Posted By simmons on April 9, 2014
Finishing Anne Frank ..
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Finishing Anne Frank .. Journeys Academy #annefrank#mural#streetart#paintthetrail - Video
Posted By admin on April 9, 2014
Dr. Abuelaish 4.9.14 Gaza Israel Peace Dr.Dupont 2 DOCS RAW/UNEDITED Interview before "Educate To Empower" benefit at Sarasota Film Festival with Dr. Abuelaish.
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Dr. Abuelaish 4.9.14 Gaza Israel &Peace Dr.Dupont 2 DOCS RAW/UNEDITED - Video
Posted By richards on April 9, 2014
If I already know the story whats the point of telling it all over again?
By Rabbi Natan Margalit
One of the simple but important sentences that we read on the Seder night is: Even if all of us were wise, discerning, venerated, and completely knowledgeable in the Torah, it is still a mitzvah for us to tell the story of the deliverance from Egypt.
This sentence presumes a very simple question: If I already know the story whats the point of telling it all over again? The answer is that this is not the kind of knowledge that one gets all at once and then you have it. It is a different kind of knowledge that is capable of growing as we re-tell it and go deeper into it.
This reminds me of a passage from a beautiful book by Mary Katherine Bateson, called Peripheral Visions: Learning along the Way. She writes,
Rabbi Natan Margalit
Planning for the classroom, we sometimes present learning in linear sequences, which may be what makes classroom learning onerous: this concept must precede that, must be fully grasped before the next is presented. Learning outside the classroom is not like that. Lessons too complex to grasp in a single occurrence spiral past again and again, small examples gradually revealing greater and greater implications.
Telling the Passover story at the seder is more like this kind of learning than classroom learning: it spirals past every year and we are meant to get new insights as we re-tell it in different circumstances, at different ages. When I was a single grad student studying Talmud I would have seders with my friends in which wed stay up almost all night discussing the deeper meanings of the story. Now, with a couple of small kids, we usually get up from the table, put on costumes and act out the story in a fun and attention-grabbing way.
In this way the Passover story is a lot like the myths that many traditional cultures tell: they are often deceptively simple stories, but there are layers of meaning hidden, waiting to be revealed. Notice that I am using the term myth not in the way that we sometimes use it in everyday speech, as something that isnt true: Its only a myth that someone buried a Red Sox uniform under the new Yankee Stadium. Im using myth in the old sense of the stories that cultures tell to try to convey and teach their deepest wisdom. These stories are the heritage of the whole culture, from children to the oldest and wisest, so they need to be both simple and deep at the same time.
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The Many Stories of Passover
Posted By simmons on April 9, 2014
Students from Abu Ghosh high school assault policemen, Israel First vid [ is the Raw uncesored footage** Second vid [ is from Chan. By: New03
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Students from Abu Ghosh high school assault policemen, Israel - Video
Posted By richards on April 9, 2014
When Jewish tradition is steeped in gender roles, how does a transgender Jewish person mark their own gender confirmation procedures?
A number of years ago a friend asked me to co-write a ritual to mark his gender-transition to manhood. I say friend, but it would be more accurate to call him queer family. I am also a transgender Jew, and he is as close to me as my brothers are. Even so, I was hesitant.
While there are several rabbis in my family, I am an academic and not particularly skilled at creating ritual; however, I grew up immersed in a strong, tight-knit Jewish community and am currently finishing up my doctorate in Jewish studies. Out of loyalty to him, I overcame my initial reluctance and promised to try and write something.
At the time, transition rituals for transgender Jews were scarce, although they are becoming more common.
Today there are rituals for many aspects of transition, from taking hormones to changing names. My friend requested a ritual specifically to precede his top surgery, a common procedure undertaken by some transgender men and genderqueers people who dont identify as solely male or female to flatten the chest so that it appears more masculine. While there are traditional Jewish blessings for surviving an ordeal (for which surgery can certainly qualify), these did not seem to fit the moment.
Before my top surgery, for example, I was certainly scared, particularly since I had never undergone surgery. But as a transgender Jew, surgery felt like my bar mitzvah: It represented both a trial that I had to survive and a blessing marking a new stage in my life. I knew I wanted to write a ritual that could capture the complexities of what surgery represented.
My friends only guidelines were that he wanted the ritual to center on the mikveh and that he wanted my co-author and me to be the witnesses to his immersion. Since the mikveh is a space that is segregated by sex, we realized from the outset that we were going to have to tackle Judaisms investment in dividing the world by gender. In general, the broader Jewish community does not always accept the variety of ways in which transgender Jews self-identify. That means that transgender Jews, particularly those of us who do not pass as male or female, enter into a sex-segregated space with some trepidation.
My two friends and I represent three very different versions of masculinity: I dont identify as male or female but I use male pronouns, my transitioning friend identifies as a trans man and my co-author is a non-transgender man. I was not sure that the three of us would even be allowed together in a space defined by the boundaries of sex.
After weeks of feeling stymied and feeling myself unable to write a word, I turned to the Talmud for inspiration, focusing on Berachot, the tractate on blessings, and decided to write my section of the ritual using the Shehechiyanu prayer. The Shehechiyanu is a blessing that praises God for helping us to arrive at the present moment. It can be interpreted as a blessing for being alive, but more generally it is used to mark happy occasions, the first days of holidays or new experiences.
The Shehechiyanu was therefore not a particularly creative choice, and nothing about the page of Talmud I selected marked it as ripe for queer (or genderqueer) reinterpretation. And yet, despite the fact that it is a common prayer, using the Shehechiyanu to engage with the mikveh a space segregated by sex felt both radical and appropriate. The Shehechiyanu celebrates a moment of arrival but not necessarily a final destination, which complements the idea of a gender transition as a process without a clear-cut beginning or ending.
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Posted By richards on April 9, 2014
New archaeological excavations below the Ohel Yitzchak Synagogue (Muslim Quarter, Jerusalem)
Zahi Shaked A tour guide in Israel and his camera zahigo25@walla.com 9726905522 tel 0546905522 My name is Zahi Shake...
By: Zahi Shaked. Israeli tour guide
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New archaeological excavations below the Ohel Yitzchak Synagogue (Muslim Quarter, Jerusalem) - Video
Posted By richards on April 9, 2014
Jesus in Nazareth synagogue
16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah...
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Posted By richards on April 9, 2014
By Tony Perry
April 8, 2014, 5:44 p.m.
SAN DIEGO - The former executive director of Congregation Beth El synagogue in La Jolla has pleaded guilty to embezzling $394,872 from the synagogue over fiveyears, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Eric Levine, 36, had control of the synagogue's bank account and credit card from 2008 to 2013, overseeing the synagogue's annual budget of nearly $2 million.
Levine recorded the expenses as Ritual Fund, Rabbi Emeritus, High Holidays, Purim Baskets, landscaping and other things, according to documents filed in federal court in San Diego.
He used the money for trips to Las Vegas, Hawaii, Canada and the La Costa Resort Spa, according to documents. He bought expensive leather furniture and jewelry and paid for Disney vacations and the cost of sending his children to private school, according to documents.
Levine faces a possible 20 years in prison and $250,000 fine when he is sentenced June 27 by District Judge Dana Sabraw on his guilty plea to mail fraud.Restitution to the synagogue will also be required, prosecutors said.
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Posted By richards on April 9, 2014
April 8, 2014 (NORTHBROOK, Ill.) (WLS) -- Northbrook residents who live near the proposed site for a new synagogue say it could lead to flooding and a loss of privacy.
For decades, 3465 Techny Road was private residential property owned by the same person. After the owner died, the land was sold and then donated to the Darchei Noam Glenbrook Synagogue and the Northbrook Orthodox congregation plans to build a 8,300-square foot building and parking lot right in the middle of a neighborhood. The synagogue would be behind Becky Charous' home.
"Our concern is we are going to lose all the privacy that we have. The synagogue plans to remove every tree that buffers our property," Charous said.
Charous said more than 200 neighbors, many who are Jewish, signed as petition against building a synagogue on 1 and 1/2 acre piece of property. Peter Amarantos, who is with the Northfield Township Road District, is worried about increased traffic on the two lane Techny Road and possible flooding.
"The building will create it because it's all going to be hardscape, there is going to be retention, we don't think it's going to be enough," Amarantos said.
Charous and Amarantos worry their concerns are not being addressed by the Village of Northbrook because the synagogue can legally build without public input.
"Because it has R2 zoning, religious use is permitted and no input is required from neighbors," Charous said.
The project requires just a building permit.
"We are addressing all the concerns and doing everything the village has asked and more," Dr. David Dobkin, the president of Darchei Noam Glenbrook, said.
If the permit is granted, Charous said she can't stop the synagogue from being built. But she and other neighbors want some relief.
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Posted By richards on April 9, 2014
SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A former executive director of a La Jolla synagogue was in line Tuesday for a potential decades-long prison sentence following his admission to embezzling about $394,900 from the institution.
Eric S. Levine, 36, pleaded guilty Monday in federal court in San Diego to using Congregation Beth El's bank accounts and credit card for his own purposes -- including luxury vacations, home furnishings and entertainment -- over the course of nearly six years, starting in February 2008.
In his role as overseer of the temple's budget, Levine was able to control Beth El's bank account and credit card and often simply used the money to directly pay his own bills, according to prosecutors.
Other times, he transferred balances from his personal credit card to the congregation's credit account, and then paid his balances with the Beth El funds.
Levine conceded that he schemed to fool the congregation, its bookkeepers, and its executive staff by falsifying their records. He hid thousands of dollars in payments to himself by creating entries for legitimate expenses of the synagogue, in categories such as "Ritual Fund," "Rabbi Emeritus," "High Holidays," "Purim Baskets," "janitorial expense," "utilities," "landscaping expense" and "repair/replace reserve fund," according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego.
Instead of going toward legitimate expenses, the funds were used to pay a variety of Levine's personal credit charges, expenses from trips to Mexico, Las Vegas and Canada; stays at the Mandalay Bay and Bally's in Las Vegas, the
Hilton Waikiki, the Grand Mayan Los Cabos and La Costa Resort Spa; a gym membership; regular $1,400 charges for a personal trainer; and event tickets from StubHub.
Levine also used the embezzled money to outfit his home with expensive leather furniture and barbecue equipment, to buy fancy jewelry, to send his children to private school and to book exclusive Disney vacations.
Levine pleaded guilty to a mail-fraud count that carries a potential maximum sentence of 20 years in custody and a $250,000 fine. He also will be required to repay Congregation Beth El the funds he stole, prosecutors said.
His sentencing and restitution hearing is scheduled for June 27.
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