I was looking forward to meeting many of the inspirational educators and thought leaders at the #140edu conference in New York City this week, but the one speaker I was really excited to meet was Lil Jaxe. A few months ago, I watched a video of this 13-year-old boy at a previous #140conf and was…
When I was twelve-years-old I took part in a Joe Cornell dance class with just about every other Jewish teen my age in Metro Detroit to prepare for the bar and bat mitzvah circuit. When my mother was twelve she also learned to dance from Joe Cornell. It’s something of a Detroit tradition. While Joe…
This Shabbat, we read the final Torah portion from the book of Numbers, Parashat Masei. This section of the Torah begins with an extensive list of the places our ancestors traveled through on their way to the Promised Land. It details their stops and encampments as they walked through the desert wilderness eager to arrive…
Cross-posted to the Jewish Techs blog at The New York Jewish Week Why shlepp your kid to the synagogue for her bat mitzvah lessons when she can dial in virtually? A recent article in the New York Times shows how the tech savvy bar mitzvah tutors have taken to the Web to make the process…
Here’s my latest post for the Community Next blog “Rabbi J in the D”: We all know that Jews can rock. After all, you only need to listen to Bob Dylan or Gene Simmons of Kiss to know that. But there are also some Jewish singers who are rocking Jewish music… and I don’t mean…
Last night, I saw the movie “It’s Kind of a Funny Story.” The movie, based on the 2006 novel by Ned Vizzini, deals with teenage depression and suicide in a very real and honest way. I might have reacted differently to this movie had I seen it before the recent wave of teen suicides in…
Cross-posted at Jewish Techs Email is like a cat. I don’t know if it has nine lives, but people still use this form of communication even though it’s been pronounced dead many times in recent years. The general consensus among experts in online communication is that social media is killing the medium of email. Just as companies…
I’ve long had a love-hate relationship with the Detroit Jewish News‘ “Cap & Gown Yearbook.” Started in the late 1980’s, the JN includes an entire section in one of its late-May issues devoted to the “best and brightest” high school graduates in the area. Before I comment on this year’s change in the submission rules,…
Cross-posted at Jewish Techs When it comes to Jewish prayer, there are two schools of thought: keva and kavannah. Keva means “rote” and refers to the fixed prayers that are set forth in the siddur (Jewish prayer book), while kavvanah is the free and spontaneous inner devotion of the individual. Many Jewish youth groups and…
On an early morning this past June, I stood in a synagogue parking lot taking temperatures of the Jewish children before they boarded the buses to take them off to summer camp. Along with every other staff member in the parking lot, I was wearing a brown shirt — the official staff shirt of the…