Climbing Sinai

All the way back in August, I wrote about the UJC Community Heroes contest, and I reminded you to vote early and often (as opposed to today, when you should have all voted early, but often… well, that would be illegal).  Well, it looks like UJC has finally revealed the 5 finalists:

They’ll be announcing the winner on Monday November 9th, and will be honoring all 5 finalists at the GA on Tuesday the 10th.  Time permitting, I’ll try to attend the press conference, and will report back to you!

So, um, the GA is coming up.  You know, the General Assembly… that annual event which is the largest gathering of the organized Jewish community of North America?  Where Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama will be address the attendees?  With forums and workshops that address issues dealing with themes like the future of Jewish philanthropy, global Jewish responsibility, and Jewish innovation and engagement?

Yeah, that one.  Well, I’m going!  Next week, November 8-10, I’ll be partaking of the amazing insanity that is the GA.  I’m really excited – and you should be, too, because I’m planning to blog all about it when I get back!  In the meantime, the Phillies are beating the tar out of the Yankees right now, so I have to go cheer them on...  Ciao!

This entry has been cross-posted on the JPS Blog.

Wow, tonight’s been quite a night… it’s Halloween, it’s game three of the World Series (go Phillies!), and I just discovered an incredible video!  Do you remember when I blogged about the Valmadonna Trust Library back in September?  No?  I’ll remind you: for the past few months, Sotheby’s has been working to sell the largest private collection of Jewish book and manuscripts to any buyer who has the financial oomph (read: at least $40 million) to purchase the thing in its entirety.  The Valmadonna is incredible, in terms of both its breadth – some 11,000 rare books and manuscripts – and in terms of the quality of the actual items in the collection, for example, the complete Bomberg Babylonian Talmud.  Back in February, blogger Gotham Girl explained why this particular set is so impressive:

[The Bomberg Talmud was] originally acquired by Henry VIII (hoping to find something in support of divorce), which arrived too late to help him out of his dilemma. These volumes of Talmud sat unused for 400 years in Westminster Abbey until acquired by the trust in exchange for a copy of the original charter for the Abbey. They are in perfect condition.

The entire collection was on exhibition back in February, but that exhibition has since closed.  When, back in September, I realized that I had found out about the collection a few months too late, I threw in the towel.  I figured that I would probably have to wait months, if not years, before the collection was again made open to the public by whoever ended up purchasing it.

… And this is where the exciting video comes in!  During my most recent trolling about the internet in search of exciting Jewish Book News, I stumbled across a video on the Sotheby’s website that provides an inside look at the Valmadonna Trust Library!  Get the scoop from Sotheby’s Vice Chairman, Judaica consultants, and even the collection’s custodian, Jack Lunzer!  Learn about how Jack Lunzer accumulated his collection, see some of the collection’s gems, and take a peek at how Sotheby’s put together the collection that you and I sadly missed.  Unfortunately, the video isn’t embeddable, so just click here to go the video on Sotheby’s website.

This entry has been cross-posted on the JPS blog.

One of the things I love about history is that sometimes, it goes “meta” on you.  What I mean is that on the one hand, there are historians who write about history.  And on the other hand, there are historians who write about how other historians write history.  It’s historiography: the history of history.  (Sick of the word “history” yet?  Too bad!)  For example, there’s E.H. Carr’s What is History?, or Mary Spongberg’s Writing Women’s History Since the Rennaissance, or The Historiography of Contemporary Science and Technology by Thomas Söderqvist.  One of the neat things about history is that there’s no one way to produce it: over time, historians’ accounts of, say, Classical history will be influenced by variations in research methodology, philosophical approach, and even values.

What’s all this got to do with Judaism?, you may wonder.  Well, it just so happens that earlier today, I began to read a wonderful little gem of a book called Zakhor: Jewish Memory and Jewish History, by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi: Jewish historiography!

In this book, Yerushalmi traces the development of how Jews not only studied, but remembered, their own history.  According to Yerushalmi, throughout much of its lifetime, Judaism has had an uneasy relationship with the formal writing and studying of history.  He claims that writers of Jewish history over the ages have typically engaged in what should really be called “selective memory” – recording and commemorating some events and not others, couching historical events in a religious language and context, or simply forgoing recorded history in favor of commemorative holidays or liturgical poems.  It’s all fascinating stuff, gracefully written, and completely accessible for any lay reader.

I also happen to know that JPS will, in the upcoming months, be publishing a work of Jewish history that dates back to the medieval period, and which is discussed in Zakhor.  So keep your eyes peeled, and when the book is finally published, look to Zakhor to read about its historical context.

Heck, read Zakhor right now.  It’s awesome.

- Naomi

(That was a one-hit wonder by the Monotones, in case you’re curious.)

This entry is cross-posted at the JPS Blog.

Following on the heels of Tisha B’Av (the most somber day in the Jewish calendar) is the festival of Tu B’av – the Jewish holiday of love.  In days gone by (during the Second Temple period, to be exact – around 2500 years ago), young, unmarried women would don white dresses and dance in the vineyards.  There, according to the Mishna, they would sing, “young man, consider whom you choose to be your wife” – and hopefully, some eligible bachelor would take notice.  (After all, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife…  Anyone?  Anyone?)  After the destruction of the Second Temple, the dancing and matchmaking of Tu B’Av fell out of practice, and the holiday went on a nineteen-hundred year hiatus.

Recently, however, the day has experienced a resurgence in popularity, especially in Israel.  The entertainment, beauty, and flowers and cards industries have begun to have a field day promoting Tu B’Av as the Jewish alternative to Valentine’s Day.  And uniquely, though it’s a Jewish holiday, there are essentially no rituals and no liturgy associated with it – so if you want to celebrate the day, pretty much anything goes!  Host a romantic dinner party, send some flowers to a loved one, sign up on JDate, or… check out some Jewish books on love and relationships (hey, you’re reading a Jewish book blog, what did you expect?).  Here are a few popular ones you may want to consider:

● Love Your Neighbor and Yourself: A Jewish Approach to Modern Personal Ethics, by Rabbi Elliot Dorff
● Treasury of Jewish Love: Poems, Quotations & Proverbs, by David C. Gross
● Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy, by Shmuley Boteach
● God, Love, Sex, and Family: A Rabbi’s Guide for Building Relationships That Last, by Michael Gold
● The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage, by Maurice Lamm
● Dating Secrets of the Ten Commandments, by Shmuley Boteach
● Kabbalah on Love (Technology for the Soul), by Yehudah Berg

Happy reading! XOXO,
- Naomi

This entry is cross-posted at the JPS Blog.

Today is Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, and it is considered to be the saddest and most serious day in the Jewish calendar.  Tisha B’Av was the day when it was decreed that the Jews would wander in the desert for 40 years before they could enter the Land of Israel.  In 586 BCE, on Tisha B’Av, the Babylonian army destroyed the First Temple.  In 70 CE, on the ninth of Av, the Second Temple was destroyed – an act which forever altered Judaism and almost marked the downfall of the religion.

After the destruction of the Second Temple, the Rabbis began to notice a pattern, that the month of Av – and especially the ninth day of that month – was a herald for many disastrous events to befall the Jewish people.  Both the expulsion from England in 1290 and the expulsion from Spain in 1492 occurred on Tisha B’Av.  The emptying of the Warsaw Ghetto – 9 Av, 1942.  The bombing of the JCC in Buenos Aries, in which 90 people were killed and 300 injured – 9 Av, 1994.

Of course, not every calamitous event in Jewish history has occurred during the month of Av, and many a Tisha B’Av has passed with nary a bother.  But because of the deep significance of the Temple’s destruction to the Jewish psyche, Tisha B’Av has become the representative day of mourning for all the sufferings of the Jewish people.  And when an event like the 1994 Buenos Aires bombing occurs, its sting is just a little sharper, because it happened on Tisha B’Av.

Tisha B’Av is observed with ritual mourning practices, as if mourning the passing of a loved one.  In addition to a 25-hour fast, Jewish tradition mandates refraining from wearing leather, washing one’s body, and using perfume.  Active mourning rituals include the reading of Eicha (Lamentations) and Kinot (Hebrew elegies written at different periods in Jewish history).  And while regular Torah study is discouraged (because the study of Torah is meant to be joyful), the study of Job and Jeremiah, as well as the portions of Talmud and Midrash that discuss the destruction of Jerusalem, is encouraged.

My suggestion?  If you can, set aside a little time today to do just that.  Read through the book of Lamentations, or, with a friend, read and discuss the many probing questions posed by the book of Job.  Reflect a little.  Think about humanity’s capacity for cruelty, and where that has led us over the centuries.  And think about what we can all do to offset that, and to make our world just a little bit kinder.

-Naomi