HEY JEWS

Happy Purim, Yiddin!

I'm going to wear my hamantaschen earrings tomorrow.

I'm suprised I havent noticed much hullaballoo around here today, usually there's some dude driving rounnd playing hip hop and rapping in hebrew.

I had this idea recently that we should turn Purim into a grotesque caricature of itself and make it a general American drinking holiday like St. Paddy's day. Hooligans roaming the streets with groggers, haman masks, eating hamentashen and drinking maneschevitz. Whaddya say?

Maybe the makers of He-brew would sponsor.

Am I the only one who thought this (POO- REM)thread revive was about Purim? Indeed, I was confused about the opening post.

I had this idea recently that we should turn Purim into a grotesque caricature of itself and make it a general American drinking holiday like St. Paddy's day. Hooligans roaming the streets with groggers, haman masks, eating hamentashen and drinking maneschevitz. Whaddya say?

This is brilliant -- the Irish have St. Patrick's Day, the Italians have Columbus Day, where's ours? Then again there are lots more Irish and Italians than Jews. The Germans are a much bigger ethnic group and we should probably let them try to ramp up Oktoberfest before it's our turn.

I think that's what Purim is like in Israel, actually.

And no, the less holidays there are like St Patrick's day the better.

http://www.newyorkshitty.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/moses.jpg

chosen ppl are in a hurry

I don't know if I'd go to a seder held by "a community of artists."

Heh the hasid community round my suburb always put up humourous things like that, usually posters for plays and things with loljew joke titles. I wish I could remember one now.

Hey Jews, time to start singing my Passover song:

Hey Jews I wrote a little passover ditty, sung to the chorus of "Eye of the Tiger":

It's the
Bread of affliction
It's the bread of the Jews
Risen bread--it's not kosher during Pe-sach
And my boss--says "be careful! It is con-sti-pa-ting"
I-don't-care-I-just-ate-sev-en sheeeeeeeeeets
Of the mat-zah

^^^all-time classic

gonna get major play in my family seder for sure

http://www.aish.com/h/pes/mm/Passover_Google_Exodus.html

Telling the Passover story with Google and other computer methods...

Ate two and a half sheets of matzah last night. Hard to stop once you get started.

my family doesn't start eating matzah until the holiday begins (there's a halachic restriction) but that suits me fine. the less pressure on my digestive system the better.

curmudgeon that was p corny but i laughed

'egypt.gov' and pharoah having an iphone = lol

I didn't know there was a halachic restriction! Do tell!!!

That's pretty much it. Some ppl don't eat shmura matzah in the month preceding Passover (prob to make sure it stays special) tho they'll still eat egg matzah

Well I figured I was one of the few people who would choose to eat matzah outside of passover, anyway. Shmura is the special kind where the wheat was guarded from harvest to oven, yes?

My sister, who is celebrating her birthday next week, will be in town. I'm so reluctant to cook a nasty passover-friendly cake, but struggling for an edible, credible alternative.

I had a wonderful flourless chocolate torte made with ground hazelnuts a while ago--it was delicious and the total opposite of the usual nasty passover sponge cake. I will see if I can track down the recipe!

my wife makes this matzah toffee desert, let me see if I can find the recipe. it is, how you say, "like crack"

http://noblepig.com/2009/04/03/whats-a-matzo-you.aspx

Oh, we're all about the matzoh toffee! Basically the one Passover item I must insist we make only at Passover, for positive reasons!

That stuff is sooooooooo good and impossible to stop eating until one is ILL.

Starts tonight

I'm not even pretending I'm going to keep kosher. Maybe I'll just avoid shrimp for a week.

I did not score a seder invite this year! Of course, I did not try very hard. I'm just back from Israel; I think that should fulfill my good fake jew requirement for the year.

had our (abbreviated, heavily toddler-centric) seder yesterday. quincie yr song went over well lol

toddlers love songs that involve constipation! Glad it was a hit.

Holocaust Rememberance Day started last night. In Israel the timing of that and the killing of Bin Laden certainly got attention.

I'm proud of my religion - I don't go to temple much but at my cousin's bat mitzvah I definitely took pride in the fact that we actually have women rabbis

hey jews: HAPPY SHVUOT.

http://media.1001.com/postcards/pix/0608/060800a.gif

woot

I forgot the meaning of this holiday and did not remember that it is celebrated by some with eating certain food using dairy

So the Torah was revealed on Mt Sinai and we celebrate 50 days after Passover by eating (if Wiki is to be believed):

Dairy foods such as cheesecake, cheese blintzes,[8] and cheese kreplach among Ashkenazi Jews;[9] cheese sambusak,[10] kelsonnes (cheese ravioli),[11] and atayef (a cheese-filled pancake)[12] among Syrian Jews; kahee (a dough that is buttered and sugared) among Iraqi Jews;[12] and a seven-layer cake called siete cielos (seven heavens) among Tunisian and Moroccan Jews[12][13] are traditionally served on Shavuot. Yemenite Jews do not eat dairy foods on Shavuot.[12]

In keeping with the observance of other Yom Tovs, there is both a night meal and a day meal on Shavuot. Meat is usually served at night and dairy is served either for the day meal[9] or for a morning kiddush.[14]

Among the explanations given in rabbinic literature for the consumption of dairy foods on this holiday are:[15][16]

Before they received the Torah, the Israelites were not obligated to follow its laws, which include shechita (ritual slaughter of animals) and kashrut. Since all their meat pots and dishes now had to be made kosher before use, they opted to eat dairy foods.
The Torah is compared to milk by King Solomon, who wrote: "Like honey and milk, it lies under your tongue" (Song of Songs 4:11).

cheesecake! i plan to eat a lot.

also, observant jews stay up all night learning. i will not be observing that particular custom.

lol mordy i didn't actually know it was shavuot when i asked u about it

this was in response to iphone translating a random string into 'cushitic shavuot' fwiw

lol

In honor of this Yom Tov, I'm a gonna go eat some cheesy pizza. May or may not include pepperoni/sausage to defile the Yom Tov.

hey jews, easy fast (if you're fasting)!

Fast of Tishah B'Av
Mourning the destruction of the Temple and the exile of Israel,

I've never fasted on this day. Is this more an orthodox thing or do some conservative and reconstructionist and reform Jews follow this as well?

Oh shit I never remember the "minor" fast days.

Mordy, you always give great jew commentary--hope you will post some Tishah B'Av info for the undereducated and jew-wannabes.

Hey jews I'm gonna take yet another class in the fall, this time with a chick Reconstructionist rabbi!

it's not just an orthodox thing and is the second biggest fast of the year -- tho of course it's still no Yom Kippur which is considered midoraisa (having the weight of a biblical law) and tisha b'av is midirabbanin (having the weight of a rabbinic dictum). it commemorates the destruction of the second temple (done by the Romans) and consequently the end of the Kingdom of Judea and beginning of the galut (exile).

interesting factoid: the myth narrative about how the destruction started is that there were these two dudes named kamtza and bar kamtza. this guy was throwing a party and loved kamtza but hated bar kamtza, so he told his servant to invite kamtza but wouldn't you know it, he invited bar kamtza. when the host saw bar kamtza he was like, "wtf? go," and bk was like, "no dude, don't embarrass me. i thought you invited me to make peace." host: "i don't care go" bk: "i'll pay for my meal." host: "no way." bk: "i'll pay for half the cost of the whole party!" host: "no way." bk: "i'll pay for the entire party!" host: "gtfo." so he leaves and is all butthurt about the whole thing and is like, "the rabbis watched the whole thing and didn't stop him from throwing me out so fuck them." so he went to Caesar and said, "the Israelites have rebelled against you. send them a sacrifice for the Temple and see what they do." so Caesar sent a ram and when no one was looking bar kamtza mutilated the ram's eye (which would make it unfit for sacrifice) and so the Jews refused to sacrifice it and the Caesar decided they were rebelling and needed to be put down and then the Romans invaded Israel which led to the events of tisha b'av.

other interesting factoid: jewish tradition has it that tons of bad stuff happened on tisha b'av, not just the destruction of the temple. such as: the spies coming back from israel in the bible and saying it'll be impossible to conquer, destruction of the first temple by the babylonians, bar kochba's revolution being put down, the first crusade being declared, expulsion of jews from england, expulsion of jews from iberian peninsula during inquisition, deportations from warsaw ghetto, the bombing of jewish community center in buenos aires

Thanks, Mordy! I had heard the bad party host story (midrash?) before, but outside the context of Tishah B'Av. The story is even better with "gtfo" included!

I have slacked off on my studies and am realizing that I feel better (in multiple areas) when I'm actively engaged faux/minimally observant of some stuff like Shabbat. Really need to do Yom Kippur services this year--I skipped last year and regretted it.

Trying to explain The Three Weeks and Tisha B'av to my coworkers always makes me a little cranky.

It comes up every year because there are a few customers who mention they can't buy anything for three weeks, and everyone at work thinks that's the weirdest thing ever.

jewish tradition has it that tons of bad stuff happened on tisha b'av

what's the modern, liberalized, historically skeptical take on it as 'the saddest day in jewish history'? it's kind of weird that there would be one day like that—especially the destructions of the first and second temples so far apart—but i wonder how easy it would be to find significant date-recurrences throughout history that are associated with various groups. (like, i dunno, recurring terrorist bombings? recurring catholic miracles?)