HEY JEWS

Yom Kippur is such a beautiful holiday. I almost wish I'd have committed a transgression in the last year so I could make amends and ask someone forgiveness just to get in the spirit of things.

The local Rabbi I liked moved to Brooklyn and we were able to watch him doing a service from NY via zoom

last couple hours of the fast are always the hardest, but I'm gonna make it

Tried with the online services but it's kind of depressing. We also just moved and were never even members of our prior neighborhood synagogue so I don't really have a congregation I feel a connection to right now, but being in person among strangers is still way better than watching on a screen. Next year I really hope to do the whole day at synagogue.

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/xmas.html

Minor but funny gaffe:

When Abrams lost by just shy of 55,000 votes, she told Vogue: “I sat shiva for 10 days. Then I started plotting.”

https://external-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQApKBEDdV1spkdR&w=500&h=261&url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.vogue.com%2Fphotos%2F5d41b1a2b9a8370008fb2566%2F16%3A9%2Fw_1280%2Cc_limit%2Fvogue-september-battle-royale-01.jpg&cfs=1&sx=0&sy=17&sw=1280&sh=668&ext=jpg&_nc_cb=1&_nc_hash=AQCB3HpSjPGhw0-w

My wife asked me to get the materials from the mailboxes. "What are you talking about?" I asked. "Oh," she said, "I agreed to help the block make luminaries."

"Wait, luminaries?" I said. "Like, for Christmas!?"

"No," she said. "For the winter solstice."

And I said, get the fuck out of here. That's like people claiming there is no religious component to Christmas trees (true!) so they have nothing to do with Christmas (false!). Anyway, I tried to find any indication of people in America lighting luminaries for the solstice, or anything other than Christmas, and nada. As my daughter said, "even the word 'luminaries' sounds Christian," and my wife came close to shooting wine out her nose.

I don’t even know what that is but it sounds goyish for sure

Same

Is that like putting candles in paper bags?

Sounds like an American Catholic thing, primarily Hispanic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminaria

Candles in paper bags is pretty universal, just saying

It's convoluted. By the same token snickerdoodles might be considered Christian, because they get made for Christmas.

If candles in paper bags were pretty universal I would have seen them over the past few decades any time other than just Christmastime. Now flaming brown bags with poop left on the front porch? That's universal.

We eat snickerdoodles all the time, so dunno. But egg not? More controversial.

I had a gingerbread cookie my kids teacher made and it was good but I was thinking about how it tastes about equally foreign to me as Indian sweets.

lol egg not. "Egg nog? More like egg *not*!"

Tonight we googled to see if there were other kinds of nog, and the answer is apparently ... not.

flaming dogshit in paper bags is pretty universal

I recall seeing streets with luminaries growing up in SE Pennsylvania, just as I have throughout my couple of decades here, so it's definitely more than a southwest thing, or a Latino thing. The catch is that neighborhoods often agree to it together, so that the whole street is lined, which means if you say no then you're the stinker. And yeah, they are pretty (which makes rejecting them even more obnoxious), and yeah, there have been lots of different reasons to put candles in bags on the sidewalk/street to light the way, historically/traditionally (with the southwest being one place that has a few reasons). But the notion that they're there to celebrate the winter solstice and not to light the way to for baby Jesus ... come on. It's always Christians that think their traditions are totally secular and have nothing to do with Christmas. Per one site:

Luminarias are used in many communities across the United States and in other countries. Each community has their own emphasis on why they carry out the tradition. Not all are for Christmas either. Some are to light the way to church. Some light the way for the Christ child. Some light the way for Pa Pa Noel, or Santa Claus.

So yeah, it's not always about Christmas, sometimes it's just about church, or Jesus, or Santa. You know, lots of reasons.

Anyway, it's extra odd that the neighbors (who are all great, don't get me wrong) are apparently dong this tonight ... which is neither the winter solstice (Monday) nor Christmas (Thursday).

It's always Christians that think their traditions are totally secular and have nothing to do with Christmas.

I said it's convoluted because Christmas is massively loaded down with traditions which occupy the gray area between secular and sacred, mainly because it long ago got mashed up with solstice-related festivities and a general desire to party down when it's dark, cold, and you're stuck inside.

There are hardcore carols like 'O, Holy Night' or 'Come, All Ye Faithful' that hard sell Christian beliefs. But you could also consider Jingle Bells to be 'Christian', because it is strongly attached to the Christmas holiday by tradition, in spite of the fact that it doesn't mention God, Jesus, prayer, church or the Christmas holiday at all, though it does mention some woman named Fanny Bride. Christian, or not? I'd rate it as slightly less religious than the dreidel song.

Ironically, Jingle Bells is one of the few now Christmas songs *not* written for Christmas! In fact, some theorize it may have officially been one of the rare Thanksgiving songs ... before The Man got a hold of it and converted it to a Christmas song.

Regardless, I pretty much consider anything done exclusively around the Christmas holiday for the Christmas holiday to be innately Christian, relatively innocuous or not.

Yeah “secular Christmas” is still a manifestation of Christian hegemony.

But Christian hegemony happens all year around.

Yes, it does.

Hey Jews! I am making latkes tonight.

Happy 10th night of Chanukah.

It is a miracle, there is still oil for frying latkes on the 10th day

I happened to put a tree for Pagan Winter Solstice. Planning on cooking some matzoh ball soup too

My wife is Jewish and I’m a devout atheist with a fondness for Christmas stuff. We did the xmas thing together and when we had kids we started doing Hanukkah as wife started to get back into the faith. Now we’re stuck doing both holidays with my birthday, my wife’s and my dad’s birthdays all n December. It is TOO MUCH and I regret not getting off the Christmas train when I had the chance. UGH.

Just a note that it is not "Miss Fanny Bride" in Jingle Bells, but "Miss Fanny Bright." Which makes it a little more naughty seeming.

The luminaries looked lovely last night, btw. I didn't realize it wasn't just our block but I guess 150+ blocks around here that banded together to do it. It was nice strolling around, looking at the solstice lights, listening to the solstice carols, checking out all the solstice decorations, lit-up solstice trees in the windows ...

My solstice latkes were delicious

We cleaned the wax off and put away our solstice menorahs last night.

it is not "Miss Fanny Bride" in Jingle Bells, but "Miss Fanny Bright."

this version rhymes "bright" with "side", which is just a shitty rhyme. which prompts the question, what was wrong with those people?

Drunk.

Today I learned, just now, from wikipedia:

Music historian James Fuld notes that "the word jingle in the title and opening phrase is apparently an imperative verb." In the winter in New England in pre-automobile days, it was common to adorn horses' harnesses with straps bearing bells as a way to avoid collisions at blind intersections, since a horse-drawn sleigh in snow makes almost no noise.

So it was more like, Jingle, bells, jingle! Jingle all the way!!"

Got take out dim sum last night (where the restaurant wished me a merry Christmas), the kids built these gingerbread house kits we bought from a local bakery (they've never built them before; one got so frustrated at her broken house that she literally resorted to a hot glue gun, the other's was so top heavy it collapsed on itself), prepared breakfast for 30 for a homeless shelter, watched Wonder Woman stink it up, listened to a half-assed lecture about Jews on Christmas (which offered so many reasons for the Chinese restaurant tradition but somehow missed *because they're open*), picked through cookies and other stuff gifted from all the neighbors. A fine not-Christmas was had by all.

The night before we went to a friend's backyard for a modified Feast of the Seven Fishes thing. It was 17 degrees The oysters and shrimp cocktails literally froze, but I got to put to good use one of my hanukah presents, a heated vest with a light that pulses and glows like a tiny little Iron Man generator.

I didn't realize that the member of the New York Dolls band who just died from cancer, Syl Sylvain (not his full birth name) was an Egyptian Jew who ended up in the US with his family. I think they left Egypt when it started to be a little uncomfortable there for Jews shortly after the formation of the country of Israel in 1948

Hey Jews who observe the not-quite-minor-but-still-not-totally-mainstream-holidays. Happy Purim!

Topical elements of our synagogue's Purim Shpiel last night (all on Zoom):

- Vashti refused to show up in-person and maskless for the king's party, choosing instead to participate remotely via Zoom, prompting him to find a new queen
- Vashti + Fauci = Faucti, played by congregant & chief infectious disease specialist at local hospital
- Q Haman

Forced and awkward puns and lots of corniness, as is the tradition, but got a few chuckles out of me

Our temple did a cool cross cultural exchange:

"Beyond the Hamantaschen - The Scroll of Esther begins with an account of Ahasuerus’s kingdom and tells us his kingdom stretched mei Hodu ad Kush, from India to Ethiopia. So… for Purim this year we are offering take-out food delivered to the parking lot from Mantra by Indian Garden and Addis Café."

wow, nice! 2 of my favorite cuisines. and this is definitely one of the holidays that could use some gastronomic updating. will push for similar here next year (though i live in a total, um, food desert for Ethiopian)

AITA: My husband (35m) made a huge party with his friends and got super drunk and asked me (32f) to come by wearing just a crown and I said I don’t want to go. His evil advisor (49m) is suggesting he kill me but like idk his party seemed stupid. AITA?

— Dr. Hannah Lebovits (@HannahLebovits) February 21, 2021

Q Haman is great

My housemates and I finally got around to making hamantaschen yesterday. We really upped our game this year; one housemate made the poppyseed filling herself instead of buying it in a can, we had some savory ones with caramelized onions, and I wanted a really sour filling for some of them so I cooked down sour cherries with sugar and thickened them with flour, so that basically they were little sour cherry hand pies.

nice! sour cherry sound fantastic. in my house we're making them with an 8-year-old and a 6-year-old so it's strawberry and apricot jelly right out of the jar at the moment lol. I look forward to branching into more refined tastes in coming years!

They were really good, I was very happy with them. We did some apricot jelly out of the jar as well, for tradition's sake. And some fig jam and goat cheese, which I haven't tried yet but have high hopes for.

all those hamentaschen sound incredible lily

My sister (in England) really wanted to make them with prune and poppy seed fillings, but says she has never seen either for sale there. I guess it never occurred to her to ... make it.

L'shana Tovah! Zoomed a service today; and then had dinner with Mom , my son and his gf. Was a little different without my Dad who passed away last November. My wife and I did the cooking.

Services were nice today, a nice return. I did have a chilling thought, though, when I looked around the maybe half-full sanctuary (many were at home, streaming, no doubt wary of return) and thought, imagine if all those missing people had been taken by the pandemic? I feel very fortunate that so many were absent by choice.

Virtual services for us. Kids service in the morning with our 6 & 11 year daughters. Grown folks service was a little later and we made the older kid sit through it. At times she was twitchy and desperately looking for a distraction but occasionally I could see the words were hitting her hard. She was teary-eyed when the rabbi spoke of the hardships of the past year. It meant a lot that something said during a service registered with her.