Dr. Eliyahu Safran har verdens største dreidel samling

http://www.jidaily.com/xHmYO/e


Jødisk musik app

This is a great tool for musicians, students and for ALL whom interested in Jewish music. One can use it no matter your a professional piano player or you just know a few open chords for guitar.

iJewish Songbook is the first App ever collecting Jewish sheet music. The songs are divided into categories like Klezmer tunes, Z'mirot for Sabbath, pieces for Holidays (Channuka, Pesach) and Weddings, Israeli, Yiddish, Sephardic tunes and Hassidic nigunim. Because of copyright law NO melodies are included, only the chords.

How many times have you been at a Hanukkah or at a Passover ritual where someone calls a tune and you don't know the chords? With iJewish Songbook you'll have the chord changes to all the songs you need.
Or you go to welcome Sabbath for a different place where they sing everything in an other key as you use to? No problem you can comp the songs in different keys because iJewish Songbook will transpose it all for you.

The paper music books are limited with their number of songs contained. The only way to update them is to buy a new one. With iJewish Songbook you have instant access to a library of more than hundred songs right in your pocket and more songs are added regularly with free updates.


Hanukkah opskrifter

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/hanukkah/hanukkah_recipes/index.html

Kosher køkken i det Hvide Hus
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/dining/making-the-white-house-kitchen-kosher-for-a-party.html?ref=hanukkahrecipes



HOLOCAUST KITSCH

I have good news for James Inverne.
On this page last week, James highlighted the regularity with which arts events of specific interest to Jews are scheduled for days when no remotely observant Jew can attend.
The latest example is The Passenger, the much-hyped opera set in Auschwitz, which lay unperformed on stage from its composition by Mieczyslaw Weinberg in 1967 until last year.
ENO gave its UK premiere on Monday. But the next six performances are either on Yom Tov or Shabbat. Only the last night isn't.
So here's the good news. You're not missing much.
In fact, I'd put it more strongly. I've rarely encountered a starker mismatch between the seriousness and obvious good intentions of everyone involved in a performance and the tawdry, distasteful spectacle that emerged.
Let's leave aside the fact that Weinberg's music is derivative in the extreme. The notion that any of it is fit to represent the Shoah ought to have been so obviously and self-evidently ridiculous to any discerning listener that it is bizarre that the plug was not pulled on any proposed staging at the start.
The ENO programme cites Jurg Amann's observation that, "In the face of the reality, all invention is obscene", only to dismiss it by arguing that "the authenticity and standpoint" of The Passenger, having been written by a Polish refugee to the USSR based on a novel by a survivor, render it inapplicable in this instance.
Whether or not Amann's assertion is true - are Primo Levi's works obscene? - that is no rebuttal. Many survivors had artistic responses to their experience. The fact they were inspired by direct experience of the Shoah does not make them, of itself, worthy of public performance.
Indeed, it's that public element which is so critical here. Whatever private response to the Shoah anyone creates is their own business.
But when that response is played out on stage in a fictional psycho-drama about the relationship between a guard and an inmate, with a love story between two inmates as the engine of the plot, performed in a glossy production, with actorly rictus expressions of misery, to an audience nipping off for champagne bar refreshment at the interval, then it moves from the private sphere to the obscenely inappropriate public sphere.
The intentions of everyone involved in The Passenger are clearly honourable. But the result is - cannot be otherwise - the Shoah as fodder for entertainment.
Worst of all, it is difficult to see what purpose is served by the opera's exhumation beyond artistic self-aggrandisement - showing off just how moved the performers and the cultural chattering classes are by the Holocaust. Oh yes, they care.
Clearly, however, not enough.
The Jewish Chronicle, 3 October 2001
http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/comment/55708/a-tawdry-holocaust-opera



Dommens Dag

The portrayal of Rosh Hashanah as a "Day of Judgement" dominates the liturgy and customs of the holiday season. As the tradition perceives it, between the New Year and the Day of Atonement God sits in judgement over all mankind to determine our fates for the coming year.
This symbolism is drawn upon to great effect by the authors of the piyyutim, the liturgical poems composed to enhance the statutory prayers of the season. The Jewish people, alongside the rest of humanity, are depicted as standing in a divine court-room, pleading for mercy.
If judged according to the merits of our case, we all deserve punishment. Our only hope is to persuade God to suspend the laws, or to remind him of outstanding favours owed to our forefathers.
In describing the atmosphere of the court, the rabbis and poets based themselves upon settings that were familiar to them. The court-room is of course a well-trodden venue of Talmudic Judaism and provides a wealth of details that can be elaborated in sermons and piyyutim.

No Lawyers
It is therefore most surprising to find that the court scenes that appear so prominently in rabbinic midrash and prayers as models for God's judgment of mankind are, for the most part (for reasons that are not entirely evident to me), not Jewish courts at all, but Hellenistic and Roman ones.
This fact becomes clear when we look at some of the procedural terms that are mentioned. In many of the texts, we read of debates between a sanegor and a kategor--a prosecuting and defending attorney. These are none other than the synegoros and kategoros of the Hellenistic judicial system.
In our sources the position of kategor is often filled by angels, who are believed to hold a mild grudge against the Jews for usurping Gods special favours. The job of sanegor is likely to be held by the Hebrew Patriarchs, by personified representations of the "Congregation of Israel," by a person's virtuous deeds, etc.
Thus, in a well-known talmudic discussion, the rabbis explain why a shofar cannot be fashioned from a cow's horn because "the kategor cannot serve as sanegor;" that is to say, the cow's horn, which holds incriminating associations with the Israelites' worship of the Golden Calf, cannot properly perform its designated function of arguing the Jews' case before the divine tribunal.
Actually, the traditional Jewish court does not permit the use of lawyers at all (though the office of "rabbinic pleader" has developed in recent years in Israel). The talmudic sources, which were familiar with the Roman court system and its susceptibility to persuasion by mellifluous rhetoric, warned the Rabbis, "Do not act like the professional pleaders" (orkhei hadayyanim). It was the judge's job to get at the truth, without its being packaged by a professional.
Nevertheless, one of the favourite High Holy Days hymns uses the same expression to designate God himself as El Orekh Din--the God who presides over judgement.

Military Metaphors
The Mishnah also resorts to imagery taken from Roman military life when it compares God's judgement of humankind to a commander reviewing his troops: "All the denizens of the world pass before him like a numeron (regiment)."
The terminology, taken from the vocabulary of the Roman legions, was unfamiliar to some of the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud, who took it to refer to a flock of sheep being counted by the shepherd. In this version, it entered the haunting poetry of the "Untanneh Tokef" prayer.
A conventional sign of a victorious soldier was his return bearing in his hand a baian, a palm-frond. The midrash saw in this Roman custom a fitting analogy to the Jewish taking of the lulav on Sukkot, a few days after the judgement of Yom Kippur:
Consider two parties who go to trial before a king, and no one but the king himself knows which was declared victorious. In the end, it is evident that the one who emerges holding the baian was the victor.
Another version of this passage uses the metaphor of a triumphant chariot-racer being decorated with a wreath. So too, Sukkot is a celebration of our favourable judgement on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Justice and Mercy
By building upon the imagery of the Roman judicial system the midrash was able to contrast imperfect human justice with the ideal of God's judgement.
On the one hand, unlike a mortal judge, God is not subject to error, corruption or bribery. But on the other hand, unlike most worldly judges, God's justice has the advantage of being tempered by compassion. The human being can implore God not to decree according to the standard of law, but to temper his decision with the measure of mercy.
In later midrashim the qualities of divine justice and mercy were no longer depicted as merely ways in which God judged His creatures, but were transformed into personalities in their own right, fulfilling the roles of kategor and sanegor in the celestial court, supplying God respectively with reasons for condemning or acquitting His creatures.

God on Trial
A feature which has typified Jews' relationships to God from as far back as Abraham and Moses is that God can be argued with and persuaded to change his mind.
The selichot petitionary prayers recited at this time of year, in addition to expressing a contrite recognition of our sinfulness and powerlessness before God's will, are often characterized by an aggressive "bargaining" posture. The authors "remind" God of the suffering to which we have been subjected and of the merits earned by our righteous ancestors, and ask that these factors be counted to our credit.
This pious familiarity before God, who is perceived not only as a judge but also as a patient and forgiving father, was taken to extremes by the famous Hasidic master Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev.
Known as the "Sanegor of Israel" for his insistence on always seeing his fellow Jews in a favourable light, Levi Yitzhak is said to have challenged God one Rosh Hashanah to a lawsuit--a din Torah. God, he argued, had no right to prolong Israel's exile when other more sinful nations were allowed to live in peace and prosperity.
A grim variation on this story is recounted by Elie Wiesel in his Holocaust memoir Night, and later formed the basis for his play "The Trial of God." On Rosh Hashanah, from the depths of their sorrow and despair, the inmates of Auschwitz called God to judgement and condemned him for allowing such evil and suffering in His world.
Both stories, that of Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev and that of the Auschwitz inmates, end in the same way. After declaring God's guilt the accusers rise to recite the Kaddish--the proclamation of God's sovereignty over the universe.
The point is a profound one: For the Jew, it is possible to argue against God, but not to live without him  
May all our judgements during the coming year be favourable ones.



Zionismens historie med Rosh Hashanah-kort

http://www.jidaily.com/k27/e


Den indisk-jødiske Gandhi i Cochin

http://relicsofcranganore.blogspot.com/2011/09/jewish-gandhi.html


Mel Gibson

Jewish Ideas Daily Sep.20 2011
By Alex Joffe

Australian-American actor and director Mel Gibson—he of the anti-Semitic outbursts, the abused girlfriend, The Passion of the Christ—has just closed a deal to make a film for Warner Bros. with screenwriter Joe Eszterhas about the life of Judah Maccabee. Gibson described his project in an interview with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg: "Oh, my God, the odds they faced. The armies they faced had elephants! How cinematic is this! Even Judah's dad—what's his name? Mattathias?—you kind of get this guy who more or less is trying to avoid the whole thing, but he just gets to a place where he had enough, and he just snapped!"

The Gospel According to Mel Jeffrey Goldberg, Atlantic. In a freewheeling interview, Mel Gibson discourses on anti-Semitism, atheism, Christianity, circumcision, and his forthcoming movie about Judah Maccabee. (Includes obscene language.)
Crack-Up Peter Biskind, Vanity Fair. How, in five short years, did one of the best-loved and best-paid talents in Hollywood become an industry pariah? (Includes obscene language.)
Jews, Christians, and The Passion David Berger, Commentary. The good will that Christians and Jews have painstakingly established over the last generation is sorely tested by this movie.
Despite the Jews' celebration of Hannukah, the Book of Maccabees belongs to the Christian rather than the Jewish canon. Still, for some, the combination of Gibson and Jews is beyond the pale. "It would be a travesty," said Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, "to have the story of the Maccabees told by one who has no respect and sensitivity for other people's religious views."
Gibson has long raised the ire of those who defend the public reputation of the Jews. He was raised as a traditionalist Catholic, steeped in the doctrine that salvation is impossible for non-Catholics. The Passion of the Christ, Gibson's 2004 film about the last hours of Jesus, with dialogue entirely in Aramaic and Latin (by some measures it was the most profitable non-English-language film ever made) was harshly criticized for both its violence and its critical depiction of the Sanhedrin and the Jewish high priest Caiaphas. During a drunk-driving arrest in 2006, Gibson averred to police that "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."
But in some respects, few people are better equipped than Gibson to tackle the character of Judah Maccabee and the Jewish revolt against the Syrian Greeks, which took place from 167 to 160 B.C.E. In his 1979 breakthrough movie Mad Max, Gibson fought his way across the post-apocalyptic Australian outback. In the Lethal Weapon series, Martin Riggs, the Los Angeles detective played by Gibson was chronically on the edge of a breakdown. In the more recent Edge of Darkness, Gibson's homicide cop pursued his daughter's killer. Gibson's most iconic characters have been damaged loners who are roused by adversity to lead against-the-odds battles against injustice.
Gibson also has a long cinematic history with freedom fighters. In the 1995 Braveheart, of which he was director and star, he played the doomed 13th-century Scots leader William Wallace, driven by an outrage committed against his beloved into warring against the English. In The Patriot in 2000, he portrayed a South Carolina farmer drawn into the Revolutionary War after his son was brutally killed by the British. When it comes to reluctant heroes who "just snapped," no one does it better than Gibson.
Moreover, the biblical epic as a cinematic form in America is in grave need of a reboot.
The era of American epic sword-and-sandal films lasted from just after World War II through the mid-1960's. In those pre-Brando days, American filmmakers minimized their heroes' inner conflict in order to celebrate their earnest nature, divine calling, and noble deeds. The biblical heroes of American movies could be initially reluctant, like Moses; or flawed, like David; or transcendent and doomed, like Jesus; but they were rarely tormented by their roles and responsibilities. In the 1949 movie Samson and Delilah, Victor Mature's smug Samson was partly played for laughs. Gregory Peck's David, in the 1951 David and Bathsheba, was carved out of wood. In 1956, in The Ten Commandments, Charlton Heston's austere and inaccessible Moses was light-years away from any sort of modern film protagonist.
More recently, though, the biblical epic has fallen on hard times. Monty Python's 1979 Life of Brian—freethinking, satirical, hilarious—is the type of movie attuned to our cynical and ironic era. More serious biblical epics have been, to understate the case, a distinctly mixed bag. In Martin Scorsese's 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ, Jesus, played by Willem Dafoe, seems to have been pushed to the edge of insanity: "God loves me. I know He loves me. I want Him to stop." The spectacle of Richard Gere's King David in the 1985 film of that name is hard to forget, no matter how hard one tries. Little wonder that the Bible has been largely relegated to less-than-memorable made-for-TV dramas.
Gibson, though, has the technical skills for epic movie-making. He has the ability to direct vast crowds and battle scenes, a talent that has all but disappeared from Hollywood. Extreme violence, dwelt upon almost lovingly, is another one of his specialties.
But Judah Maccabee may not be the kind of Jewish hero who merits an epic—or whose reputation deserves protection against treatment by Mel Gibson. After all, in addition to his war against the Greeks in Syria, Judah Maccabee and his faction waged war against numerous other parties, including countless fellow Hellenizing Jews. Judah Maccabee also concluded the treaty with the Roman Republic that set the Jews of Judea on the road to their ultimate downfall and dispersal. Maybe he deserves not a biblical epic but something darker and more ironic, like a Christopher Nolan Batman film. The larger question is whether the American relationship with the Bible can be rebooted by the movies in the first place.
Alex Joffe is a research scholar with the Institute for Jewish and Community Research.
You can find this online at: http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2011/9/22/main-feature/1/mel-and-the-maccabee


Tyrkiske jøder

Turkish Jews Voice Wary Confidence About Future
Despite Rift With Israel, Community Feels Strong Bond to Homeland


By Ben Hartman
Published September 20, 2011, issue of September 30, 2011. FORWARD
Istanbul — The diplomatic clash between Israel and Turkey may be escalating, but many within Turkey’s 23,000-strong Jewish population insist that it is nothing more than politics for them, with no practical effect on their lives or security.
“In daily life, we don’t fear anything from the Turks,” said Nisya Isman Allovi, manager of the Jewish Museum in Istanbul. But, acknowledging the thick protection her institution and many others in the Jewish community receive, she also said, “Security is, it’s done just to be cautious about everything.”
The targeting of the community over the years by terrorists — albeit by non-Turks — explains the blast-proof doors and X-ray machines found at Turkish synagogues, where outsiders can attend services only after making advanced reservations with the rabbinate. It may also explain the guarded manner in which members of the community responded to questions from the press.
Related
• Lost Music of Istanbul's Sephardic Jews
• Israeli Turks Wrestle With Turkey’s Involvement in Gaza Flotilla Incident
• Fragments of a Lost Jewish World
At services held on September 16 at Sicli synagogue, the city’s busiest, one man complained of Turkish anti-Semitism, only to respond that everything was fine in Turkey once he was informed that he was speaking to a journalist. The same scene played out repeatedly: Someone would express apprehension about Turkish attitudes toward Jews, or express no fear whatsoever, while demanding that his or her name not be printed.
One of those Jews, “Haim,” a 76-year-old retiree, said he doesn’t believe that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an anti-Semite or that he will allow any harm to befall Turkey’s Jews.
“His problem is only with the Israeli government and not the people,” Haim said. “Erdogan won’t let the Jews be hurt, because we’re his citizens, we pay taxes. He’s said this. He just wants to attract Arab support, Arab business and tourism. I don’t believe he hates Jews. It’s politics only.”
Holding a key chain that held a locket with a picture of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of Turkey as a modern secular state, and a quarter-sized bronze menorah, Haim said that there was nothing for Jews to fear in regard to anti-Semitism in Turkey, but then he asked that his real name not be used. Haim related that his brother was killed in a 1986 terror attack on Congregation Neve Shalom.
Allovi, one of the few Jews willing to speak on the record, said: “The problems between Israel and Turkey are not between the people, they are between the countries. It’s like, if you go to Greece you can drink ouzo and talk to people and be fine, just… don’t talk about politics.”
When asked if young Turkish Jews were inclined to leave the country for Israel or North America once they reach adulthood, Allovi, a 32-year-old Istanbul native, said: “The young Jews usually stay. It’s [Turkey] where I was born, the place I feel the most attached to. It’s also my native language and the food, everything. Most of my friends are Muslim, and I feel that I have more similarities with a Turkish Muslim than, say, a French Jew or a Jew from somewhere else just because they’re Jewish. We grow up together, go to the same schools, watch the same soap operas.”
The Karakoy neighborhood’s Jewish museum, which Allovi administers, traces a narrative of co-existence from the sheltering of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 through the rule of Ataturk and the founding of the modern Turkish republic. The theme of Turkish tolerance of Jews and Jewish assimilation in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire is highlighted with exhibits that include photos of Jewish soldiers in Ottoman military uniforms, a tallit from 1898 stitched with the crescent and star and a menorah built in the shape of a minaret.
Turkey’s Jewish population has been depleted by decades of immigration to Israel and elsewhere. Today, about 90% of Jews in Turkey live in Istanbul. A small community of about 2,300 Jews resides in Izmir. More than 96% of the community is Sephardi, and Ladino is still spoken widely, especially among the older generation.
The high security at Jewish sites across the country attests to the caution and trauma that remain from several devastating terrorist attacks over the past three decades. On November 15, 2003, trucks carrying explosives slammed into the Neve Shalom and Beth Israel synagogues during Sabbath services, killing 27 people and wounding hundreds. In a previous attack at the Neve Shalom synagogue, in 1986, men from the Abu Nidal terrorist organization gunned down 22 worshippers on a Sabbath morning. Years later, in 1992, a bomb exploded outside the synagogue, causing no casualties.
Taylan Bilgic, a senior editor at the Hurriyet Daily News, the English-language version of the Turkish Daily Hurriyet, spoke of the Palestinian issue as something that stokes strong passions across Turkish society and will continue to be highlighted by players like Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development party and others who want to enhance their support in the country.
“On the left and right, [from] Muslims to atheists they all have a connection to the Palestinian cause. It’s beyond ideology,” Bilgic said. “You may have primitive Islamists who are trying to utilize this emotional bond for their own purposes, but what politician wouldn’t?”
Bilgic added that he believes that Erdogan and many of his base supporters subscribe to a sort of “primitive anti-Semitism.” It is a sentiment that is not common among Turks generally, he said, but could potentially affect the country’s Jewish community if the tension with Israel worsens.
“If the government manages to make its primitive anti-Semitic ideology take root in society, it could spill over on the Jews here, but I don’t think it will. It depends on Israel and what Israel agrees to do about the Palestinians,” he said.
Contact Ben Hartman at feedback@forward.com

Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/143047/#ixzz1YiN8N7is




Ikke-jøder om jøder

#1
"Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny
the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the
most remarkable race which has appeared in the world."

-- Winston Churchill

-------------------------------------------------------------- ----------
-#2
"The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the
everlasting fire, and has illumined with it the entire world. He is the
religious source, spring, and fountain out of which all the rest of the
peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religions."

-- Leo Tolstoy

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#3

"It was in vain that we locked them up for several hundred years behind the
walls of the Ghetto. No sooner were their prison gates unbarred than they
easily caught up with us, even on those paths which we opened up without
their aid."

-- A. A. Leroy Beaulieu, French publicist, 1842

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#4

"The Jew gave us the Outside and the Inside - our outlook and ou r inner
life. We can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being
Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most of our best
words, in fact - new, adventure, surprise, unique, individual, person,
vocation, time, history, future, freedom, progress, spirit, faith, hope,
justice - are the gifts of the Jews."

-- Thomas Cahill, Irish Author

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#5

"One of the gifts of the Jewish culture to Christianity is that it has
taught Christians to think like Jews, and any modern man who has not learned
to think as though he were a Jew can hardly be said to have learned to think
at all."

-- William Rees-Mogg, former Editor-in-Chief for The Times of London and a
member of the House of Lords

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#6

"It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar
people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the
Jewish people....

This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a
singular long time... For whereas the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta,
Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago,
these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have
tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as
can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell
of years. They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation
was foretold... My encounter with this people amazes me..."

-- Blaise Pascal, French Mathematician

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-#7
"The Jewish vision became the prototype for many similar grand designs for
humanity, both divine and man made The Jews, therefore, stand at the center
of the perennial attempt to give human life the dignity of a purpose."


--Paul Johnson, American Historian

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#8

"As long as the world lasts, all who want to make progress in righteousness
will come to Israel for inspiration as to the people who had the sense for
righteousness most glowing and strongest."

--Matthew Arnold, British poet and critic

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#9

"Indeed it is difficult for all other nations of the world to live in the
presence of the Jews. It is irritating and most uncomfortable. The Jews
embarrass the world as they have done things which are beyond the
imaginable. They have become moral strangers since the day their forefather,
Abraham, introduced the world to high ethical standards and to the fear of
Heaven. They brought the world the Ten Commandments, which many nations
prefer to defy. They violated the rules of history by staying alive, totally
at odds with common sense and historical evidence. They outlived all their
former enemies, including vast empires such as the Romans and the Greeks.
They angered the world with their return to their homeland after 2000 years
of exile and after the murder of six million of their brothers and sisters.

They aggravated mankind by building, in the wink of an eye, a democratic
State which others were not able to create in even hundreds of years. They
built living monuments such as the duty to be holy and the privilege to
serve one's fellow men.

They had their hands in every human progressive endeavor, whether in
science, medicine, psychology or any other discipline, while totally out of
proportion to their actual numbers. They gave the world the Bible and even
their "savior."

Jews taught the world not to accept the world as it is, but to transform it,
yet only a few nations wanted to listen. Moreover, the Jews introduced the
world to one God, yet only a minority wanted to draw the moral consequences.
So the nations of the world realize that they would have been lost without
the Jews.. And while their subconscious tries to remind them of how much of
Western civilization is framed in terms of concepts first articulated by the
Jews, they do anything to suppress it.

They deny that Jews remind them of a higher purpose of life and the need to
be honorable, and do anything to escape its consequences.. It is simply too
much to handle for them, too embarrassing to admit, and above all, too
difficult to live by.

So the nations of the world decided once again to go out of 'their' way in
order to find a stick to hit the Jews. The goal: to prove that Jews are as
immoral and guilty of massacre and genocide as some of they themselves are.

All this in order to hide and justify their own failure to even protest when
six million Jews were brought to the slaughterhouses of Auschwitz and
Dachau; so as to wipe out the moral conscience of which the Jews remind
them, and they found a stick.

Nothing could be more gratifying for them than to find the Jews in a
struggle with another people (who are completely terrorized by their own
leaders) against whom the Jews, against their best wishes, have to defend
themselves in order to survive. With great satisfaction, the world allows
and initiates the rewriting of history so as to fuel the rage of yet another
people against the Jews. This in spite of the fact that the nations
understand very well that peace between the parties could have come a long
time ago, if only the Jews would have had a fair chance. Instead, they
happily jumped on the wagon of hate so as to justify their jealousy of the
Jews and their incompetence to deal with their own moral issues.

When Jews look at the bizarre play taking place in The Hague , they can only
smile as this artificial game once more proves how the world paradoxically
admits the Jews' uniqueness. It is in their need to undermine the Jews that
they actually raise them.

The study of history of Europe during the past centuries teaches us one
uniform lesson: That the nations which received and in any way dealt fairly
and mercifully with the Jew have prospered; and that the nations that have
tortured and oppressed them have written out their own curse."

--Olive Schreiner, South African novelist and social activist

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-#10

"If there is any honor in all the world that I should like, it would be to
be an honorary Jewish citizen."

--A.L Rowse, authority on Shakespeare


Kvindelig dansk rabbiner

Den danskfødte Sandra Kviat bliver søndag d. 3. juli ordineret til progressiv rabbiner i en liberal synagoge i London. Sandra Kviat har tidligere læst religion og sociologi på universitetet og er nu ved at afslutte sit rabbinerstudie på Leo Baeck College i London. Det er første gang, at en dansk-jødisk kvinde udnævnes til rabbiner, men hvorvidt hun har planer om engang at lede den progressive jødiske menighed Shir Hatzafon i København, er ikke sikkert. Hun har nemlig forpligtet sig til at fungere som rabbiner i England de næste fem år. Menigheden kan dog stadig forvente besøg, for Sandra Kviat gæster Shir Hatzafon til september, hvor hun bl.a. skal undervise børn.


Splinterny jødisk litteraturside

http://www.jewishfiction.net/index.php/current-issue/


Signandsight.com

Det tyske online magasin, signandsight.com offentliggør interessante artikler, boganmeldelser, debatinlæg fra den fremragede tysksprogede presse – oversat til engelsk. Der er ofte artikler af jødisk interesse, både Holocaust-relateret eller om jødisk kultur.
Læs en længere redegørelse på den engelske side.
http://www.signandsight.com/

Wallenbergs heroisme som musical

White Plains Performing Arts Center i New York har lige haft verdenspremiere på deres nye musical “Wallenberg.”
Kritikerne har kun rost musicalens finale, “A Million Tomorrows”, som er sunget af alle medvirkende der repræsenterer dem som Wallenberg havde reddet og deres efterkommere. Sangen er oprigtig, melodisk og var værd at vente på – i modsætning til de 33 (!) andre som lyder ens…

Leah Horowitz spiller baronesse Elisabeth Kemény, en slags romantiske forbindelse til Wallenberg; og Joe Cassidy er Adolf Eichmann;

Rosenbluths musik siges at være behagelig uden at udmærke sig for meget (men det samme var jo også sagt af den unge Stephen Sondheim) .

Kritikerne hæfter sig mest ved, at musikken ikke leve op til forventningerne og lyder kedelig. Men sangteksterne rimer i det mindste, bemærker New York Times sarkastisk. Wallenberg fortjener bedre…

Booker Prize vinderen om Hanukkah

Britisk Howard Jacobson, som lige har vundet årets Man Booker Prize, skrev en kritisk-humoristisk kronik om Hanukkah i New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/opinion/01jacobson.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a212


El Judío Maravilloso
Larry Harrow for første gang i Lincoln Centrets Out Doors Festival med sin “La Raza Latina”
Larry Harlow blev født som Lawrence Ira Kahn i Brooklyn i en musikalsk familie. Hans mor var operasanger under navnet Rose Sherman, hans farfar spillede klaver til stumfilm forestillinger og i New Yorks jiddische teater og hans far var orkesterleder i nightklubben The Latin Quarter, hvor lille Larry labbede latin musikken i sig.
Han begyndte at spille klaver som femårig – og hans fascination for latin musik fulgte ham gennem gymnasiet, Brooklyn College og førte ham til førrevolutionens Havanna.
Jeg blev ”salsificeret”, fortæller Larry Harlow. Musikken var ikke kaldt salsa endnu, man talte om afrikansk-kubansk musik. Han studerede musikkens historie, kiggede på gamle fotografier og gik ud at høre Beny Moré, Orqueste Riverside og alle de andre som spillede.

Han kom tilbage til New York lige inden Fidel Castro kom til magten og resten er historie.
Larry Harlow, pianist, komponist og producer, formede snart sit egen orkester, Harlow Orchestra, med sin egen særprægede sound som han stadigvæk spiller med den dag i dag.

Da Fania Records blev grundlagt i 1964, ledte orkesterleder og grundlægger Johnny Pacheco efter ny talenter. Da han hørte Harlow, skriv han kontrakt med ham med det samme. ”Han spillede utrolige soloer på klaver.”

”Larry er en gringo med clave (salsarytme), som forstår og respekterer vores musik, men som også ved hvordan man fornyer musikken”, siger sanger og skuespiller Rubén Blades, som også optræder med ham i Lincoln Centret.
Den nu 71-årige Larry Harlow var med til at gøre Fania Records til indbegrebet for salsa og hans berømte dansenumre som “La Cartera,” “Señor Sereno” og “Abran Paso” er nu klassikere. Han har udgivet mere end 40 plader og var producer for 260. Sammen med Pacheco skabte han Fania-Allstars Supergroup og var med til at lave salsafilmen “Our Latin Thing,” i 1972, som gjorde salsaen global. Han skrev også et salsa-opera, ”Hommy” og det Latin Grammy-Award er stort set også hans fortjeneste.

Harlows fascination med alt hvad der er kubansk ledte ham også til religionen – ikke jødedommen, men den kubanske Santeria. Han er blevet santero, eller Santeria præst og det skabte mere respekt om ham i salsakredse.
Og respekt er der nok af. En af hans yngre kollegaer, trommeslageren Bobby Sanabria siger, at Larrys indflydelse er stadigvæk gældende. Hvis man ser et album som er produceret af Larry Harlow, ”ved man, at det vil være rent og mægtigt, med klar stemme og blæsere og trommer forrest. Det er prototypisk New York sound og det er på grund af Larry.”


Klezmerkongen Dave Tarras

Yale Strom har igen begået et vigtigt værk om klezmermusikkens historie.

Denne gang skriver han om klezmerkongen Dave Tarras, som alle musikere i vores generation går tilbage til når de vil opsøge klezmermusikkens rødder.

Dave Tarras var født i Ternovke, Ukraine og spillede både for jøder og ikke jøder, ja, oven i købet også for tzarens officerer ind til han rejste til Amerika og fra 1925 til sin død i 1989 blev indbegrebet af klarinet og virtuositet.

Yale Strom, som allerede to gange har optrådt i København ved Jewish Culture in Copenhagens koncerter, har interviewet dem som kendte Tarras bedst: hans musikerkollegaer og hans familiemedlemmer. Stroms bog er den første autoriserede Tarras-biografi, forsynet med rigt billedmateriale og 28 melodier i Tarras’ eget arrangement.

Yale Strom er internationalt anerkendt autoritet om klezmermusik. I mere end 25 år har han forsket klezmermusik og foretog 75 forskningsrejser og er en af verdens mest respekterede etnografer med klezmermusik som speciale. Hans klezmerband Hot Pstromi har udgivet 13 CD-er. I øjeblikket er han artist-in-residence ved San Diego Universitetets Judaistiske Institut.

Dave Tarras – The King of Klezmer, Worldwide Music Services, Chicago, Tel. (312) 854-8427, fax (312) 376-3567, www.worldwidemusicservices.com


Fra den jødiske verden

India
Den lille indiske by, North Paravurs 400 år gamle synagoge bliver renoveret i Kerala. Synagogen var bygget på ruinerne af en kirke fra det 12. århundrede. Synagogen var Cochin jødernes religiøse center. De fleste Cochin jøder forlod Indien efter Israels grundlæggelse. Jerusalem Post skriver, at der ca. 35 jøder tilbage i området. Keralas turistminister udtalte, at staten vil mindes om den forsvundne jødiske menighed med Paravur-synagogen og samtidigt vil de vise omverdenen Keralas multikulturelle ansigt. Byggearbejdet vil koste 1,6 million $ .

Polen
Der var også synagoge-indvielse i den polske by Wroclaw. Storsynagogen, som var bygget i1829 i neo-klassicistisk stil, blev vandaliseret under Krystalnatten i 1938 og senere brugt som lagerbygning og garage. Menigheden fik bygningen tilbage for 10 år siden i helt ruineret tilstand. Under indvielsen har Wroclaws svenskfødte overrabbiner, Jichak Rapoport sagt bøn. Der var 800 personer til stede under festlighederne, blandt dem var den israelske ambassadør, Wroclaws biskop og byens ledere.

Israel
Mere end 200 journalister, forlagsrepræsentanter og repræsentanter for den russiske regering deltog i den 12. verdenskongres for de russisk-sprogede media. Deltagerne besøgte Yad Vashem og andre steder. I Yad Veshem blev de informeret om forskningsarbejdet i det post-sovjetiske område og blev præsenteret for den nye russisk-sprogede hjemmeside. Deltagerne kom fra 49 forskellige lande, bl.a fra USA, Kanada og Vietnam.

Grækenland
Centralrådet for Grækenlands jødiske menigheder udtalte, at i takt med forværring af den økonomiske situation i landet har man konstateret voksende antisemitiske incidenter. Bl.a. blev det nævnt, at den jødiske begravelsesplads i Saloniki blev vandaliseret og Holocaust-monumentet på Rhodos blev også beskadiget. I januar var der et angreb mod synagogen på Kreta. De jødiske organisationer opfordrede regeringen i Athen til at straffe de ansvarlige og sørge for at forhindre yderligere antisemitiske aktioner. Der er ca. 6000 jøder i Grækenland. Mellem 1941 og 1944 var ca. 65 000 jøder deporteret. De fleste af dem omkom i dødslejrene.

Ungarn
De Ungarske jøders Fællesråd, MAZSIHISZ, holdt en pressekonference om projektet ”Porten til det jødiske kvarter” i hovedstaden. Det drejer sig om området omkring den Store Synagoge i Dohány gade i Budapest, som var blandt andet en af det jødiske ghettos porte under nazitiden. Ved siden af synagogen er det jødiske museum, som er bygget på den grund, Theodore Herzls fødested stod tidligere. Under forårets festligheder i anledningen af 150 år for Theodore Herzls fødsel, blev den lille trekantede plads foran synagogen – som blev flot istandsat og beplantet – opkaldt efter zionismens fader. I mellemtiden har man etableret informationscentret Jewinform (også på web) i arkaderne foran synagogen. Efter planerne bygges der elevator i det jødiske museum og audioguide på 7 sprog. Toiletterne bliver også moderniseret (tiltrængt!). Karréen indeholder også den historiske Goldmark-sal, som spillede store rolle i nazitiden. Det var det eneste sted hvor jødiske kunstnere – og de ikke-jødiske kunstnere som solidariserede med dem – kunne optræde offentligt. Salen, som også i dag danner rammen om teaterforestillinger, koncerter og andre kulturprogrammer er meget forfalden. Nu bliver den istandsat og moderniseret. I tilknytning til den bliver der etableret slægtsforskningscentret ”Rødder” og der bliver også adgang til de Jødiske Arkiver. Formålet med det stort anlagte projekt er at tiltrække flere besøgere og turister og at informere om jødisk kultur og livsform. Turisterne er der allerede, parkeringspladsen foran synagogen myldrer med turistbusser og udenlandske besøgere. Men berøringsangsten i det ungarske samfund er stor.


Jødiske vittigheder - Jewish jokes on the net

http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/j/jews.asp