Living in New York includes such weird moments as walking between meetings and passing a 300-year-old graveyard with America’s founding fathers buried there. In the midst of the Financial District’s skycrapers and under the shadow of the Freedom Tower construction. Poignant.
Archive for the 'Jew York Culture Shock' Category
A quick rant against Jewish newspapers
I just barked a laugh and nearly snorted my afternoon coffee while reading JTA’s peice on American right-wing mogul Sheldon Adelson’s “Bibiton” Israel Hayom. (Hebrew pun: Netanyahu’s nickname “Bibi” + Hebrew “iton” meaing newspaper = free right-wing tabloid.) This analysis, of course, makes two implicit assumptions: That all the other newspapers don’t fold because of [...]
Dec 29th, 2009 Jew York Culture Shock 1 Comment
I am 26, I am a brown belt, I am an activist
Thanks to the three dozen-some people who left birthday wishes on my Facebook wall and the twenty-two people who gave to my birthday cause. The outpouring of friendship was lovely. And I didn’t end up doing any party or gathering, I felt so warm in the company of my friends that a party was just [...]
Mar 3rd, 2009 Israel, Jew York Culture Shock, Kung Fu and Musings 1 Comment
Change the communal agenda
This survey was passed to me from a Wexner listserv. It’s unclear what they’re going to do with this data, but it’s worth filling out the survey and encouraging your constituencies to fill it out so that it’s more representative of the whole community and not just ‘the young leadership groups’ already represented by them. [...]
Jan 29th, 2009 Jew York Culture Shock 1 Comment
Becoming a Jewish communal professional, memory #45
Scene: UJA-Federation of NY meeting room, East Midtown Manhattan, Summer 2005. Six people in a room representing grantees of the Commission on Jewish Identity and Renewal (COJIR). UJA wonk: Let’s introduce our organizations and what your COJIR grant is for. Andy Bachman: I’m a rabbi running a shul without walls for unaffiliated young Jews in [...]
Nov 24th, 2008 Jew York Culture Shock 0 Comments
Transdenom Tales, Part One
My parents consider themselves Conservative, aspire to orthodoxy, practice closer to Reform, their favorite rabbi was a Reconstructionist, and most of their children’s upbringing was spent in places with zero institutional Jewish presence… Which makes me a nothing, an everything, a trans- or post-denominational defiant mess. So transport yours truly’s transdenominational mess to Jew York [...]
Nov 9th, 2008 Jew York Culture Shock and Judaism 1 Comment
Preparing for the “Simhat Torah crawl”
For the past two of my three years in New York City, I’ve participated in a Simhat Torah custom which is outrageously possible only here: the crawl. It’s something I regall my family in Oregon with stories about how many damn Jews live here. The Simhat Torah crawl begins at Ramat Orah on 110th Street [...]
Oct 20th, 2008 Jew York Culture Shock 0 Comments
Non-existential news
A post not involving too much navelgazing for a change: I’m buried up to my eyeballs in Havurah Institute work — I would love it if you joined me! Register online here. Until August 17, I will continue to be dead to the outside world. I’m addicted to Israeli hip hop artist Vulkan’s song Ha’Aliyah [...]
Jul 16th, 2008 Jew York Culture Shock 1 Comment
Bed Bugs are for Real? An Apartment Hunting Adventure
Yes, indeed, bed bugs exist. They are apple seed-sized, flightless mosquitos (I’ve never seen one myself) which hide in cracks in wood, mattresses, etc and only emerge at night. Since they have these commando habits it is difficult to eliminate them, especially if a matress has holes or if the room has deteriorating floorboards. See, [...]
Aug 7th, 2005 Jew York Culture Shock 0 Comments