Hospitality: What my dad taught me (and a fab contest!)
Everything I know about hospitality I learned from my Dad. We always had big holiday dinners. Actually, we still have big holiday dinners... and they're great! Mom puts out a spread that seems to include every conceivable kosher animal available as well as multiple veggie/vegan options for my sister Tiff and me. All the family is there, my other sisters, their significant others, cousins, nephews, aunts uncles and assorted guests. We get back from the synagogue and sit at the beautifully set dinner table, and when it's a full house, I look over at my Dad and I swear this usually stoic man is verily glowing as he surveys the scene. Glowing! See, polite guests generally thank us for our hospitality, but really? That's nonsense. What I learned from my Dad was that when guests come to our home, they are honoring us by deeming us worthy of hosting them. Our table, food and company are all good enough for them to partake of. And that's what makes my dad glow with joy and pride. Guests are never made to feel like they are imposing it's never an imposition, its an honor. I'm sharing this with you because lately I've been thinking of the notion of hospitality and what it means to the Jews. This thanks to a contest, Tweet Yourself to the WeekEnd of Your Dreams In Trieste, Italy, that we are helping promote that asks you to think and tweet about hospitality and the prize? A free trip to the Italian city of Trieste, Italy where the winner will be the VIP guest of the local Jewish community for three days. Pretty much all expenses paid! Happy 5th Anniversary Jewlicious!Jewlicious began 5 years ago on July 2004. In that time we have written nearly 5,000 posts and generated nearly 70,000 comments. We've also run 5 Jewlicious Festivals, the last of which attracted nearly 1000 participants, much to the consternation of the Long Beach Fire Department I'm sure. I've been blessed to be associated with some of the coolest people I know as fellow writers, including The Middle and Muffti who were here right from the get go. Running Jewlicious is often a thankless task. Unlike others, we never got fancy shmancy funding for offices in New York equipped with a wet bar, ping pong and fooz ball tables. But I did get to meet and befriend some awesome people, like the army of volunteers that make the Jewlicious Festival happen and most notably Rachel Bookstein, her husband Rabbi Yonah, and their totally edible children. Monkeys cast as Jews in Russian circus
It's sad to be Russian these days. The economy is swirling away softly down the toilet, we were unable to invade Georgia successfully, and Verka Serduchka, the Russian version of Dana International, still lives among us. The greatest misfortune Russia faces is that it has run out of Jews to oppress due to immigration to Israel, Canada, and the Greater New York metropolitan area. Russians are a hardy people, though. We know how to deal with hardships and surpass them. Thus, we are innovating by dressing up monkeys as Jews in the Nikulin Circus, the most prestigious circus in Russia. And the monkeys had a WEDDING. WITH A CHUPPAH. Jerusalem tweetUP!
At Jewlicious we seem to have excelled at creating a real online community. But we've always realized that there are limitations to online interaction and we are thus always eager to facilitate real world interaction - you know, like the Jewlicious Festival (duh). With twitter becoming the next big thing, we decided, along with our local crew in Jerusalem, to run a twitter meeting, or tweetup in Jerusalem. My heroic friends Rivky and Gabi Holtzberg
Hillary Lewin (pictured on the right) is a PhD candidate at the Ferkauf Graduate School of
Today, I killed a chicken
As you can see from the photos - I'm being quite literal. Today was the first day of Machane Yehuda's annual Kaparot Market. Every year, Jerusalem's central market hosts this temporary slaughterhouse where those that follow the Kaparot ritual can go and kill them some chickens. Tachlis Two Point Oh!Tachlis 2 Point Oh! is a conference that will be held in Jerusalem on Sept. 17th, 2008 from 6-10 pm. The focus will be on the dissemination of practical information related to the use of Web 2.0 tools in order to promote both for profit and not for profit ventures. Aharon Horwitz of Presentense will talk about grass roots community building, Ahuva Berger an independent consultant and author of the Sabra At Heart blog will discuss how one can best use social networking tools like twitter, facebook etc. and I'll talk about how to make friends and influence people through the effective use of Shakshuka. Oh wait, that's something else. I mean I am going to talk about blogs. The great tahini taste off
The mission: To find the best tahini in Israel The method: Prepare equal parts of several brands of raw tahini using the same amount of water and lemon juice, then subject random denizens of the Jerusalem Shuk to a blind taste test. Compile their responses and determine a winner.
 The Winner: Karawan
 The Also Rans We live in loving memories
Inbal Freund is the Director of Mavoi Satum (Dead End) a Jerusalem-based organization that advocates on behalf of Agunot. She wrote this as her 60bloggers.com post for Yom Hazikaron - Israel Memorial day on behalf of those who fell defending the State of Israel. In - memory of Noam Mayerson, my step cousin who fell in the recent Lebanon war, my cousin Chani Dikshtein , her husband Yossi and their child, Shuvael who were shot to death on their way to spending Shabbat with friends. This is also in memory of older loved ones: Shlomo Gabriel Freund, my fathers brother who gave his life while defending Gush Etzion in 1948 and of my grandmothers' brother, David Metal who fell while commanding his troops in the south on the same year. Further I would like to commemorate my grandfather's siblings and parents who perished in the holocaust. May their memories be blessed and guide us to meaningful growth and much joy of life in our present and future days. |
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Psychology (Yeshiva University) and spent five memorable weeks in Mumbai with Yeshiva University on a Global Health Seminar. Rivki Holtzberg is pictured on the left. Thanks to Menachem Butler for helping bring this article to us.
