Pro­duc­ing con­tent on the Web since 1995.


some say­ings of ר‘משבצונה“ל

For many years I have worked hard, and strug­gled with mas­ter­ing virtuous. Now, in addi­tion, I’m work­ing on becom­ing more virtual.
This is an expres­sion of that effort.
* * * * * * *

השיבנו ה‘ אליך ונשובה חדש ימינו
כעוד לא היו
* * * * * * *
ומביא גאלה…
לצאצאיהם

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All pho­tographs are by Mark Hurvitz unless they are obvi­ously not.

The pho­tos in the ban­ner at the top (only a shal­low sliver of a much larger photo) are either from our home or our trav­els and are offered for their beauty alone (though a brain-teaser for me: “Where was that?”).

davka flickr

st. paintings

At least three col­ors of painted mes­sages on the pave­ment. By the time there are three col­ors that fit within the photo, none can have any “mean­ing” what remains is the pattern.

davka flickr

3 pavements

Three pave­ments poured next to each other (con­tigu­ous), but not at a prop­erty line.

Hiroshima 広島市 Day ☮

The first nuclear weapon “Lit­tle Boy” was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on Mon­day, August 6, 1945.

nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment lapel button

call­ing for nuclear disarmament then

I have a clear mem­ory from long ago, some­time around 1959: walk­ing with my fam­ily down Hol­ly­wood Boule­vard, some­where near Vine. We were part of a demon­stra­tion call­ing for nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment, prob­a­bly organized […]

Hidden in plain sight

At the far east end of 47th Street in Man­hat­tan, between 2nd and 1st Avenues a broad lovely park leads up to the United Nations com­plex of build­ings on the East River. A farmer’s mar­ket is set up every Wednes­day through­out the year.

a mar­ket and plaza to rally against genocide

This broad space is known as Katharine Hep­burn Garden […]

hidden in plain sight (continued)

con­tin­ued from hid­den in plain sight

what are we hiding (from)?

As of this writ­ing, the phrase “hid­den in plain sight” appears in a Google search 142,000 times. It must refer to a wide vari­ety of con­cepts and sit­u­a­tions. How many things to we encounter and pass by that are as though they are hid­den from us in plain sight? I asked […]

Neapolitan

Over the years I have been asked:

What kind of a rabbi are you?

To which I answer with­out hesitation:

A good rabbi!

And then my inter­locu­tor stam­mers a bit and says:

No, no, what… oh, ah…. Are you…?

At which point I gen­tly inter­rupt and say:

Neapoli­tan

weaving together fringes of Jewish life”?">What is the meaning of:
weaving together fringes of Jewish life”?

Do you wear a Kip­pah and/or Tzitzit?

On Sep­tem­ber 24, 1996 I asked my rab­binic col­leagues… in par­tic­u­lar, those who wear Kip­pot (and request/require the stu­dents in their con­gre­ga­tions to wear Kip­pot when either study­ing or enter­ing the syn­a­gogue), whether they wear Tzitzit as well, and if not, why.
My orig­i­nal ques­tion was not so much about Tzitzit or […]

20th Century Jewish Cultural Hero

I col­lect (Amer­i­can) Judaic lapel but­tons.
I have approx­i­mately 3000 unique items. Each one rep­re­sents a dif­fer­ent moment in the Amer­i­can Jew­ish expe­ri­ence.
Peri­od­i­cally I share them here.

As the “Che fran­chise” con­tin­ues to grow, few other cul­ture heroes (meant metaphor­i­cally) seem able to com­pete for pub­lic atten­tion. Back in the late ’60s and early ’70s it was not uncom­mon, how­ever, to […]