Judaism

Nigunim are a form of musical prayer that emerged with the Hasidic movement in the 18th century. The melodies are usually beautiful, even haunting, so with Rosh HaShanah just a couple days away I thought I'd share a lovely nigun (singular of niggunim) that recently appeared on the Forward's website. Titled "The Nigun Project: The Baal Shem Tov's Nigun," the recording is the result of a collaboration between Timbuktu singer Khaira Arby and Forward writer Jeremiah Lockwood's band, The Sway Machinery. This is what Lockwood had to say about the nigun, which you can hear by clicking here:

The nigun we recorded is based on a piece I learned while sitting around the table at my grandparents' house. It is a very old nigun -- one that my grandfather told me was supposed to have been composed by the Baal Shem Tov himself... I sang the piece for Arby... and explained what a nigun is... The concept of a devotional wordless meditative melody was familiar to the Malian musicians, and we were able to quickly delve into the work of composing a new song together. Arby was put in the mind of praying by the old Jewish melodies I was singing, and her verses call upon the sounds of the Islamic tradition of her birth. Her two back-up singers sang the words "*Ya salaam," meaning, "bring peace," as a chorus to bind the two realms of spiritual expression that Arby and I drew from.

The Baal Shem Tov's Nigun originally appeared on About.com Judaism on Sunday, September 5th, 2010 at 20:55:25.

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When a New York based reddit user decided to stain his tap water with H&E and look at it under a microscope, he found something unexpected: shrimp. Turns out the tiny crustaceans, called "copepods," are added to NYC tap water to "attack, kill, and eat the younger first and second instar larvae of mosquitoes," thereby making it safe to drink.

This revelation is, of course, kinda gross. But, as Time notes, for NYC's large Orthodox Jewish community there is also the problem of kashrut. "Copepods are technically crustaceans, which means they aren't kosher." The Jewish community has asked that the water be "purified," but according to the Department of Environmental Protection it is impossible to remove the critters. "All we can recommend is a commercial filter, which will effectively filter them out," said DEP spokesman Charles Sturcken.

Time to invest in a water filter!

Drink Up NYC: Meet The Tiny Crustaceans (Not Kosher) In Your Tap Water [Time]
Photos Show NYC Tap Water Isn't Kosher [Forward]
Look What I Found In My Tap Water [Reddit]

Thankfully, Brita Filters Crustaceans originally appeared on About.com Judaism on Saturday, September 4th, 2010 at 12:36:52.

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According to the New York Post, Chabad of the West 60's is hosting a special Rosh HaShanah service this year just for fashionistas. Fashion Week is coming to the Lincoln Center next week and the schul hopes to "provide a home" for those who want to celebrate a "clothing extravaganza" while also celebrating the New Year. Prayers will be offered for Jewish designers such as Zac Posen and Diane von Furstenberg.

High Fashion Meets the High Holidays originally appeared on About.com Judaism on Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 at 10:52:03.

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The High Holidays begin next week and with them comes the annual question: Where will we go for High Holiday services? Even Jews who rarely attend synagogue services are often interested in attending them for Rosh HaShanah or Yom Kippur - yet this is the one time of year when they encounter the most barriers. In many synagogues, a seat at High Holiday services requires paid membership or the purchase of expensive one-off tickets. Ushers stand at the doors to ensure that everyone who shows up has purchased their seat, and even then participants are often asked to make donations to the synagogue during services.

The above model is the norm in North America, which is what made a recent article in the Forward so intriguing. Titled "High Holy Days Are Free at Some Shuls, And Worshipers Flock," the article explores a new model that some synagogues are experimenting with - one in which High Holiday services are free and, in some cases, membership is never required.  Washington-based synagogue Sixth and I is one example. It has a no-dues and free-high-holidays policy that has resulted in congregational growth so profound that they had to book the Chinese Community Church across the street to handle the expected overflow for their High Holiday services this year.

Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, is quoted in the article as saying that this new model will never be the standard in America. Synagogues could only offer free services by cutting back on staffing and programming costs, or by relying on major donors as Sixth and I does. "Eventually, you get what you pay for and Jewish institutions in America can never be free," said Sarna.

Still, many synagogues have experimented with some form of free "teasers" - offering free tickets to young families, young professionals or newcomers in the hopes of enticing them to join the synagogue and pay yearly dues.

You can read the entire article on the Forward's website by clicking here. What do you think: Should High Holiday services be free?

Should High Holiday Services Be Free? originally appeared on About.com Judaism on Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 at 22:08:17.

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Traditionally honey is one of the quintessential Rosh HaShanah foods. That being the case, I thought it would be fun to post a few honey "factoids" that can be shared around the Rosh HaShanah table (or in the classroom, for the teachers among us!).

These bits of honey trivia are courtesy of the National Honey Board:

• How many flowers must honey bees tap to make one pound of honey? About two million flowers, give or take.
• How far does a hive of bees fly to bring you one pound of honey? More than 55,000 miles.
• How much honey does the average worker honey bee make in her lifetime? About 1/12 of a teaspoon.
• How fast does a honey bee fly? About 15 miles per hour.
• How much honey would it take to fuel a bee's flight around the world? About one ounce (or two Tablespoons); no carry-on luggage is allowed!

Click here to read the National Honey Board's complete list of honey factoids and also to learn more about bees and varieties of honey.

Photo credit: Getty Images / Lauren Burke

Fun Honey Factoids for Rosh HaShanah originally appeared on About.com Judaism on Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 at 20:53:28.

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DNA tests on the saliva of Hitler's living relatives recently revealed that he was "biologically linked to the 'sub-human' races he sought to exterminate."

The DNA samples were taken from 39 of Hitler's family members, among them an Austrian farmer identified only as Norbert H. Researchers discovered the presence of a chromosome called Haplopgroup E1b1b (Y-DNA) in the samples, which is a rare chromosome commonly found among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. It is also found in the DNA of Berbers in Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia.

As the Daily Mail notes, this is not the first time it has been suggested that Hitler had Jewish ancestry. His father, Alois, might have been the illegitimate child of a maid named Maria Schickelgruber and a Jewish man with the last name of Frankenberger. If true, Hitler would have been one quarter Jewish.

DNA tests reveal 'Hitler was descended from the Jews and Africans he hated' [Daily Mail]
Hitler Likely Had Jewish and African Roots [Forward]

DNA Reveals Hitler May Have Had Jewish and African Roots originally appeared on About.com Judaism on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 at 10:58:53.

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An Israeli documentary titled "A Film Unfinished" opens in the U.S. this week and promises to shed new light on an unfinished Nazi propaganda film titled "Das Ghetto." Meant to show the differences between how rich and poor Jews lived in the ghetto, for years the Nazi film was viewed as a record of ghetto life. However, as "A Film Unfinished" reveals, many scenes in "Das Ghetto" were choreographed by Nazi officers.

"A Film Unfinished" was directed by Yael Hersonski who, together with producer Noemi Schory, decided to piece together the true story behind "Das Ghetto" using outtake footage discovered in 1998. The footage showed officers directing passers-by to ignore corpses and telling well-dressed Jews to enter a butcher shop with children begging for food outside. There are other scenes as well, all with one purpose: to show how well-off Jews routinely ignored the suffering of their Jewish brothers and sisters. Remarkably, Hersonki decided to invite five survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto to view the footage and then taped their reactions for the documentary. "When did you ever see a flower? We would have eaten a flower!" remarked one survivor upon seeing images of flowers in the Nazi film.

"A Film Unfinished" premiered at the Sundance Film festival this year and has since been distributed to movie theaters in New York and Los Angeles. You can see a trailer for the documentary here.

A Film Unfinished [NYT]
Movie Review: A Film Unfinished [LA Times]
Israeli documentary on rare Holocaust footage airs in U.S. [Haaretz]

A Film Unfinished originally appeared on About.com Judaism on Friday, August 20th, 2010 at 12:35:32.

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Former Israeli soldier Eden Abergil recently made headlines when she posted photos on her Facebook profile showing her posing next to blindfolded Palestinian detainees. The pictures were part of an album titled "The Army... the most beautiful time of my life :)" and were quickly picked up by Israeli bloggers who posted the controversial images elsewhere. "Theses pictures really do speak for themselves," said Israeli blogger Dimi Reider, "Abergil is no better or worse than thousands of other Israeli soldiers, and I'd like to hope a few years from now she'll be appalled, rather than amused by the memories."

In an interview with an Israeli Army radio station on Tuesday Abergil said she "still [didn't] understand what's wrong" with the photos and that she had no idea they "would be problematic."

Reider remarked that Abergil's situation reminded him of a 2007 documentary titled "To See If I'm Smiling," which was produced by former Israeli soldier Tamar Yarom. The film is based on the stories of six women who struggle with memories of their time in the Israeli military and demonstrates how "memories of military service can shift with time." One of the women, Meytal Sandler, had posed next to the body of a Palestinian man. After describing the situation in which the film was taken she reflected: "I'm not sure when it was, but at some point, I became very ashamed of that picture." The entire documentary can be viewed for free online.

Israeli Bloggers Copy Controversial Images From Facebook [NYT]
Israeli Ex-Soldier Defends Her Facebook Snapshots [NYT]
To See If I'm Smiling [Documentary @ LinkTV]

Photo via the New York Times

Former Israeli Soldier Defends Facebook Photos originally appeared on About.com Judaism on Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 at 10:34:18.

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Three years ago a group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish women living in the town of Beit Shemesh began wearing burkas as a way to protect their modesty. Since then the trend has spread to five other towns in Israel, prompting religious leaders to take a closer look at the phenomenon of Jewish women wearing a garment that is usually associated with some Muslim traditions.

A burka is an outer garment that completely covers a woman's body (see photo) and is worn over the woman's regular clothing in public. Modesty rules in ultra-Orthodox Judaism require women to cover their heads with a scarf, hat or wig while in public, but in 2007 a Beit Shemesh group decided head covering was not enough. "At first, I just wore a wig," said a burka-wearing woman. "Now when I see a woman with a wig, I pray to God to forgive her for wearing that thing on her head."

Although rabbis largely ignored this trend for years, complaints from the husbands have prompted members of the ultra-Orthodox Eda Charedit rabbinic council to decide that burka wearing "a sexual fetish that is as promiscuous as wearing too little." A formal ruling will be released in the coming weeks.

Israeli rabbis clamp down on burka [Telegraph]
Ban Jewish burka, say Israeli rabbis [Jewish Chronicle]

Photo credit: Getty Images/ Zubin Shroff

Rabbis Ban the Jewish Burka originally appeared on About.com Judaism on Monday, August 16th, 2010 at 11:25:42.

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