How Do You Jew

Month: May 2006

  • The Fire Inside

    I am thrilled that, before I’ve really gotten a chance to publicize the site, it’s already become a collaborative effort. A few days ago, my mom sent me a piece written by the son of a friend of hers in Israel. Oded Mazor is getting an MA in Jewish philosophy at Hebrew U in Jerusalem…

  • Did I mention that I’ll be podcasting soon?

    The idea for How Do You Jew originated as a podcast; it’s “limited” to a blog right now because of time constraints, but I have a moment to talk about how I turned in this direction and point to a piece I just found about why I’m so excited to be involved in this new…

  • News about/from Israel, without the politics, the conflict, etc.

    Impossible, you say? Israel21c (Israel 21st Century), I respond. My dad sent me a link to a Fox News story (Flash video) from April about a futuristic military defense development that could help the American forces in Iraq (not to mention Israeli forces in their own work), and I found the story on Israel21c.

  • Good news, bad news… just news.

    Life & death in Israel: U.S. teen hurt in Tel Aviv suicide bombing in April dies of wounds, while on the same day, The terrorist who planned the attack is killed by the IDF One of the things I want to encourage with this blog (and the discussion I hope will ensue shortly) is a…

  • Hooray for Hillel!

    Hillel of San Diego is having a good month. Last night, the San Diego City Council brought a half-decade-long legal and logistical process to a close by voting to approve the sale of an unused parcel of city-owned land to Hillel at UCSD. Up until now, UCSD Hillel has not had a home, and many…

  • Our Difficult Texts

    בראש השנה, בראש השנה… On Rosh Hashana (the Jewish new year) 5766/2005 I had the honor of delivering a d’var Torah at Ohr Shalom Synagogue here in San Diego. I first met Rabbi Scott Meltzer in 1998, and our relationship has evolved and progressed quite a bit in the near decade since. I am proud…

  • Setting up shop

    I’m spending time these days – between work, life at home, and catching up on the last couple of weeks of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report – tweaking the links, categories, and other items in the HowDoYouJew domain so it looks nice and professional before I announce it to the world. I realize…

  • Spam is NOT kosher; our Shabbat dinner is.

    I got my first comment today, and I got briefly excited because it meant someone had found my blog before I publicized it to anyone (including my family and friends), but I was quickly cured of my elation by the content. I duly marked it as spam and let WordPress do its thing. Jenn and…

  • On Selective Reading of Our Texts

    This d’var Torah was delivered September 17, 2005, on Parashat Ki Tetze: The opening of this week’s parasha concerns the treatment of female prisoners of war. While this topic is ripe for all sorts of discussion, this is not what I chose to concentrate on today. I want instead to first point to the curious…

  • Lech Walesa in San Diego

    I wrote this following the Polish leader’s appearance on the SDSU campus last Friday. My thanks to Don Harrison for his kindly and helpful editing: When Lech Walesa, the upstart Polish labor union leader who became Poland’s first democratically elected president, spoke at San Diego State University recently, I welcomed the opportunity to see and…