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.

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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.

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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 father’s 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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Did Columbia get it right?

The real problem is that universities aren't purely academic institutions nor political ones: they are a mix of the two and what they do has reprecussions on both worlds.

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Woke up this morning, got myself a gun...

Here it seems, it doesn't matter what you believe in terms of domestic policy - ideological orientation is determined solely on the basis of your opinion regarding the Middle East conflict.

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Jewlicious at the farm

In Israel what with Rosh Hashanna coming up, I know we'll eat like kings but that won't be the case universally. Well - I for one am going to do something about it and I am inviting you and your friends to join me.

JewTube: What's up?

So far JewTube has been lots of fun and I am looking forward to all the Jewy video goodness Jeremy has in store for us. I am also looking forward to seeing ROI120 videos up on JewTube as well.

Jews and Zeitgeist

Depictions of Jews in popular culture have never really delved into the guts of what it really means to be Jewish - as if we don't want to make a shanda fur di goyim - why air our dirty laundry in public?