Short Takes

Omer Counting For Sports Fans

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:21:00 +0000

Short Takes

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

Last Friday after sunset, Jewish worshipers recited the traditional prayer over the counting of the Omer, the seven-week period between the second day of Passover and Shavuot. The count that night was 42. Or it could have been Jackie Robinson, Ronnie Lott or Connie Hawkins, depending on if you were a baseball, football or basketball fan.

Counting the Omer Omer Shavuot

Niddah Beyond The Kallah Class

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:20:00 +0000

Short Takes

Helen Chernikoff

Staff Writer

When Yeshivat Maharat, the school that trains Orthodox women as spiritual and halachic leaders, started last fall to plan its first public symposium, Dean Rabba Sara Hurwitz planned to call the event “Menstruation, Sexuality and Modesty,” but was persuaded to drop the idea.

“We thought nobody would turn up for that,” she said.

Drisha menstruation modesty niddah Raba Sara Hurwitz Reconstructionist Rabbinical College sexuality Yeshivat Maharat

Fiction That Bridges Age Groups

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:45:00 +0000

Short Takes

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

The central character in the newest novel by Thane Rosenbaum — lawyer, law professor, author, moderator of an annual discussion series at the 92nd Street Y — is a 12-year-old daughter of divorced parents who shuttles between mother and father via the Brooklyn Bridge. The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, she learns about her grandmother’s wartime experiences while juggling such issues as homelessness and 9/11, divorce and fashion.

92nd street y Thane Rosenbaum

A Spectrum Of Support For Jews With Autism

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:43:00 +0000

Short Takes

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

A mother’s offhand comment here about the need for a place for Jewish children with autism has, 15 years later, spurred an international research center.

In 1997, the mother of two young special-needs children who lives in the New York area told Joshua Weinstein, a veteran educator with a Ph.D. in special education who was serving as CEO of a local health care agency, that no major program for Jewish children with various forms of autism existed.

autism icare4autism Shema Kolainu

‘Girls’: A Ramah-kable Reunion

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:28:00 +0000

Short Takes

Adam Dickter

Assistant Managing Editor/Online Editor

Given the cost of a national advertising campaign or product placement, a mention on one of the most-talked about shows on cable is a pretty nice gift if it comes gratis.

But the folks at Camp Ramah, a network of facilities run by the Conservative movement, may not be kvelling over their inclusion in this week’s episode of HBO’s “Girls,” the chock-full-of-Jewish comedy about angst-ridden women in their early 20s trying to get a life in contemporary Manhattan.

Camp Ramah Girls hbo

Jewish Version Of TED Talks Launched

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:27:00 +0000

Short Takes

Gary Rosenblatt

Editor And Publisher

At last, the Jewish community has its very own version of TED — sort of.

Avi Chai Foundation Design ELI talks Engagement entertainment identity Literacy technology TED

Choreographing To A Sephardic Beat

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:38:00 +0000

Short Takes

Eric Herschthal

Staff Writer

Getting information out of the much-touted contemporary ballet choreographer Alonzo King, based in San Francisco, is a bit like prying teeth. He likes to keep things abstract, speak about universal truths, and give primacy to the viewer’s perspective.

alonzo king Choreography sephardic

Sharing Bite-Size Chunks Of Wisdom

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:37:00 +0000

Short Takes

Staff Report

Looking for a Mother’s Day gift that is thoughtful, timely — and free?

A publishing company called Sinai Live is offering a small book entitled “More Precious Than Pearls,” a collection of 10 essays reflecting on Eishet Chayil (A Woman of Valor), the chapter from the Book of Proverbs traditionally sung to the woman of the house before the Friday night Shabbat meal.

A Woman of Valor Sinai Live

Morning At Churchill Downs, Thanks To Maximilian Hirsch

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:05:24 +0000

Short Takes

Eliza McGraw

Special To The Jewish Week

When the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby is broadcast May 5 on NBC, you can lay a pretty sure bet that there will be pre-race feature stories showing the Derby hopefuls working out in the pre-dawn mist, flecks of light peeking through the darkness.

You can thank Maximilian Justice Hirsch for that.

Hirsch bore an outsized Texas name and went on to an outsized career as a racehorse trainer.

Indie Minyan Movement Grapples with Day School Cost

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:03:00 +0000

Short Takes

Julie Wiener

Associate Editor

With recession-battered parents concerned about affordability, and with cheaper alternatives like summer camp and Hebrew charter schools in vogue among philanthropists, it makes sense that the so-called “value proposition” — making the case for why a day school education is worth the money — has become a buzz phrase in the Jewish day school world.

Association for Jewish Studies Avi Chai Foundation Beit Rabban Dan Perla Kinneret Day School Mechon Hadar Rabbi Ethan Tucker Rona Sheramy

The Counting Of The Omer, Beatboxing Included

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:05:00 +0000

Short Takes

George Robinson

Special To The Jewish Week

The playing of musical instruments during the Omer period is frowned upon.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage is looking to increase the number of younger people who cross its threshold.

Why not turn a restriction into an opportunity?

Counting the Omer Dyalekt Omer The Museum of Jewish Heritage

An App That’ll Chant Your Haftarah Portion

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:04:00 +0000

Short Takes

Julie Wiener

Associate Editor

Two new mobile apps are poised to revolutionize bar/bat mitzvah preparation, and possibly the whole practice of learning to chant Torah.

This week, Rabbi Charlie Schwartz and Russel Neiss — Jewish educators, techies and friends — released PocketTorah, which enables users to read and hear every Torah and Haftarah portion from virtually any Android or Apple device.

apps Jewish New Media Innovation Fund PocketTorah technology

Medium Paper, Large Insult

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:42:00 +0000

Short Takes

Stewart Ain

Staff Writer

Is the comparison of an Israel defender to a Hitler apologist fair game, or an offensive characterization that pushes free expression too far?

Rutgers University believes one of its school newspapers crossed that line last week and has launched a bias investigation into what it calls an “offensive parody” of a student whose pro-Zionist views have made him the subject of ridicule and threats.

Aaron Marcus Daily Medium Rutgers University

Letting His Hair Down For Tzedakah

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:41:00 +0000

Short Takes

Helen Chernikoff

Staff Writer

Gil Adler isn’t a rebel — he just looks like one, with that crazy mane. Appearances to the contrary, he’s a licensed accountant and he served on a reconnaissance unit in the Israeli Defense Forces.

And oh, yeah, he’s growing his hair to make wigs for child cancer patients, and in memory of a childhood friend who died of cancer.

The friend, Eitan Shapiro, died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma just two months after his graduation from Frisch, a yeshiva high school in Paramus, N.J., in 2002.

cancer Eitan Shapiro Eitan's Hope for Children Gil Adler Locks of Love non-Hodgkins lymphoma Tzedakah

You Can Call Them ‘Occupy Zionism’

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:54:52 +0000

Short Takes

Doug Chandler

Special To The Jewish Week

The social protests that began in Tel Aviv last July and grew into a national movement embraced by hundreds of thousands of Israelis has focused on such issues as housing, education, health care and the shrinking middle class.

But Stav Shaffir, one of 12 young adults who launched the movement, told The Jewish Week last week that something else was on her mind, as well.