Currently Browsing: Judaism 23 articles
New Trek is Jew-Trek
First airing in 1966, Star Trek was always heavily influenced by Jews and Jewish thought but now it’s Jewier than ever. Famously Kirk, Spock and Chekov were all played by Jews (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Walter Keonig). Some of the writers who worked on the original series such as the noted sci-fi authors Harlan Ellison (City […]
Prayer
Bruce Black offers up four new poems on prayer. 1) Every day I listen Every day, dear God, I listen,wanting to hear Your voice— Just a word or two, even the soundof Your breath— Hoping for a sign that You arelistening to my prayer.__ 2) Your face is hidden Your face ishidden behinda cloud. When […]
The Hard Work of Racial Inclusivity in the British-Jewish Community Starts Here
Lara Monroe, a Black-British Jew, responds to the publication of the report by the Board of Deputies Commission on Racial Inclusivity in the Jewish Community.
Good To Be A Jew
Robert “Smokey” Miles pens an original poem. How’d you like to be a Jew? Yeah, you could be a Hebrew too when someone says to you, “so nu?” you can say “vos machts du?” too. Think Yiddish, speak British they used to say read the Torah, dance the hora let the klezmer play In […]
Re-Opening A Historical Polish Ark
Shmuel Polin describes how he fashioned from wood a recreated historical ark from Poland. Earlier this week, the Skirball Museum in Cincinnati reopened with a central exhibition on the reconstructed Torah Ark of Sidra, Poland. The reconstructed holy ark was the culmination of my Opening the Ark Project and years of study into the rabbinate. […]
A Forgetting of Benjamin Franklin
Shai Afsai marks the passing of Ben Franklin on 17 April 1790. Rabbis and Jewish scholars have often been unaware of, confused about, or uncomfortable acknowledging American founding father Benjamin Franklin’s influence on Judaism. Franklin specialists have been largely oblivious to it. Though the mussar (practical Jewish ethical instruction) classic Sefer Heshbon Hanefesh (Book of […]
Adam and Eve
A new poem by Robert ‘Smokey’ Miles. The first man looked at the rib girlWho was ripped right from his chestHe said ‘You look cute in your birthday suitAnd I really do dig your breasts.’Then he palindromed ‘Madam I’m Adam!’She said, ‘I’m Eve, please don’t leave!’And soon they got up and at ’emAnd reproduced like […]
My Metal, My Judaism
Adam Kammerling reflects on metal, theatre and Judaism. The first song to move me to tears was the Avinu Malkeinu, as sung by the congregation of the Bristol and West Progressive synagogue. I was fifteen years old and it took me by surprise. It was the hyper-normative, mega-hetero, small-town, the early noughties. Boys couldn’t just […]
A Scholarly Unorthodox
Karen H. Skinazi reviews Zalman Newfield’s Degrees of Separation. When my teenage son was little, he used to sway back and forth if he was concentrating hard on something—a book, a puzzle, a Lego creation. ‘Who knew shokeling was hereditary?’ we joked. My husband comes from Hasidische stock. If my son still shokels while he […]
At the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel and Casino
A new poem by Shai Afsai. There are flamingos in the Flamingo Habitat at the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel and Casino – eight pink birds, each balancing itself on one twig-like leg. And there are a few full-length mirrors fastened to trees in the Flamingo Habitat, which the flamingos gaze into attentively. I ask the caretaker, who is aggressively […]