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.

i love my gay rabbis

con­grat­u­la­tions!

Plain­tiffs have demon­strated by over­whelm­ing evi­dence that Propo­si­tion 8 vio­lates their due process and equal pro­tec­tion rights and that they will con­tinue to suf­fer these con­sti­tu­tional vio­la­tions until state offi­cials cease enforce­ment of Propo­si­tion 8. Cal­i­for­nia is able to issue mar­riage licenses to same-sex cou­ples, as it has already issued 18,000 mar­riage licenses to same-sex couples […]

which jews…?

I found this image on a crazy anti-Zionist site:

Which ‘Jews’ do you believe are the descen­dants of the bib­li­cal ‘Israelites’?

to which I answer:

All are Jews! I am not a racist.

The site may also be anti-Semitic, it sure feels that way, but I’ve not had a chance to study it thoroughly.

What is Zion­ism?
Zion­ism is the national lib­er­a­tion move­ment of […]

the boy and I

the boy with his hands raised

As I men­tioned here on April 10, when I was in my early 20s, I tried to imag­ine the life of the boy with his hands raised being led from the War­saw Ghetto. I spent months with him, I kept his image before me daily. I looked into his eyes, and I tried to look through his eyes.

on following orders

you decide how to go

Last year (2009) at this time of Yom haShoah I wrote that I believe that all Jew­ish teenagers (at least) should expe­ri­ence a week of sho’a nightmares.

I was in my early 20s when I tried to imag­ine the life of the boy with his hands raised being led from the Ghetto. I spent months with him, I kept […]

swann song

jews and judaism in amer­i­can pop­u­lar cul­ture .01
now, …with har­vey and sheila!

There was a time, it feels strange to write this… a gen­er­a­tion ago, when being Jew­ish was very “in”. The thing to be in Amer­ica. Amer­i­cans con­tinue to, even increas­ingly, con­vert to Judaism in the 2000s. How­ever, back in “The Six­ties” some forms of Jew­ish cul­ture were […]

Elul Homework 2 (I've done that too!)

con­fir­ma­tion and verification

Some­times we think that we are the only per­son who has done such ter­ri­ble things to oth­ers. It can be lib­er­at­ing and for­giv­ing for us, and those oth­ers like us, to learn that we are not alone. It also often feels good to have oth­ers “sign off” on rec­og­niz­ing that we may have […]

for multiple transgressions of…

The words of Amos, who was among the writ­ers of Tel Aviv, which he saw, con­cern­ing Israel in the days of Cas­tro, Sartre, Rus­sell and all the rest…

The fol­low­ing text appeared in the Octo­ber 1968 edi­tion of Mid­stream mag­a­zine. It was dis­trib­uted very widely as a long leaflet in the late 1960s. Jay tracked down a copy for […]

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 […]

are you slow to fast?

fast­ing for darfur

As noted in an ear­lier post on this blog, on the 26 of Sivan 5769 (cor­re­spond­ing to June 17–18, 2009) I fasted to call atten­tion to the con­tin­u­ing geno­cide in Dar­fur. One of my reg­u­lar read­ers shared a com­ment here. That col­umn was cross-posted at the blog of the Reli­gious Action Cen­ter of Reform Judaism […]

what do you put in your coffee?

[cross posted at The Jew and the Carrot]

Phar­isees of course

A Tiny Vial of Pharisäer

Ever-sensitive to appear­ances of Jew­ish ref­er­ences in pop­u­lar cul­ture, I was a bit sur­prised to read Mau­reen Dowd’s head­line in The New York Times on Sun­day, July 19, 2009: “Phar­isees on the Potomac”

I did not see any men­tion of late antiq­uity in her […]