Category Archives: uncategorized

Robert Alter Reads Paul Mendes-Flohr Reading Martin Buber & Drops the Ball on God (A Meta-Meta-Meta Commentary)

Posted on May 5, 2019 by zjb

Sorry to read Robert Alter’s review of the long awaited biography by Paul Mendes-Flohr, Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent and the lazy reading of its subject.  You can read it here and this is a key line: … Continue reading →

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(A Photograph) Muselmann (Henryk Ross)

Posted on May 3, 2019 by zjb

I was not aware that such a thing exists, but this seems to be a photograph of a “Muselmann.” The designation refers to those suffering hollowed out people, physically alive while pushed to the brink of psychic-spiritual death. Perhaps the … Continue reading →

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Rav Naftali Tzvi Weiss (Auschwitz Album)

Posted on May 2, 2019 by zjb

In America there’s no such thing as Holocaust Rememberance Day, but Twitter constitutes a country of its own. That is where I found this photograph of Rav Naftali Tzvi Weiss, Rosh Yeshiva in Bilke, and his students waiting for selection … Continue reading →

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A Painful Question re: Rabbis & Racism & Judaism & Israel

Posted on May 1, 2019 by zjb

You can read here about the remarks by Rabbi Eliezer Kashtiel, the head of the Bnei David academy in Eli, and Rabbi Giora Redler, also at Bnei David, about enslaving Arabs and in support of racism and Hitler. I’ll start … Continue reading →

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(Bund) Hagodeh Shel Peysekh With A Socialist Nusekh (1900/19)

Posted on April 24, 2019 by zjb

‘There’s a lot of nostalgia going on at the anti-Zionist Jewish left for the heyday of Jewish socialism in East Europe. I wish I could read Yiddish or would love to see a complete translation of this Hogedeh with a … Continue reading →

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Israeli Black Panther Haggadah (1971)

Posted on April 23, 2019 by zjb

You can find here a partial translation of the 1971 Israeli Black Panther Haggadah. There are 7 pages of the Hebrew original co-authored by Reuven Abergel and an English translation. Contents include the compilers’ introduction as well as political satirical … Continue reading →

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(Brooklyn) Lamb (Paschal)

Posted on April 18, 2019 by zjb

(photo credit; Marta Braiterman Tanenbaum) Marta also posts: “Inside The Market Place, a huge, bustling new supermarket on East New York A,enue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Lubo<itch Hassidic, near “770 Eastern Parkway.” It’s really Schneerson-influenced here. Satmar, Bobo< and other … Continue reading →

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A Woman’s Voice & Nocturnal Judaism (Victoria Hannah)

Posted on April 16, 2019 by zjb

Victoria Hanna performed a piece at the Text Unbound: (Re-)Imagining the Talmud workshop at Bard College organized by Shai Secunda. Some of the performance was taken from Ani Yeshena (I Sleep), drawn from Song of Songs, which you can find … Continue reading →

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Text Unbound (Re-)Imagining the Talmud (Bard College)

Posted on April 14, 2019 by zjb
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(Boom T’rach) Tale of 5 Balloons (An Israeli Political Parable)

Posted on April 13, 2019 by zjb

There is no happy end to this. Just when you thought that maybe their luck will turn, you know it won’t. In the classical Israeli children’s story from 1974, The Tale of 5 Balloons, the children are so sad that … Continue reading →

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