Video: Andy Statman Trio with Ricky Skaggs at a Nashville Bluegrass Stomp

Great music. Tablet Mag has a new podcast on the Statman - Skaggs recordings. (Hat tip to Blog in Dm). Andy is an Orthodox Jew. Ricky Skaggs is a Christian who has won two Grammy awards for "Best Southern, Country, or Bluegrass Gospel Album." "God's Favorite Prayers"- another kind of St...

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Times' Ethicist Tackles Is SABBATH SHMOOZING Jewish? and Is it Kosher to Hand Out $50 Bills During Kaddish?

Signs of a slow ethical quandary day. The ethicist at the Times, Ariel Kaminer, has to be scraping the bottom of the moral barrel with a question like the one he covered this past Sunday from one "NAME WITHHELD" writer. Read it in all its gory details and you will see why anonymity is so essential.SABBATH SHMOOZINGMy synagogue is interviewing four rabbis. One, who lives nearby, comes every Saturday to pray and glad-hand. The other three can’t, because...

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Heebow Video Parody of NFL's Tim Tebow

Here is a silly parody of the Tim Tebow football phenomenon -- Heebow. Worth a few good laughs....

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Huff Post: Best Paid Pastors

Jaweed Kaleem writes in the Huffington Post about the top earning pastors in the US. He explains,From church closings and foreclosures of houses of worship across the nation to the limited number of clergy jobs for new rabbis, imams and pastors, the recession has hit religious Americans just as it has affected the tens of millions of the country's jobless.Even before the recession, most spiritual leaders of small towns and big cities across the United...

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Mitt Romney's Phoney Florida Jewish Support

According to Sam Stein in the Huffington Post, "Mitt Romney's Reported Rise In Support From Florida's Jewish Voters Appears Fabricated".He explained, "A report purporting to show potentially historic levels of support from Jewish voters for Mitt Romney in a general election matchup with Barack Obama appears to be either profoundly flawed or simply fabricated."...

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Dov Linzer Blows It in NY Times Op-Ed

Op-Ed Contributor Dov Linzer wrote, "Lechery, Immodesty and the Talmud" in an Op-Ed in the Times, asking to start with, "Is it possible for a religious demand for modesty to be about anything other than men controlling women’s bodies?"While we agree with the egalitarian ideal underlying this essay, that men and women ought to have equal standing in all aspects of life, we are uneasy with Linzer's critique of Orthodox Jewish attitudes towards gender...

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Haaretz : Cedar's 'Footnote' nominated for Oscar

We saw it  at the NYFF and we predict this film will win the Oscar in its category.Joseph Cedar's 'Footnote' nominated for OscarFilm to compete against entries from Iran, Poland, Belgium and Canada in the 84th Academy Awards ceremony, to be held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on February 26. Joseph Cedar's film, "Footnote," was nominated yesterday for the Academy Award's best foreign language film for 2011. Four Israeli films, including Cedar's "Beaufort" in 2007, have made the short list for the prestigious prize in the last five years.The...

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Our Work is Published in the World's Most Expensive Jewish Books: $970 or $1,004

These may be the World's Most Expensive Jewish Books. And they have our work inside.The Law of Agriculture in the Mishnah and the Tosefta Translation, Commentary, Theology ($970 if ordered from Brill) ($1,004 from Amazon)Our contributions are Berakhot (pages 398-574) and Hallah (pages 2601-2627).The book set is not titled accurately. Tractate Berakhot, the first in the book, is about prayer, liturgy (the Shema and Amidah) and...

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Daily News: Teaneck's Rodda Center WiFi Name is “F--- All Jews and N----”

It should be easy to find out who set up the racist name on the WiFi router at the Teaneck rec center. Not many people can have access to it and the knowhow. Sounds like a kid's prank to us. WiFi signal with racist, anti-Semitic slur in Teaneck, NJ sparks police probe; signal came from rec center router Mom of two shocked, dismayed as iphone flashes hateful WiFi signal as daughter dancedBy Michael J. Feeney / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS A bigot named their...

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Talmud Scholarship Links

Online Scholarly Tools for the Study of TalmudWe spent many days poring over manuscripts, limited edition photo-reproductions and microfilms in libraries to check manuscript variants back in 1976 when we were completing our PhD at Brown. Things are different today. Here are a few useful links:Mishnah and ShasTalmud with Rashi and TosefotA Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. Compiled By Marcus Jastrow, Ph. D. Litt. D. (in PDF format): Volume one, Volume two and here.Rambi: The Index of Articles...

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Can You Read a Book on the Sabbath?

Centuries ago, when the codex first came out and began to replace scrolls, it took the rabbis years before they permitted Jews to use a codex on the Sabbath. The Torah is still read in 2012 in the synagogue from a scroll.So too with the Kindle.And this reminds us of a funny Norwegian video, a call to the medieval monastic codex help desk. With the famous Talmudic objection, "Are you sure I won't lose any text?" from the show "Øystein og jeg" on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) 2001.Orig. post 2/...

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Daily Beast: Is there a moderate islam?

We don't know what the question means when people ask, "Is there a moderate Islam?" There is no denying that Islam lends itself to radicalism and part of that agenda is deeply embedded in the Koran.Sure, we wish to encourage moderate politics in Islam, especially when radical Islam is aimed at the US. But wishful thinking must not replace scholarship and analysis. Chris Dickey writes that prominent Dutch politician, "Geert Wilders Says There's No...

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Review of "God's Favorite Prayers" in the British Interfaith Magazine "Common Ground"

Our book, "God's Favorite Prayers" was reviewed in the new issue of "Common Ground" -- the flagship British inter-faith magazine of the Council of Christians and Jews. The magazine is produced twice a year and features articles by a number of prominent figures in the Jewish and Christian communities. It is downloadable here.The Council of Christians and Jews was founded by the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple and Chief Rabbi, Joseph Hertz...

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Forward.com: The Oy of Orthodox Sex

Our current working premise is that Orthodox (mainly Haredi) attitudes and regulations towards women are essential to their Judaism, not accidental. That means that you cannot tell the Haredim to remove or change these components of their religion and more than you could tell them to stop venerating the Torah or observing Yom Kippur.Elana Sztokman wrote, On Teaching Talmud and Sex Toys, a review interview with Jennie Rosenfeld, co-author of the sex...

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Is the Volkswagen Jewish?

In the Book Review section at WSJ, the article, "The Extraordinary Life of Josef Ganz" in Thinking Small explains that yes certain aspects Volkswagen has Jewish connections through the Jewish engineer Ganz, and no in other views, it does not.So, is Volkswagen Jewish, turns out to be quite a complicated questi...

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Gerson's Church of Copimism hits the New Yorker

We still do not get the joke that Isak Gerson in Uppsala is playing on us. He has achieved church status for his software piracy group. Yes, if Sweden thinks that all religion is a joke, then this is a natural progression.Whatever. New Yorker sent someone to do a story on Copimism and they delved, as they do, into the details. We gag on this. Some people can live in total disrespect of property and of faith. Not us. In the middle of the New Yorker...

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Are Goldman Sach's Islamic Bonds Kosher?

Reuter's reports that some Islamic oriented bonds issued by Goldman Sachs may be overstating their "rabbinic" certifications ("Goldman Sachs in new flap over Islamic bond suspected to be not 100% halal"). Whoops.Goldman Sachs’ controversial $2 billion Islamic bond programme faced a fresh challenge on Wednesday as it emerged that at least two scholars named as potential approvers had not even seen the prospectus.Asim Khan, an adviser to Goldman on...

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Why Women Can't Even Say Thank You – it's the Beruryah Code

William Kolbrener lives in an Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Israel. Writing in the Forward he expresses his frustration that his neighbors are not polite to him. In his essay, "When Women Can't Even Say Thank You," he is surprised, and he is sad, and finally he decries that the, "Stifling Modesty Code Prevents Everyday Acts of Civility."As his article explains further, "No Contact Allowed: Ultra-Orthodox Israeli women are taught to avoid all contact...

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Talmudic Tempest: Did Triumphant Tebow Transgress a Taboo?

The Denver Post reports on a "Talmudic" controversy over a play that won a football game for Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos. Was the team lined up for the play in an illegal formation? And if so, should that not have invalidated the touchdown?Was Tim Tebow's game-winning touchdown pass for Denver Broncos an illegal play?Were Tim Tebow's final-play heroics for the Broncos against the Steelers divine intervention or inaction by the officials during...

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Anti-Women Israeli Air Force Rabbi Forced to Resign

The ideas of chain of command and military discipline were not taught at his rabbinical school: "A top Israeli military rabbi resigned on Tuesday after making comments that appeared to condone allowing ultra-Orthodox troops to avoid contact with women..."Reuter's FaithWorld reported that, Lieutenant-Colonel Moshe Ravad, chief air force chaplain, who was in charge of enlisting ultra-Orthodox Jews, said last week he feared for the volunteers’ “piety”....

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Link to the Reformatted Soncino Talmud in English Online at Halakhah.com

The Reformatted Soncino Babylonian Talmud English translation is online.Download this newly reformatted edition of the Talmud in English free at http://www.halakhah.com/indexrst.htmlThis new edition was reformatted by Reuven Brauner of Raanana Israel in 5771. It is in PDF file format in two-column pages.The standard description of the publication is: TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH NOTES, GLOSSARY AND INDICES UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF RABBI DR. I. EPSTEIN...

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The Mystical Maggid of Rabbi Joseph Caro of Safed Israel

Rabbi Joseph Caro (1488-1575) was one of the most influential rabbis in Jewish history. He was the compiler of the Shulkhan Arukh, the best known code of Jewish law, and other distinguished books of rabbinic interpretation.Caro was also a kabbalist, a mystic who received intruction from his own personal muse, or maggid, as it was called in the rabbinic tradition. We currently are studying his mystical diary and commentary, published in part as the...

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Isak Gerson's Church of Kopimism Recognized in Sweden as a Religion

We don't get the joke. Copyright violation is a crime.Press release from the Church of KopimismThe Church of Kopimism is recognized by the state of SwedenJust before Christmas, the Swedish governmental agency Kammarkollegiet registered the Church of Kopimism as a religious organisation. This means that Sweden is the first country to recognize kopimism as a religion.The Church of Kopimism have tried to become registered as a religious organisation...

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We Endorse Rabbi Shmuley Boteach for Chief Rabbi of the British Empire

Rob Eshman of the Jewish Journal in LA informs us that, "This week, the news broke that Shmuley, my beer buddy, is being considered for the position of Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, currently held by Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, aka Jonathan Sacks, who has held the post since 1991." We did not see any breaking news to that effect. Be that as it may, we got to thinking about the future of British Jewry and came to...

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Is the smiling Taoist vinegar taster Jewish?

No, the Taoist vinegar taster is not Jewish, and not Talmudic.A friend of mine a while ago sent me a quote from Lao Tzu, which reminded me of a wonderful book that I read several years ago called, "The Tao of Pooh."My interpretation most days is that the smiling taster is glad that the vinegar tastes the way that it should. But you ought to read the parable and decide for yourself. Here is the excerpt from Benjamin Hoff's wonderful book:Vinegar Tasters"You...

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Is the Orthodox Spell Broken? Is Haredi Gender Segregation Harrassment and Self-defeating?

Is the Orthodox spell broken? Is in fact Haredi gender segregation in Israel both illegal sexual harassment and also totally self-defeating?Such is the claim of Zvi H. Triger of Israel's College of Management Academic Studies (COMAS) School of Law. He has published a closely argued and well documented 49 page paper with 244 footnotes that you can download and read at SSRN. He examines numerous sides of the question: the historical, the ideological,...

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Times' Rave Review of the Met's Enchanted Island with the Met Videos

The Times raves some more about the Met's "Enchanted Island" which we enjoyed immensely on New Year's Eve.The only remotely Talmudic connection we can find in this thoroughly pagan fantasy is the re-purposing of a Handel anthem from Zadok to Neptune, as the review explains:What would a Baroque pastiche be without a star turn? This one had the tenor Plácido Domingo, no less, as Neptune: by his count, his 136th role (and first full-fledged god). Neptune,...

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