Diane Tobin Featured in Bubbe's Kitchen:
Welcome to Bubbe's Kitchen. This is where Jewish Family & Childrens services stir up a little family tradition with your favorite recipes. Whether you are a Bubbe or a Zayde, or just want some new kosher culinary tips, drop by Bubbe's Kitchen each month to see what's cooking.
Rosh Hashanah Egyptian Black-eyed peas
Submitted by Diane Kaufman-Tobin
Click here for entire recipe.
5768: A Chronology
By JTA Staff, September 22, 2008, JTA.org
Taking a look at the highlights of the Jewish year. JTA published a chronology of highlights from the Jewish year 5768. Here is just one. Read all of them here.
May: LOS ANGELES – Ugandan Gershom Sizomu is ordained as a Conservative rabbi by American Jewish University, making him the first official rabbi of Uganda's Abayudaya community. Read on.
New Shul Reaches Out to a Diversity of Jews
By Adam Kredo, September 24, 2008, WashingtonJewishWeek.com
The tides of tolerance are rolling in this Rosh Hashanah at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in the District where a pioneering multicultural and multiracial congregation, Temple Beth Emet, is set to hold its first Rosh Hashanah services.
Many multicultural Jews, such as African Americans and Asian Indians, Rabbi Eli Aronoff added, have trouble finding a "welcoming community" because area synagogues, barring Sixth & I, lack "outreach." Read on...
Gay Shuls Set to Release Prayer Books
By Ben Harris, September 16, 2008, JTA
Two of the leading gay congregations in the United States are gearing up to publish formal editions of their prayer books, marking the first time that a siddur drafted with the needs of gay and lesbian Jews in mind will be made available to a wide audience. Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in New York and Congregation Sha'ar Zahav in San Francisco are both expected to publish their prayer books in the coming months. Read on...
Sweet, Sour, Tasty: An Old Iraqi New Year
By Joan Nathan, September 24, 2008, NYtimes.com
Some years ago...I tasted an Iraqi dish for the Jewish New Year with bitter Swiss chard, sweet beets and beef in a sweet and sour sauce. When people ask me to recount my most memorable meals, I somehow always come back to my first taste of this dish at a simple picnic in a pine forest near Jerusalem.
As I dipped my fork into the vegetables and the meat, I felt as though I was taking a Jewish journey into the past. Jewish cooks have always varied dishes depending on where they lived and what was available. Read on...
Celebrity Becomes Jewish
By Boaz Arad, September 11, 2008, Israel Jewish Scene
He was a huge television star, an actor, and a popular radio broadcaster, but Andrew Lim always felt as though something was missing. Then, one day, he saw the light – in Judaism. But Lim, father of three and one of Singapore's best-known celebrity faces, is not just another converted star. The product of a religious Catholic home, he used to attend church every Sunday as a young man. Read on...
New Jew Embraces New Jersey Shul
By Lois Goldrich, September 1, 2008, The Jewish Standard
In a few weeks, Yoko Orit Yamamoto will become a bat mitzvah at Temple Israel in Cliffside Park. Several days later, she will make aliyah.Yoko Yamamoto is taking the Hebrew name Orit, which means light. Read on...
Starting from Scratch: Son of Interfaith Parents Discovers Judaism Through Bar Mitzvah
By Stacey Palevsky, September 19, 2008, j. weekly
The bar mitzvah was something of a miracle. That’s what Rabbi Moshe Levin likes to say. And it’s not such an exaggeration, considering that before 12-year-old Thomas Karatzas came to Levin’s congregation with the intent of becoming a bar mitzvah, the boy had never even entered a synagogue, let alone read Hebrew or recited the Sh’ma. Read on...
The 'Secret Jews' of San Luis Valley
By Jeff Wheelwright, October, 2008, Smithsonian.com
Genetic counselors from nearby hospitals and specialists each documented a case or two of Hispanic women with aggressive breast cancer linked to a particular genetic mutation. The women had roots in southern Colorado, near the New Mexico border. Curiously, the genetic mutation that caused the virulent breast cancer had previously been found primarily in Jewish people whose ancestral home was Central or Eastern Europe. Yet all of these new patients were Hispanic Catholics. Read on...
Casablanca Native Says Jewish Community Thriving in Arab Nation
By Dan Pine, October 17, 2008, j. weekly
Picture a modern city with 28 synagogues, 18 kosher butcher shops, Jewish day schools and a bustling Jewish community of 4,000. Now imagine that city lies in the heart of a Muslim Arab nation. Raphael David Elmaleh says his hometown of Casablanca, Morocco, bucks the anti-Semitic trend when it comes to Jews in Arab lands. Read on...
Lebanon's Last Jews
By Bloomberg, September 22, 2008, Jerusalem Post
In 1983, Isaac Arazi and his wife were caught in sectarian fighting during Lebanon's 15-year civil war. A Shi'ite militiaman helped the couple escape. Arazi, a leader of Lebanon's tiny Jewish community, sees the incident as a lesson in the Arab country's tradition of tolerance. Now he is trying to make use of that tradition, along with the global diaspora of Lebanese Jews, in a drive to rebuild Beirut's only synagogue, damaged during the war. Read on...
Beware the Evil Eye
By Hadara Graubart, September 26, 2008, Nextbook.org
Nextbook editor Hadara Graubart’s ancestors came from Spain, via Turkey, and like many Jews who have traversed the globe, they picked up a few traditions along the way. In her family, it’s a short leap from hanging a mezuzah on a doorway to flushing handfuls of salt down the toilet. For this podcast, Hadara spoke with her mother, Jean, about her family's preoccupation with protective rituals.
Listen to the story here
Tale of Tragedy and Triumph for a Struggling Hasidic Rap Star
By Simone Weichselbaum, September 13, 2008, NYDailyNews.com
He dodged bullets on a streetcorner. He watched his mother die from a cocaine addiction. But Flatbush's Yitzchak (Y-Love) Jordan is more Hasidic than 'hood. New York's only known black ultra-Orthodox Jewish rapper left his native Baltimore at 21 for Brooklyn, converting to a religion that drew him into a far different world. Read on...
What's Right for the Jews? Edgar Bronfman Takes a Guess
By Stephen Mark Dobbs, October 10, 2008, j.weekly
Bronfman says that we cannot afford to alienate, that we must recognize that everyone has a right to affiliate and identify as they please, regardless of halachic prescriptions. This reluctant but realistic acceptance is followed by another blockbuster requirement: basically, that every person may bring his own version of Judaism to the table. We ought to support and even facilitate the development of individual choice and the diversity it spawns.
Buy the book here.
BookFest Co-hosted by Be'chol Lashon
Celebrate the Jewish literary landscape in a day-long extravaganza of panels, interviews and talks with distinguished authors and fresh new voices - only at the JCCSF!
BookFest is an annual, one-day literary event that provides a lively and intimate view of the thriving Jewish literary scene. Bringing together some of the brightest and most inventive writers from around the world, the festival fosters interest in Jewish literature and perpetuates a sense of the Jewish literary community.
November 2, 11 am to 6:30 pm
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
3200 California Street, San Francisco
For more information, click here.
Yasmin Levy Featured at Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival
It has been more than a half a millennium since the Jews were expelled from Spain. But beautiful Ladino (old Spanish with a mix of Hebrew) songs, of the Sephardic Jews continue to be heard throughout Europe, Israel and North Africa. The movie features Yasmin Levy who continues the legacy of her late father and develops a blossoming career as she presents concerts in Ladino to audiences throughout the world, including exciting presentations to enthusiastic crowds throughout Spain.
Thursday, Novmber 13 at 7:00 pm
Cubberley Community Theatre
4000 Middlefield Road
Palo Alto, CA 94303
For more information, click here.
Brandeis Hillel Day School
Tour the largest independent K-8 Jewish day school in the Bay Area serving a diverse and inclusive community. November 4, November 18, November 25, December 2, December 9, & December 16 - all tours from 9:15am - 11:30am
Join the Open House November 5, 6:30 - 8:30pm
Space is limited. RSVP to Kristel Kranz, kkranz@bhds.org, or 415-406-1035, ext 1008
Click here for more information
American Sephardi Federation - NY Presents
Young Artists Exploring Our Heritage
November 19, 7pm
15 W 16th St
New York, NY 10011
This evening features Los Angeles-based, Lisa Alcalay Klug, award-winning journalist and author of 'Cool Jew: The Ultimate Guide for Every Member of the Tribe'; Sarah Aroeste, musician and leader of The Sarah Aroeste Band, who focus on the Judeo-Spanish music of the Ladino-speaking Diaspora; and Erez Safar a.k.a. Diwon, formerly dj handler, the founder and director of Shemspeed, Modular Mood Records, Hip Hop Sulha, and The Sephardic Music Festival. Moderator: Michelle Ishay-Cohen, award-winning art director.
$5 for ASF Members
General Admission: $10 at the door.
For reservations, call: 212-294-8350 ext. 0
Hora Dancing in Harlem: Hatzaad Harishon, Zionism, and the Rhetoric of Black Jewish Identity
Wednesday, November 19, 5:00 pm
Golding Builiding, Room107, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
In this talk, HBI Scholar-in-Residence Janice Fernheimer will discuss Hatzaad Harishon, a biracial non-profit organization that promoted unity among New York City's black and white Jewish populations by emphasizing Zionism and identification with Israel. Fernheimer will show how the group's nationally recognized black Jewish youth dance troupe and itswhite Jewish leader, Sybil Kaufman, exemplify both the organization's successes and challenges in advocating for a more inclusive, diverse concept of Jewish identity.
Click here for more information
Miquel Segura on Book Tour in Spain
On October 27, author Miquel Segura will kick off a two week tour throughout Spain to promote the Spanish version of his book Raíces Chuetas, Alas Judías (Chueta Roots, Jewish Wings). The book, originally published in Catalán, is the definitive work that describes the phenomenon of the Chuetas, the Jews of Mallorca, who have maintained their unique Jewish identity since the Inquisition. The release of the Spanish translation means that the story of the Chuetas will now be accessible to a wider audience.
Miquel Segura presenta su libro en gira por Sefarad
El lunes 27 de octubre arranca en Manresa la gira que durante dos semanas llevará a Miquel Segura Aguiló por varias ciudades de Sefarad para presentar su libro Raíces chuetas, alas judías. La gira está organizada por la asociación cultural Tarbut Sefarad, las delegaciones de Tarbut en Manresa, Tarragona, Pamplona, Béjar, Sevilla, Jaén, Altea y Sagunto, el Aula Museo Paco Díez de Mucientes y la Fundación Tres Culturas de Sevilla. Contamos con la colaboración de Llibres Parcir (Manresa), Llibreria de la Rambla (Tarragona), Museo Judío David Melul de Béjar y La Casa Judía de Sagunto. La gira de presentaciones de Miquel Segura está patrocinada por el Grup Serra (empresa líder en el campo de la comunicación balear).
VER PROGRAMA
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Please send us information about events in your community or articles of interest that relate to Jewish diversity. E-mail newsletter submissions to Esther Fishman, Esther@JewishResearch.org. Submissions are subject to editing for content, clarity and style.
Special thanks to all the contributors who make the newsletter interesting and informative.
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