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Tonight at 7:00 p.m.
Tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m.
Minha at 12:30 p.m. (or thereabouts)
Tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m.
Please join our MINIONS and help us to make our MINYAN
Sunday at 9:00 a.m. ~~~ Monday - Thursday 7:45 p.m. ~~~ Monday - Friday 7:00 a.m.
This Week's Yahrzeit Observances
We hope that our weekly listing of yahrzeit observances will serve 2 purposes:
1) To remind those who ha
ve the yahrzeit for a second time, much closer to the date of the actual observance
2) To alert friends and acquaintances that someone they know is observing a yahrzeit. We hope that you will show them your support by joining them at our minyanim, and helping to assure that Kaddish can be recited with a minyan
Kenneth Eisenstein will be observing yahrzeit for his father, Jack Eisenstein on Saturday evening, July 21st |
Heidi Skolnik will be observing yahrzeit for her great aunt, Estelle Cohen on Sunday evening, July 22nd |
Milton Davis will be observing yahrzeit for his mother, Sylvia Davis on Sunday evening, July 22nd |
Susan Ginsburg will be observing yahrzeit for her father, Seymour Ginsburg on Sunday evening, July 22nd |
Rhea Hess will be observing yahrzeit for her sister, Sidonia Koester on Sunday evening, July 22nd |
Leo Rettig will be observing yahrzeit for his mother, Nettie Rettig on Sunday evening, July 22nd |
Miriam Richman will be observing yahrzeit for her father, Cesar Rossi on Sunday evening, July 22nd |
Jerome Goldfischer will be observing yahrzeit for his sister , Myra Sherman on Sunday evening, July 22nd |
Fred Wolodiger will be observing yahrzeit for his mother, Ruth Wolodiger on Monday evening, July 23rd |
Vida Story will be observing yahrzeit for her father, Milton Story on Monday evening, July 23rd |
Mercy Cohen will be observing yahrzeit for her husband, Stanley Cohen on Tuesday evening, July 24th |
Allan Ginsburg will be observing yahrzeit for his father, Martin Ginsburg on Tuesday evening, July 24th |
Jerome Goldfischer will be observing yahrzeit for his father, Sidney Goldfischer on Tuesday evening, July 24th |
Richard Levy will be observing yahrzeit for his father, Bernard Levy on Tuesday evening, July 24th |
Hennie Ostrower will be observing yahrzeit for her brother, Harold Kalb on Wednesday evening, July 25th |
Richard Rosenberg will be observing yahrzeit for his father-in-law, Max Miller on Wednesday evening, July 25th |
Marjorie Berger will be observing yahrzeit for her mother, Ruth Peckoff on Thursday evening, July 26th |
Joseph Lempel will be observing yahrzeit for his sister, Helen Satinoff on Thursday evening, July 26th |
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On the Road
We had a wonderful trip to the New York Historical Society on Wednesday. It turns out the that the Jewish man Rockwell used in the center of his iconic painting of "Do Unto Others" was actually a Roman Catholic neighbor to whom he gave a beard! But there is another Jewish youngster on the bottom left who is holding up a miniature Torah, and that kid is really Jewish-a student in a local boarding school. He is at the bottom left, 3rd kid up; you have to enlarge the picture to see the wooden tops of the Torah scroll he is holding.
FDR's Four Freedoms
And a new, Fifth Freedom:
Freedom from Gravity / Gravitas
We also saw a neat little exhibit on Magic and Magicians, featuring props that belonged to Harry Houdini, and David Copperfield getting sawed in half and then being reassembled...after which he levitated me.
Next on the Road:
Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish
Thursday, August 16 at 1:00pm
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A Few Things You Should Know About...
Yes, it's just words...But the pen is mightier than the sword...and these words will lead to discomfort in many circles and circumscribe the sense of living and taking pride in a democratic society. Could this be a Bibi quid pro quo in which he trades this law for concessions on the Kotel and the draft for a Basic Law? I don't think if anybody fully understands what all the implications of this legislation are; we will have to see how it plays out in practice. But it leaves me wary-and less comfortable supporting Israel.
Israeli Law Declares the Country the "Nation-State of the Jewish People"
Western Wall Egalitarian Area Used Daily for Gender-Segregated Orthodox Prayer
Students from two Old City yeshivas bring in temporary 'mehitza' dividers for Orthodox crowds of up to 100 at site set aside for pluralistic prayer
(And I'll bet that even though the students come there in the afternoon, bet no one is asking them to pay the standard fee for admission into the Archaeological Museum and Gardens. kas)
Masorti Rabbi Arrested in Israel
Episcopal Bishops Rejects Israel Divestment Resolution
They overrule the House of Deputies' overwhelming support for divestment
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Tisha B'Av FAQ
Everything you always wanted to know about the fast day
Tisha b'Av - "Since the Day the Temple in Jerusalem was Destroyed"
Tisha b'Av (the 9th day of the month of Av) represented to our people, about 2000 years ago, what we today call Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day); A day of profound agony, collective grief and individual introspection. A day where we remember the "greatest catastrophe" that anyone could have imagined. Years after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the main event remembered on this day (Mishnah, Taanit 4:6), our sages realized that the world, particularly the Jewish people, changed forever. The rabbis of that time therefore coined the following expression: "Since the day the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed..." ("M'yom Shecharab Beit Hamikdash..."), and each concluded the sentence with another radical change that happened after the catastrophe.
This sentence is quoted in the Mishnah (3rd century CE) in nine instances, but only in reference to changes in the law. Some rabbis have claimed that since that fateful day, several laws of the Jewish religious life have changed forever (see for example: Moed Katan 3:6, Menachot 10:5, Maaser Sheni 5:2, Sotah
9:12
, Sukkah
3:12
, TB Beitza 5a and the well-known decrees of Rabbi Yochanan in Rosh Hashanah 4:1-4
). Some of these changes were attempts to replace the religious practice in the Temple, others were the result of the practical impossibilities of continuing certain rituals, and others were made in order to keep the memory of the Temple alive in synagogue life (Zecher LeMikdash).
Later generations of sages, who came after that fateful day in Av, began to take this expression "since the day the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed..." not only to remember ritual changes, but to remember much deeper theological, philosophical, and cultural transformations. Here are some examples:
Since the day that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, "the very essence of God changed. God ceased to laugh" (Avodah Zarah 3b), "God had no more pleasures" (Eicha Zutah, ed. Buber. 1:7), and "God's presence in this world was sadly reduced to the four elbows of Halacha" (Brachot 8a). Since that day, "the relationship between God and the Jewish people changed forever. The iron wall that connected them was broken down" (Brachot 32b), "prayer gates were closed" (ad. loc.), prophecy passed into the hands of the fools and children" (Baba Batra 12b), "the divine Council was removed from our sages" (Megillah 12b); and "the priests stopped blessing the people with the ineffable name of God" (Rashi to Eruvin 18b). Even nature changed forever: "since the day that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, the skies are no longer pure" (Berachot 59a), "no showers of blessings fall from the sky" (Baba Bathra 25b), and "the taste of the fruits was taken away" (Mishnah, Sotah
9:12
). The society also changed: "the flavor of permitted relationships was removed and was transferred to the forbidden relationships" (Sanhedrin 75b). Apparently, the law and justice lost their value.
Since the day the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, that 9th of Av in the year 70 CE, the world changed forever. So much so that our teachers still express themselves using phrases that are almost 2000 year old, but yet are still touching and meaningful. The tragedy on Tisha b'Av was so terrible that some of our teachers even insisted that "the right thing would be to not eat meat or drink wine" (Tosefta, Sotah
15:10
), meaning, the right thing would be to live in eternal grief. They even felt they did not have the strength to move on, because since that day "...the earth made miserable all its inhabitants, leaving them as a sick man who has no power" (Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, Ed. Higger, chap. 32). Nonetheless, almost 2000 years later, here we are. We continue to pray, continue to study, and continue to recite the priestly blessing. We are still amazed by the blue sky; we are still enjoying the rain, the dew and the flavor of the fruits. We are still observing the laws and demanding justice. We continue our lives, celebrating with meat and wine each Shabbat, each Chag and every Simcha (joy). We are still strong - and the creation of the State of Israel has given us even more strength. The destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem changed the way we see the world of our ancestors forever. It has changed the way we connect with God, look at nature, and contemplate society and human beings. However, life continued; the Jewish people adapted and redefined themselves without the Temple or a homeland. Each tragedy redefines our lives, but life continues. Judaism is a song to life. We are a culture of resilience. Although it is true that since "that day all seems more ugly", in the words of the singer Ismael Serrano, each evening of Tisha b'Av, we eagerly look forward to the arrival of the Messiah, who will change the world forever.
The day will come when we will stop grieving by saying "since the day the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed", and we will start smiling by saying "since the day the Messiah arrived...".
Tisha b'Av and Global Warming
Since at least the 1980's, however, a number of Jewish thinkers have proposed viewing Tisha B'Av through social justice lenses... the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) began devising Tisha B'Av liturgies imagining our whole world as the Temple, beginning to burn up from global climate change. Since then, many others have also related the commemoration of Tisha B'Av to one or another of the destructive tendencies of modern society....
This modern-day Kinah (Lament) is a play on the opening word of the Book of Lamentations-Eicha. It is a poetic word for "how". By adding the letter L to it, it takes on added meaning
HOW-L by Rabbi Daniel Swartz, COEJL
How lonely sits our world,
This island of life.
She becomes as a widow,
weeping in the night.
Weeping for rainforests burnt,
for shorelines befouled
for oceans turned to deserts,
for mountaintops brought low
to fuel fires of greed and waste.
All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; none did help her.
How
The old anger rises again
My only companion in the rubble of the streets
Past the tatters of once familiar buildings my footsteps echo
Across desert-dry courtyards
How
Forward to the east my eyes look
Hoping to see, feel, hear the stirrings of a breeze
But midsummer heat
A stranger made resident
Lies full on my back
Makes blackened stones shimmer
As I howl to the desiccated shell
That was once my Land
No water for tears
As I walk
My anger at my side
Past limestone valleys
Once smoking with sacrifice
Past tree dry-bones
Where once lived cool forest
Through sooty stone once golden
Into where a garden once blooms where
Next to the wall that somehow remains
Lies a broken doll.
And I kneel beside her and my anger kneels with me
Wrapping its fringes around me
For we know, my anger and I
That howling is of no use
Where no ears remain.
There is no one left to answer the question
How
But if I should awaken
From this vision of flaming fire
Consuming everything
A fatal embrace of heat
If I should awaken
I know I will never stop
Lest the nightmare vision returns
Lest all my anger by for naught
Asking
How
Tisha b'Av at the Masroti Shul in Berlin
The Oranienburger Strasse Synagogue in Berlin, the one with the landmark Golden Dome, was inaugurated 150 years ago, vandalized during Kristallnacht, destroyed during the war, left standing in ruins till the early 90ies - and is today home to a museum, an archive, offices and our Masorti congregation.
On Tisha be Av, the building itself becomes our message and brings meaning to the old texts we are reading. The traces of destruction are visible on the building - the main sanctuary was never rebuilt, modern architectural elements clash with the old stones.
We are reciting traditional Kinot, interspersed with more modern texts, sitting out there in the dark, under the sky, where more than 3000 people could have assembled for prayer - and now we are thirty, maybe sixty, reading from Eikha, reading a Kinah, a lament from 13th century Frankfurt, which talks about destroyed synagogues and abandoned children - and it could have been written in 1938. Reading a poem by Paul Celan: "Dark milk of daybreak, we drink you at evening ... we shovel a grave in the air." And we read both the Kinah from the 9th century and from Megilat Hashoah: "over these all I weep ..." and the emptiness of the sky, and the cry where to find a hidden God, in the darkness of mourning.
This year, we will add another layer of meaning, when Pari Ibrahim, from the Free Yezidi Foundation will share experiences from today's suffering.
Remembering the suffering and destruction of our people is a duty, a Mitzvah for us. But not only that. Connecting with our souls and emotions to the pain of generations past will enable healing for ourselves and strengthen our efforts for Tikkun Olam, for working together towards healing the world.
With the release of a new translation of the Book of Lamentations, Rabbi David Seidenberg argues that Tisha b'Av is a day about the plight of exiles
On Tisha b'Av, Remembering Divisions that Destroy
Stop setting things on fire and traumatizing campers. There are better and more meaningful ways to mark the holiday.
Tisha B'Av was the first Jewish holiday I learned about growing up in Soviet Ukraine, and I've come to observe it in unexpected ways
People Who Secretly Love Feeling Miserable on Tisha B'Av
The holiday gives us permission to mourn for many things, personal and communal, that we avoid discussing the rest of the year.
My Own Private Tisha B'Av: The Summer Camp
To a young boy grappling with his sexuality, a fire portends the struggles to come
What the great jazz musician, and the sages of the Talmud, told me about idolatry, destruction, and making a marriage work
How Tisha B'Av Helped Me Heal
Cancer, and a year of chemotherapy, gave me a new perspective on Jewish holidays-starting with Tisha B'Av
Finding God in the Wilderness and Tisha b'Av
Hiking the Appalachian Trail-once before Tisha B'Av-taught me the essence of observance
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Interesting Developments in Saudi Arabia
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Gaza, Fires and the Environment
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Pop Culture
Sasha Baron Cohen is Back!
The master of comic disguise (Borat, Ali G, Bruno) returns to pranking in a Showtime series called "Who is America?" His personas are not yet known, but there appears to be a Republican bias in his targets: So far, we know he pranked former Vice President Dick Cheney, ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Roy Moore, (the failed U.S. Senate candidate in Alabama).
What Happened to Sacha Baron Cohen? The once-sharp observer of American life returns with a new and lazy show, looking less like a comedic mastermind and more like a Twitter troll
The Houston Astros' third baseman became the first Jewish player to win the award
This is old news-from April-but I just came across it, and the article is good for a few laughs:
They also seem to think Katherine Heigl is a French doctor
Your Mid-July Treat: Vibe with the Hottest Israeli Song of the Summer
Amid Diplomatic Drama, the World Lacrosse Championship Kicks Off in Israel
The Iroquois Nationals, delayed in Canada for flying with Haudenosaunee confederacy passports, land and nearly deliver an upset victory over Team USA, as Israel beats Jamaica on home turf
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Weekly Cultural Highlights
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Gil Shaham
July 27-July 28
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Juanjo Mena returns for a second BSO performance to conduct works by Haydn and Mozart, as well as Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1, with American virtuoso and frequent Tanglewood guest artist Gil Shaham as soloist. The concert begins with Haydn's Symphony No. 88, one of the composer's best-known works in the genre and a favorite of Bernstein's (including a Tanglewood performance in 1988), and completing the program is Mozart's dramatic Symphony No. 40 in G minor, one of Mozart's final trio of symphonies and one of only two that he wrote in a minor key.
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Batsheva - The Young Ensemble
Naharin's Virus
July 10 - 22
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Batsheva - The Young Ensemble performs Ohad Naharin's Bessie Award-winning dance, Naharin's Virus, inspired by the great Austrian writer Peter Handke's play, Offending the Audience. Originally created in collaboration with Batsheva dancers, the work employs Naharin's coolly seductive aesthetic to explore the boundaries of language.
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LIOR MILLIGER QUARTET
Sunday July 29, 8pm
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Lior Milliger, an Israeli-NY based Saxophonist, brings a new and fresh sound to the New York scene, combining avant garde jazz
, middle eastern and modern music influences into an hour of hard driving performance.
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ALON GOLDSTEIN, piano at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival with the Fine Arts Quartet
Thursday, July 19
8:00PM - 10:00PM
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Pianist Alon Goldstein will perform at the annual International Keyboard Institute and Festival with the Fine Arts Quartet, celebrating the Institute's 20th anniversary. Alon and the Quartet will play Mozart's works: String Quartet K. 465 "Dissonant" and Piano Concerti K. 466 and 467, as part of the Institutes' Master Series.
Goldstein is one of the most original pianists of his generation, admired for his musical intelligence and innovative programming. He has played with many of the world's leading orchestras.
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PLACING MEMORY
By Gal Cohen and Zac Hacmon Curated by Wai Ying Zhao
June 29 - July 28
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The exhibition 'Placing Memory' showcases the relations bounded by architecture and collective memory through the collaboration between two Israeli born artists, Zac Hacmon and Gal Cohen. The artists link between demolished architecture in Israel due to gentrification processes, to institutional architecture in New York. The ongoing dialog between the two artists takes a site specific shift and develops to new levels of visual and conceptual conversation.
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After highly successful festival runs, including Karlovy Vary and The New York Jewish Film Festival, The CAKEMAKER, a complex mix of "national identity, sexuality, and, of course, food", will be screened in theaters commencing Friday
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Mark Morrris Dance co.
August 9-12, 2018
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" The performance culminates with a highly anticipated world premiere that brings new life and lift to Schubert's enchanting chamber-music masterpiece, the "Trout" Quintet."
The Trout (World premiere) with Inon Barnatan, piano Ariel Quartet (Mostly Mozart Festival debut)
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FOOTPRINTS
July 20 - 21
Reynolds Industries Theater
Durham, North Carolina
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Footprints delivers an outstanding presentation of three ADF-commissioned world premieres, performed with impeccable technique and infectious energy by ADF students. Choreographer Dafi Altabeb's work is tender, delicate, yet powerful. Her pieces project youth, courage, imagination, contradictions, and above all, honesty. Choreographer Abby Zbikowski, whose newly commissioned work with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company opened the ADF season, produces hyper physical dances. Jillian Peña's work seeks to make visible the confusion and desire of the self in relationship to itself and others.
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Daniel Ori
July 17 - August 8
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Since his move to New York in 2008, Daniel has been a prominent young voice in the contemporary jazz and world music scene, and has performed/recorded with world class musicians such as Oz Noy, Lionel Loueke, Kenwood Dennard, Marcus Printup, Frank London, Jamie Haddad, Alon Yavnai, Mark Turner, Dave Liebman, Logan Richardson, Dayna Stephens and Aaron Goldberg among others
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NOW- SEPTEMBER 30 ONLY!
IMAGINATION MEETS REALITY
VITALY
AN EVENING OF WONDERS
"AMAZING MAGIC. INGENIOUS!" -Penn & Teller
"VITALY BRINGS ART TO LIFE." -HuffPost
BUY NOW & SAVE OVER 30%
$59 Orchestra Seats (reg. $89)
3 WAYS TO BUY YOUR TICKETS:
3. IN PERSON: Print this offer & bring to The Westside Theatre 407 W. 43rd St. Btw 9th & 10th Ave
Vitaly, celebrated as one of the most unique and innovative illusionists in the world, brings his most ambitious work yet, An Evening of Wonders, to New York audiences for a strictly limited engagement June 13 - September 30 at the Westside Theatre. "He is an ingenious inventor, full of charming surprises and amazing magic" hail Penn & Teller. Creating a theatrical experience that takes the audience on a magical journey blending art and illusion, Vitaly conjures some of the most amazing spectacles ever witnessed and dazzles us with the realization that ours is indeed a world of extraordinary wonder and beauty!
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