers on my desk. Every so often, it’ll bob to the surface and I’ll notice it and think, “I’ve got to get that in the newspaper somehow.” [...]
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Legless (Read Write Prompt #111: broken chair)
January 28, 2010LEGLESS The sadness arises again and cuts my legs out from under me the monotony of trying to soothe screams as frequent as the waves… I’m tethered, my body is harnessed my own desires pushed aside sometimes he stares up at my eyes as though he sees me but then his chin crumples resolute and [...]
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Availing myself during aveilus
January 6, 2010Rav Hirsch brings down the idea that the root of aveilus is the Hebrew word aval, which means “but”.